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in one generation, would accomplish a social revolution throughout the United States that would greatly tend to better our condition and brighten the prospect of future strength. President Winston of the North Carolina State College of Agriculture said: "It might be demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that bad roads are unfavorable to matrimony and increase of population." Seven of the most stalwart lads and beautiful lasses of Greece were sent each year to Crete to be sacrificed to the Minotaur; bad roads in America send thousands of boys and girls into our cities to the Minotaurs of evil because conditions in the country do not make for the social happiness for which they naturally yearn.

Thus we may hint at the greater, more serious, phase of the road problem. Beside it, the financial feature of the problem can have no place; the farm has been too much to the American nation, its product of boys and girls has been too eternally precious to the cause of liberty for which our nation stands, to permit a system of highways on this continent which will make it a place where now in the twentieth century foreigners, only, can be happy. The sociological side of the road question is of more moment today in this country, so far as the health of our body politic in the future is concerned, than nine-tenths of the questions most prominent in the two political platforms that come annually before the people.

William Jennings Bryan, when addressing the Good Roads Convention at St. Louis in 1903, said:

"It is a well-known fact, or a fact easily ascertained, that the people in the country, while paying their full share of county, state, and federal taxes, receive as a rule only the general benefits of government, while the people in the cities have, in addition to the protection afforded by the Government, the advantage arising from the expenditure of public moneys in their midst. The county seat of a county, as a rule, enjoys the refreshing influence of an expenditure of county money out of proportion to its population. The capital of a state and the city where the state institutions are located, likewise receive the benefit of an expenditure of public money out of proportion to their population. When we come to consider the distribution of the moneys collected by the Federal Government, we find that the cities, even in a larger measure, monopolize the incidental benefits that arise from the expenditure of public moneys.

"The appropriations of the last session of Congress amounted to 3,484,018, divided as follows:

Agriculture $ 5,978,160 Army 78,138,752 Diplomatic and consular service 1,968,250 District of Columbia 8,647,497 Fortifications 7,188,416 Indians 8,512,950 Legislative, executive, and judicial departments 27,595,958 Military Academy 563,248 Navy 81,877,291 Pensions $ 139,847,600 Post Office Department 153,401,409 Sundry Civil 82,722,955 Deficiencies 21,561,572 Permanent annual 132,589,820 Miscellaneous 3,250,000

"It will be seen that the appropriation for the Department of Agriculture was insignificant when compared with the total appropriations--less than one per cent. The appropriations for the Army and Navy alone amounted to twenty-five times the sum appropriated for the Department of Agriculture. An analysis of the expenditures of the Federal Government will show that an exceedingly small proportion of the money raised from all the people gets back to the farmers directly; how much returns indirectly it is impossible to say, but certain it is that the people who live in the cities receive by far the major part of the special benefits that come from the showering of public money upon the community. The advantage obtained locally from government expenditures is so great that the contests for county seats and state capitals usually exceed in interest, if not in bitterness, the contests over political principles and policies. So great is the desire to secure an appropriation of money for local purposes that many will excuse a Congressman's vote on either side of any question if he can but secure the expenditure of a large amount of public money in his district.

"I emphasize this because it is a fact to which no reference has been made. The point is that the farmer not only pays his share of the taxes, but more than his share, yet very little of what he pays gets back to him.

"People in the city pay not only less than their share, as a rule, but get back practically all of the benefits that come from the expenditure of the people's money. Let me show you what I mean when I say that the farmer pays more than his share. The farmer has visible property, and under any form of direct taxation visible property pays more than its share. Why? Because the man with visible property always pays. If he has an acre of land the assessor can find it. He can count the horses and cattle.... The farmer has nothing that escapes taxation; and, in all direct taxation, he not only pays on all he has, but the farmer who has visible property has to pay a large part of the taxes that ought to be paid by the owners of invisible property, who escape taxation. I repeat, therefore, that the farmer not only pays more than his share of all direct taxation, but that when you come to expend public moneys you do not spend them on the farms, as a rule. You spend them in the cities, and give the incidental benefits to the people who live in the cities.

"When indirect taxation is considered, the farmer's share is even more, because when you come to collect taxes through indirection and on consumption, you make people pay not in proportion to what they have but in proportion to what they need, and God has so made us that the farmer needs as much as anybody else, even though he may not have as much with which to supply his needs as other people. In our indirect taxation, therefore, for the support of the Federal Government, the farmers pay even more out of proportion to their wealth and numbers. We should remember also that when we collect taxes through consumption we make the farmer pay not only on that which is imported, but upon much of that which is produced at home. Thus the farmer's burden is not measured by what the treasury receives, but is frequently many times what the treasury receives. Thus under indirect taxation the burden upon the farmer is greater than it ought to be; yet when you trace the expenditure of public moneys distributed by the Federal Government you find that even in a larger measure special benefits go to the great cities and not to the rural communities.

"The improvement of the country roads can be justified also on the ground that the farmer, the first and most important of the producers of wealth, ought to be in position to hold his crop and market it at the most favorable opportunity, whereas at present he is virtually under compulsion to sell it as soon as it is matured, because the roads may become impassable at any time during the fall, winter, or spring. Instead of being his own warehouseman, the farmer is compelled to employ middlemen, and share with them the profits upon his labor. I believe, as a matter of justice to the farmer, he ought to have roads that will enable him to keep his crop and take it to the market at the best time, and not place him in a position where they can run down the price of what he has to sell during the months he must sell, and then, when he has disposed of it, run the price up and give the speculator what the farmer ought to have. The farmer has a right to insist upon roads that will enable him to go to town, to church, to the schoolhouse, and to the homes of his neighbors, as occasion may require; and, with the extension of rural mail delivery, he has additional need for good roads in order that he may be kept in communication with the outside world, for the mail routes follow the good roads.

"A great deal has been said, and properly so, in regard to the influence of good roads upon education. In the convention held at Raleigh, North Carolina, the account of which I had the pleasure of reading, great emphasis was placed upon the fact that you can not have a school system such as you ought to have unless the roads are in condition for the children to go to school. While we are building great libraries in the great cities we do not have libraries in the country; and there ought to be a library in every community. Instead of laying upon the farmer the burden of buying his own books, we ought to make it possible for the farmers to have the same opportunity as the people in the city to use books in common, and thus economize on the expense of a library. I agree with Professor Jesse in regard to the consolidation of schoolhouses in such a way as to give the child in the country the same advantages which the child in the city has. We have our country schools, but it is impossible in any community to have a well-graded school with only a few pupils, unless you go to great expense. In cities, when a child gets through the graded school he can remain at home, and, without expense to himself or his parents, go on through the high school. But if the country boy or girl desires to go from the graded school to the high school, as a rule it is necessary to go to the county seat and there board with some one; so the expense to the country child is much greater than to the child in the city. I was glad, therefore, to hear Professor Jesse speak of such a consolidation of schools as will give to the children in the country advantages equal to those enjoyed by the children of the city.

"And as you study this subject, you find it reaches out in every direction; it touches us at every vital point. What can be of more interest to us than the schooling of our children? What can be of more interest to every parent than bringing the opportunity of educational instruction within the reach of every child? It does not matter whether a man has children himself or not.... Every citizen of a community is interested in the intellectual life of that community. Sometimes I have heard people complain that they were overburdened with taxes for the education of other people's children. My friends, the man who has no children can not afford to live in a community where there are children growing up in ignorance; the man with none has the same duty as the man with many, barring the personal pride of the parent. I say, therefore, that anything that contributes to the general diffusion of knowledge, anything that makes more educated boys and girls throughout our country, is a matter of intense interest to every citizen, whether he be the father of a family or not; whether he lives in the country or in the town.

"And ought not the people have the opportunity to attend church? I am coming to believe that what we need in this country, even more than education of the intellect, is the education of the moral side of our nature. I believe, with Jefferson, that the church and the state should be separate. I believe in religious freedom, and I would not have any man's conscience fettered by act of law; but I do believe that the welfare of this nation demands that man's moral nature shall be educated in keeping with his brain and with his body. In fact, I have come to define civilization as the harmonious development of the body, the mind, and the heart. We make a mistake if we believe that this nation can fulfil its high destiny and mission either with mere athletes or mere scholars. We need the education of the moral sense; and if these good roads will enable men, women, and children to go more frequently to church, and there hear expounded the gospel and receive inspiration therefrom, that alone is reason enough for good roads.

"There is a broader view of this question, however, that deserves consideration. The farm is, and always has been, conspicuous because of the physical development it produces, the intellectual strength it furnishes, and the morality it encourages. The young people in the country find health and vigor in the open air and in the exercise which farm life gives; they acquire habits of industry and economy; their work gives them opportunity for thought and reflection; their contact with nature teaches them reverence, and their environment promotes good habits. The farms supply our colleges with their best students and they also supply our cities with leaders in business and professional life. In the country there is neither great wealth nor great poverty--'the rich and the poor meet together' and recognize that 'the Lord is the father of them all.' There is a fellowship, and, to use the word in its broadest sense, a democracy in the country that is much needed today to temper public opinion and protect the foundations of free government. A larger percentage of the people in the country than in the city study public questions, and a smaller percentage are either corrupt or are corrupted. It is important, therefore, for the welfare of our government and for the advancement of our civilization that we make life upon the farm as attractive as possible. Statistics have shown the constant increase in the urban population and the constant decrease in the rural population from decade to decade. Without treading upon controversial ground or considering whether this trend has been increased by legislation hostile to the farm, it will be admitted that the government is in duty bound to guard jealously the interests of the rural population, and, as far as it can, make farm life inviting. In the employment of modern conveniences the city has considerably outstripped the country, and naturally so, for in a densely populated community the people can by co?peration supply themselves with water, light, and rapid transit at much smaller cost than they can in a sparsely settled country. But it is evident that during the last few years much has been done to increase the comforts of the farm. In the first place, the rural mail delivery has placed millions of farmers in daily communication with the world. It has brought not only the letter but the newspaper to the door. Its promised enlargement and extension will make it possible for the wife to order from the village store and have her purchases delivered by the mail-carrier. The telephone has also been a great boon to the farmer. It lessens by one-half the time required to secure a physician in case of accident or illness--an invention which every mother can appreciate. The extension of the electric-car line also deserves notice. It is destined to extend the borders of the city and to increase the number of small farms at the expense of flats and tenement houses. The suburban home will bring light and hope to millions of children.

"But after all this, there still remains a pressing need for better country roads. As long as mud placed an embargo upon city traffic, the farmer could bear his mud-made isolation with less complaint, but with the improvement of city streets and with the establishment of parks and boulevards, the farmer's just demands for better roads find increasing expression."

The late brilliant congressman, Hon. Thomas H. Tongue of Oregon, left on record a few paragraphs on the sociological effect of good roads that ought to be preserved:

"Good roads do not concern our pockets only. They may become the instrumentalities for improved health, increased happiness and pleasure, for refining tastes, strengthening, broadening, and elevating the character. The toiler in the great city must have rest and recreation. Old and young, and especially the young, with character unformed, must and will sweeten the daily labor with some pleasure. It is not the hours of industry, but the hours devoted to pleasure, that furnish the devil his opportunity. It is not while we are at work but while we are at play that temptations steal over the senses, put conscience to sleep, despoil manhood, and destroy character. Healthful and innocent recreations and pleasure are national needs and national blessings. They are among the most important instrumentalities of moral reform. They are as essential to purity of mind and soul as to healthfulness of body. Out beyond the confines of the city, with its dust and dirt and filth, morally and physically, these are to be found, and good roads help to find them. What peace and inspiration may come from flowers and music, brooks and waterfalls! How the mountains pointing heavenward, yesterday battling with storms, today bathed with sunshine, bid you stand firm, walk erect, look upward, cherish hope, and for light and guidance to call upon the Creator of all light and of all wisdom! How such scenes as these kindle the imagination of the poet, quicken and enlarge the conception of the artist, fire the soul of the orator, purify and elevate us all! But if love of action rather than contemplation and reflection tempts you, how the blood thrills and the spirits rise as one springs lightly into the saddle, caresses the slender neck of an equine beauty, grasps firmly the reins, bids farewell to the impurities of the city, and dashes into the hills and the valleys and the mountains to commune with nature and nature's God. Or what joy more exquisite than with pleasant companionship to dash along the smooth highway, drawn by a noble American trotter? What poor city scenes can so inspire poetic feeling, can so increase the love of the beautiful, can so elevate and broaden and strengthen the character, and so inspire us with reverence for the great Father of us all? But for the full enjoyment of such pleasures good roads are indispensable.

"Another blessing to come with good roads will be the stimulus and encouragements to rural life, farm life. The present tendency of population to rush into the great cities makes neither for the health nor the character, the intelligence nor the morals of the nation. It has been said that no living man can trace his ancestry on both sides to four generations of city residents. The brain and the brawn and the morals of the city are constantly replenished from the country. The best home life is upon the farm, and the most sacred thing in America is the American home. It lies at the foundation of our institutions, of our health, of our character, our prosperity, our happiness, here and hereafter. The snares and pitfalls set for our feet are not near the home. The pathways upon which stones are hardest and thorns sharpest are not those that lead to the sacred spot hallowed by a father's love and a mother's prayers. The bravest and best of men, the purest and holiest women, are those who best love, cherish, and protect the home. God guard well the American home, and this done, come all the powers of darkness and they shall not prevail against us. Fatherhood and motherhood are nowhere more sacred, more holy, or better beloved than upon the farm. The ties of brotherhood and sisterhood are nowhere more sweet or tender. The fair flower of patriotism there reaches its greatest perfection. Every battlefield that marks the world's progress, the victory of liberty over tyranny or right over wrong, has been deluged with the blood of farmers. He evades neither the taxgatherer nor the recruiting officer. He shirks the performance of no public duty. In the hour of its greatest needs our country never called for help upon its stalwart yeomen when the cry was unheeded. The sons and daughters of American farmers are filling the seminaries and colleges and universities of the land. From the American farm home have gone in the past, as they are going now, leaders in literature, the arts and sciences, presidents of great universities, the heads of great industrial enterprises, governors of states, and members of Congress. They have filled the benches of the supreme court, the chairs of the cabinet, and the greatest executive office in the civilized world. Our greatest jurist, our greatest soldier, our greatest orators, Webster and Clay, our three greatest presidents, Washington, Lincoln, and McKinley, were the product of rural homes. The great presidents which Virginia has given to the nation, whose monuments are all around us, whose remains rest in your midst, whose fame is immortal, drew life and inspiration from rural homes. The typical American today is the American farmer. The city life, with its bustle and stir, its hurry and rush, its feverish anxiety for wealth, position, and rank in society, its fretting over ceremonies and precedents, is breaking down the health and intellect and the morals of its inhabitants. These must be replenished from the rural home. Whatever shall tend to create a love for country life, to decrease the rush for the city, instil a desire to dwell in the society of nature, will make for the health, the happiness, the refinement, the moral and intellectual improvement of the people. Nothing will contribute more to this than the improvement of our common roads, to facilitate the means of communication between one section of the country and the other, and between all and the city."

Turning now from the high plane of the social and moral effect of good roads, let us look at the financial side of the question.

Good roads pay well. In urging good roads in Virginia, an official of the Southern Railway said that if good roads improved the value of lands only one dollar per acre, the gain to the state by the improvement of all the roads would be twenty-five million dollars. Yet this is an inconceivably low estimate; lands upon improved roads advance in value from four to twenty dollars per acre. Virginia could therefore expect a benefit from improved highways of at least one hundred million dollars--more than enough to improve her roads many times over. Indeed this matter of the increase in value of land occasioned by good roads can hardly be overestimated. Near all of our large towns and cities the land will advance until it is worth per foot what it was formerly worth per acre. Take Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Beginning in 1880 to macadamize three or four miles of road a year with an annual fund of ,000, the county now has over a hundred miles of splendid roads; the county seat has increased in population from 5,000 to 30,000. "I know of a thirty-acre farm," said President Barringer of the University of Virginia, a native of that county, "that cost ten dollars an acre, and forty-six dollars an acre has been refused for it, and yet not a dollar has been put on it, not even to fertilize it. Some of the farms five and six miles from town have quadrupled in value." In Alabama the same thing has been found true. "The result of building these roads," said Mayor Drennen of Birmingham, "is that the property adjoining them has more than doubled in value." That wise financier, D. F. Francis, President of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, when suggesting that Missouri would do well to bond herself for one hundred million to build good roads, said: "The average increase in the value of the lands in Missouri would be at least five dollars per acre." Taking President Francis at his word, the difference between the value of Missouri before and after the era of good roads would buy up the four hundred and eighty-four state banks in Missouri eleven times over. What President Francis estimates Missouri would be worth with good roads over and above what her farms are now worth would buy all the goods that the city of St. Louis produces in a year. In other words, the estimated gain to Missouri would be more than two hundred and twenty million dollars.

Passing the increased value of lands, look at the equally vital question of increased values of crops. Take first the crops that would be raised on lands not cultivated today but which would be cultivated in a day of good roads. Look at Virginia, where only one-third of the land is being cultivated; the value of crops which it is certain would ultimately be raised on land that is now unproductive would amount to at least sixty million dollars. The general passenger agent of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company said recently that his lines were crying out for wheat to ship to China; "we have about reached the limit of our facilities; twelve or fifteen miles is the only distance farmers can afford to haul their wheat to us. Make it possible for them to haul it double that distance and you will double the business of our railway." And the business of local nature done by a railroad is a good criterion of the prosperity of the country in which it operates.

Crops now raised on lands within reach of railways would of course be enhanced in value by good roads; more loads could be taken at less cost; weather interferences would not enter into the question. But of more moment perhaps than anything else, a vast amount of land thus placed within quick reach of our towns and cities would be given over to gardening for city markets, a line of agriculture immensely profitable, as city people well know. "The citizens of Birmingham," said the mayor of that city, "enjoy the benefits of fresh products raised on the farms along these roads. The dairymen, the truck farmers, and others ... are put in touch with our markets daily, thereby receiving the benefits of any advance in farm products."

Poor roads are like the interest on a debt, and they are working against one all the time. It is noticeable that when good roads are built, farmers, who are always conservative, adjust themselves more readily to conditions. They are in touch with the world and they feel more keenly its pulse, much to their advantage. Too many farmers, damned by bad roads, are guilty of the faults of which Birmingham's mayor accused Alabama planters: "The farmers in this section," he said, "are selling cotton today for less than seven cents per pound, while they could have sold Irish potatoes within the past few months at two dollars per bushel." Farmers over the entire country are held to be slow in taking advantage of their whole opportunities; bad roads take the life out of them and out of their horses; they think somewhat as they ride--desperately slow; and they will not think faster until they ride faster. It is said that a man riding on a heavy southern road saw a hat in the mud; stopping to pick it up he was surprised to find a head of hair beneath it: then a voice came out of the ground: "Hold on, boss, don't take my hat; I've got a powerful fine mule down here somewhere if I can ever get him out." You can write and speak to farmers until doomsday about taking quick advantage of the exigencies of the markets that are dependent on them, but if they have to hunt for their horses in a hog-wallow road all your talk will be in vain.

When we seriously face the question of how a fine system of highways is to be built in this country, it is found to be a complex problem. For about ten years now it has been seriously debated, and these years have seen a large advance; until now the problem has become almost national.

One great fundamental idea has been proposed and is now generally accepted by all who have paid the matter any attention, and that is that those who live along our present roads cannot be expected to bear the entire cost of building good roads. This may be said to be settled and need no debate. Practically all men are agreed that the rural population should not bear the entire expense of an improvement of which they, however, are to be the chief beneficiaries; the state itself, in all its parts, benefits from the improved conditions which follow improved roads, and should bear a portion of the expense. Do not think that city people escape the tax of bad roads. In St. Louis four hundred thousand people consume five hundred tons of produce every day. The cost of hauling this produce over bad roads averages twenty-five cents per mile and over good roads about ten cents per mile, making a difference of fifteen cents per mile per ton. For five hundred tons, hauled from farms averaging ten miles distance, this would be seven hundred and fifty dollars per day, or a quarter of a million dollars a year--enough to build fifty miles of macadamized road a year. The farmers shift as much as they can of their heavy tax on the city people--the consumer pays the freight. Everybody is concerned in the "mud-tax" of bad roads.

The state of New York, which has a good system, pays one-half of the good roads fund; each county pays thirty-five per cent, and the township fifteen per cent. Pennsylvania has appropriated at one time six and a half millions as a good roads fund. The new Ohio law apportions the cost of new roads as follows: The state pays twenty-five per cent, the townships twenty-five per cent, and the county fifty per cent. Of the twenty-five per cent paid by the townships fifteen per cent is to be paid by owners of abutting property and ten per cent by the township as a whole. In New Jersey, which has a model system of road-building and many model roads, the state pays a third, the county a third, and the property owners a third.

A more recent theory in American road-building which has been advanced is a plan of national aid. This is no new thing in America, though it has been many years since the government has paid attention to roadways. In the early days the wisest of our statesmen advocated large plans of internal improvement; one great national road, as we have seen, was built by the War Department from the Potomac almost to the Mississippi, through Wheeling, Columbus, Indianapolis and Vandalia, at a cost of over six million dollars. And this famous national road was built, in part, upon an earlier pathway, cut through Ohio by Ebenezer Zane in 1796, also at the order of Congress, and for which he received grants of land which formed the nucleus of the three thriving Ohio cities, Zanesville, Lancaster, and Chillicothe. The constitutionality of road-building by the government was questioned by some, but that clause granting it the right to establish post-offices and post roads "must, in every view, be a harmless power," said James Madison, "and may perhaps, by judicious management, become productive of great public conveniency. Nothing which tends to facilitate the intercourse between the states can be deemed unworthy of the public care." But the government was interested not only in building roads but in many other phases of public improvement; it took stock in the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal; Congress voted ,000 to survey the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal route, and the work was done by government engineers. When railways superseded highways, the government was almost persuaded to complete the old National Road with rails and ties instead of broken stone. When the Erie Canal was proposed, a vast scheme of government aid was favored by leading statesmen; the government has greatly assisted the western railways by gigantic grants of land worth one hundred and thirty-eight million dollars. The vast funds of private capital that have been seeking investment in this country, at first in turnpike, plank, and macadamized roads, then in canals, and later in railways, has rendered government aid comparatively unnecessary. In the last few years the only work of internal improvement aided by the government is the improvement of the rivers and harbors, which for 1904 takes over fifty millions of revenue a year. The sum of 0,565,485 has been well spent on river and harbor improvement in the past seven years. Not only are the great rivers, such as the Ohio and Mississippi, improved, but lesser streams. A short time ago I made a journey of one hundred miles down the Elk River in West Virginia in a boat eleven inches deep and twelve feet long; a channel all the way down had been made about two feet wide by picking out the stones; the United States did this at an expense of fifteen hundred dollars. The groceries and dry goods for thousands were poled up that river in dug-outs through that two-foot channel. I doubt if a two-wheel vehicle could traverse the road which runs throughout that valley, but I know a four-wheel vehicle could not.

The advocates of national aid urge the right to establish post roads; "I had an ancestor in the United States Senate," said ex-Senator Butler of South Carolina, "who refused to vote a dollar for the improvement of Charleston Harbor; but almost the first act of my official life was to get an appropriation of two hundred and fifty thousand for that purpose. There is as ample constitutional warrant for the improvement of public roads out of the United States Treasury--as large as there is for the improvement of rivers and harbors, or for the support of the agricultural colleges."

"But few judicial opinions have been rendered on this subject. In the case of Dickey against the Turnpike Company, the Kentucky court of appeals decided that the power given to Congress by the constitution to establish post roads enabled them to make, repair, keep open, and improve post roads when they shall deem the exercise of the power expedient. But in the exercise of the right of eminent domain on this subject the United States has no right to adopt and use roads, bridges, or ferries constructed and owned by states, corporations, and individuals without their consent or without making to the parties concerned just compensation. If the United States elects to use such accommodations, it stands upon the same footing and is subject to the same tolls and regulations as a private individual. It has been asserted that Jefferson was opposed to the appropriation of money for internal improvements, but, in 1808, in writing to Mr. Lieper, he said, 'Give us peace until our revenues are liberated from debt, ... and then during peace we may chequer our whole country with canals, roads, etc.' Writing to J. W. Eppes in 1813 he says, 'The fondest wish of my heart ever was that the surplus portion of these taxes destined for the payment of the Revolutionary debt should, when that object is accomplished, be continued by annual or biennial re?nactments and applied in times of peace to the improvement of our country by canals, roads, and useful institutions.' Congress has always claimed the power to lay out, construct, and improve post roads with the assent of the states through which they pass; also, to open, construct, and improve military roads on like terms; and the right to cut canals through the several states with their consent for the purpose of promoting and securing internal commerce and for the safe and economical transportation of military stores in times of war. The president has sometimes objected to the exercise of this constitutional right, but Congress has never denied it. Cooley, the highest authority on constitutional law, says:

"'Every road within a State, including railroads, canals, turnpikes, and navigable streams, existing or created within a State, becomes a post-road, whenever by law or by the action of the Post-Office Department provision is made for the transportation of the mail upon or over it. Many statesmen and jurists have contended that the power comprehends the laying out and construction of any roads which Congress may deem proper and needful for the conveyance of the mails, and keeping them repaired for the purpose.'"

One great work the government has done and is doing. It has founded an Office of Public Road Inquiries at Washington, and under the efficient management of Hon. Martin Dodge and Maurice O. Eldridge a great work of education has been carried on--samples of good roads have been built, good road trains have been sent out by the Southern Railway and the Illinois Central into the South, a laboratory has been established at Washington, under the efficient charge of Professor L. W. Page, for the testing of materials free of charge, and a great deal of road information has been published and sent out.

The Brownlow Bill, introduced into Congress at the last session, is the latest plan of national aid, and is thus described by Hon. Martin Dodge of the Office of Public Road Inquiries:

"The bill provides for an appropriation of twenty million dollars. This is to be used only in connection and co?peration with the various states or civil subdivisions of states that may make application to the General Government for the purpose of securing its aid to build certain roads. The application must be made for a specific road to be built, and the state or county making the application must be ready to pay half of the cost, according to the plans and specifications made by the General Government. In no case can any state or any number of counties within the state receive any greater proportion of the twenty million dollars than the population of the state bears to the population of the United States.

"In other words, all of the plans must originate in the community. The bill does not provide that the United States shall go forward and say a road shall be built here or a road shall be built there. The United States shall hold itself in readiness, when requested to do so, to co?perate with those who have selected a road they desire to build, provided they are ready and willing to pay one-half the cost. Then, if the road is a suitable one and is approved by the government authorities, they go forward and build that road, each contributing one-half of the expense. In order to prevent the state losing jurisdiction of the road, it is provided that it may go forward and build the road if it will accept the government engineer's estimate. For instance, if a state or county asks for ten miles of road, the estimated cost of which is thirty thousand dollars, and the state or county officials say they are willing to undertake the work for thirty thousand dollars, the government authorizes them to go ahead and build that road according to specifications, and when it is finished the government will pay the fifteen thousand dollars. If the state or county does not wish to take the contract, the General Government will advertise and give it to the lowest bidder, and will pay its contributory share and the other party will pay its contributory share.

"It is no part of the essential principle involved in this national aid plan that the exact proportion should be fifty per cent on each side. Any other figure can be adopted. Some think ten per cent is sufficient; some think thirty-three and one-third is the proper percentage; others think twenty-five per cent only should be paid by the government, twenty-five per cent by the state, twenty-five per cent by the county, and twenty-five per cent by the township. The one idea that seems to be generally accepted is that the government should do something."

Thus the interest in the great question is beginning to forge to the front; through the Office of Public Road Inquiries a great deal of information is being circulated touching all phases of the question. There is a fine spirit of independence displayed by the leaders of the movement; no one plan is over-urged; the situation is such that the final concerted popular action will come from the real governing power--the people. When they demand that the United States shall not have the poorest rural roads of any civilized and some uncivilized nations, we as a nation will hasten into the fore front and finally lead the world in this vital department of civic life, as we are leading it in so many other departments today.

FOOTNOTES:

GOVERNMENT CO?PERATION IN OBJECT-LESSON ROAD WORK

In a government having a composite nature like that of the United States it is not always easy to determine just what share the General Government, the state government, and the local government should respectively take in carrying out highway work, though it is generally admitted that there should be co?peration among them all.

In the early history of the Republic the National Government itself laid out and partially completed a great national system of highways connecting the East with the West, and the capital of the nation with its then most distant possessions. Fourteen million dollars in all was appropriated by acts of Congress to be devoted to this purpose, an amount almost equal to that paid for the Louisiana Purchase. In other words, it cost the government substantially as much to make that territory accessible as to purchase it; and what is true of that territory in its larger sense is also true in a small way of nearly every tract of land that is opened up and used for the purposes of civilization; that is to say, it will cost as much to build up, improve, and maintain the roads of any given section of the country as the land in its primitive condition is worth; and the same rule will apply in most cases after the land value has advanced considerably beyond that of its primitive condition. It is a general rule that the suitable improvement of a highway within reasonable limitations will double the value of the land adjacent to it. Seven million dollars, half of the total sum appropriated by acts of Congress for the national road system, was devoted to building the Cumberland Road from Cumberland, Maryland, to St. Louis, Missouri, the most central point in the great Louisiana Purchase, and seven hundred miles west of Cumberland. The total cost of this great road was wholly paid out of the United States Treasury, and though never fully completed on the western end, it is the longest straight road ever built by any government. It passes through the capitals of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and the cost per mile was, approximately, ten thousand dollars. It furnishes the only important instance the country has ever had of the General Government providing a highway at its own expense. The plan, however, was never carried to completion, and since its abandonment two generations ago, the people of the different states have provided their own highways. For the most part they have delegated their powers either to individuals, companies, or corporations to build toll roads, or to the minor political subdivisions and municipalities to build free roads.

With the passing of the toll-road system, the withdrawal of the General Government from the field of actual road construction, and the various state governments doing little or nothing, the only remaining active agent occupying the entire great field is the local government in each community; and while these various local governments have done and are still doing the best they can under the circumstances, there is great need that their efforts should be supplemented, their revenues enlarged, and their skill in the art of road construction increased.

The skill of the local supervisor was sufficient in primitive times, so long as his principal duties consisted in clearing the way of trees, logs, stumps, and other obstructions, and shaping the earth of which the roadbed was composed into a little better form than nature had left it; and the resources at his command were sufficient so long as he was authorized to call on every able-bodied male citizen between twenty-one and forty-five years of age to do ten days' labor annually on the road, especially when the only labor expected was that of dealing with the material found on the spot. But with the changed conditions brought about by the more advanced state of civilization, after the rights of way have been cleared of their obstructions and the earth roads graded into the form of turnpikes, it became necessary to harden their surfaces with material which often must be brought from distant places. In order to accomplish this, expert skill is required in the selection of materials, money instead of labor is required to pay for the cost of transportation, and machinery must be substituted for the hand processes and primitive methods heretofore employed in order to crush the rock and distribute it in the most economical manner on the roadbed. Skill and machinery are also required to roll and consolidate the material so as to form a smooth, hard surface and a homogeneous mass impervious to water.

The local road officer now not only finds himself deficient in skill and the proper kind of resources, but he discovers in many cases that the number of persons subject to his call for road work has greatly diminished. The great cities of the North have absorbed half of the population in all the states north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi, and those living in these great cities are not subject to the former duties of working the roads, nor do they pay any compensation in money in lieu thereof. So the statute labor has not only become unsuitable for the service to be performed, but it is, as stated, greatly diminished. In the former generations substantially all the people contributed to the construction of the highways under the statute labor system, but at the present time not more than half the population is subject to this service, and this, too, at a time when the need for highway improvement is greatest.

While the former ways and means are inadequate or inapplicable to present needs and conditions, there are other means more suitable for the service, and existing in ample proportion for every need. The tollgate-keeper cannot be called upon to restore the ancient system of turnpikes and plank roads to be maintained by a tax upon vehicles passing over them, but there can be provided a general fund in each county sufficient to build up free roads better than the toll roads and with a smaller burden of cost upon the people. The statute labor in the rural districts cannot be depended upon, because it is unsuitable to the service now required and spasmodic in its application, when it should be perennial; but this statute labor can be commuted to a money tax, with no hardships upon the citizens and with great benefit to the highway system.

Former inhabitants of the abandoned farms or the deserted villages cannot be followed to the great cities and the road tax which they formerly paid be collected from them again to improve the country roads; but it can be provided that all the property owners in every city, as well as in every county, shall pay a money tax into a general fund, which shall be devoted exclusively to the improvement of highways in the rural districts. The state itself can maintain a general fund out of which a portion of the cost of every principal highway in the state shall be paid, and by so doing all the people of the state will contribute to improving the highways, as they once did in the early history of the nation, when substantially all the wealth and population was distributed almost equally throughout the settled portions of the country.

Having a general fund of money instead of statute labor, it would be possible to introduce more scientific and more economical methods of construction with co?peration. This co?peration, formerly applied with good results to the primitive conditions, but which has been partially lost by the diminution in the number and skill of the co-workers, would be restored again in a great measure by drawing the money with which to improve the roads out of a general fund to which all had contributed.

In many countries the army has been used to advantage in time of peace in building up and maintaining the highways. There is no army in this country for such a purpose, but there is an army of prisoners in every state, whose labor is so directed, and has been so directed for generations past, that it adds little or nothing to the common wealth. The labor of these prisoners, properly applied and directed, would be of great benefit and improvement to the highways, and would add greatly to the national wealth, while at the same time it would lighten the pressure of competition with free labor by withdrawing the prison labor from the manufacture of commercial articles and applying it to work not now performed, that is, the building of highways or preparing material to be used therefor.

The General Government, having withdrawn from the field of road construction in 1832, has since done little in that line until very recently. Eight years ago Congress appropriated a small sum of money for the purpose of instituting a sort of inquiry into the prevailing condition of things pertaining to road matters. This appropriation has been continued from year to year and increased during the last two years with a view of co?perating to a limited extent with other efforts in road construction.

The General Government can perform certain duties pertaining to scientific road improvement better than any other agency. Scientific facts ascertained at one time by the General Government will serve for the enlightenment of the people of all the states, and with no more cost than would be required for each single state to make the investigation and ascertain the facts for itself.

With a view to securing scientific facts in reference to the value of road-building materials, the Secretary of Agriculture has established at Washington, D. C., a mechanical and chemical laboratory for testing such material from all parts of the country. Professor L. W. Page, late of Harvard University, is in charge of this laboratory, and has tested many samples of rock without charge to those having the test made. There is, however, no test equal to the actual application of the material to the road itself.

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