the election. Reform agenda His agenda was largely reform-oriented and included enhancing worker's compensation and unemployment benefits, building new schools, raising teacher's salaries, building a new state prison, constructing new hospitals, and improving traffic safety. Following his inauguration in January 1953, he submitted twenty-six proposals to the Indiana General Assembly that encompassed all of his agenda. His most controversial with the legislation was a proposal to reorganize the states 141 agencies into eleven departments centralized under the governor's control. The Republican legislature dismissed the request out of hand and accused him of trying to restart the battle over executive power that had been ongoing in the past three decades but had largely been avoided by the previous two governors. Most of Craig's agenda was never implemented as the legislature accused him of not working with them, but in large part, it was his differences with party leaders that caused the problems. A Democratic senator observed that it was as if there were three parties in the assembly—the pro-Craig, the anti-Craig, and the Democratic parties. Craig was successful in having the Department of Corrections created, which he used to implement most of his penal reform. The Uniform Traffic Code was also established, which standardized road signs, speed limits, and traffic rules across the state. Funding was also granted to improve safety by installing signage and signal lights around the state. The police academy was expanded and the first narcotics group. The state police force was expanded to add fifty new officers, making it the largest in the nation at the time. The state's Mental Health Division was also established to reform the state's mental hospitals. Craig wrangled with the legislature over the creation of major highways around Indiana. The assembly didn't want to pay for the roads, so Craig recommended a toll road be created. The assembly leadership balked at the idea, as toll roads had been abolished decades earlier. The assembly finally authorized the Indiana Toll Road in northern Indiana but refused to build anymore, primarily because they didn't want to allow the governor control over a large number of patronage positions which he could potentially use to gain more power in the party. His other construction recommendations, a state office building, new prisons, and the expansion of Purdue University were ignored by the assembly. They also refused what he believed his most economically valuable proposal, creating a shipping harbor