A life-long champion of good roads, Chapin was the auto industry's most tireless campaigner for adequate highways in the years when both the automobile and the paved road were new on the American scene. Almost single-handedly, the founder and president of Hudson Motor Car Co. persuaded most automakers, motor clubs and others to back the landmark Federal-aid Road Act of 1916 and support taxes on auto products to finance road construction. He was a leader of the Michigan State Good Roads Association and the Lincoln highway Association and, as U.S. Secretary of Commerce (1932-1933), missed no opportunity to focus the nation's attention on the need for good highways.