The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1892-05-28
GOOD ROADS AND SOCIETY,"
Highways Have an Influence on the Peo
pie Themselves.

Highways Have an Influence on the Peo.
pie Themselves.
It is hard to put any money estimate
upon the value of an improved social
condition; indeed, it is impossible. But
our bad roads have SO serious an infiu-
ence upon country life and the happiness
of the men and the women who lead
rural lives that in all probability purely
social aspect of the case is more impor-
tant than any other. One can scarcely
pick up newspaper nowadays without
reading that in farming communities it
is most difficult to get competent and
trustworthy agricultural laborers. When
any thoughtful observer sees in the great
cities how the families of the men who
do what is called laborers' work are
lodged, when he sees them huddled to-
gether in great, badly smelling tenement
houses, he marvels that they should pre-
fer this to life in the country, where
fresh air is free and wholesome food is
cheap, but there can be little doubt that
there is preference for this kind of ex-
istence in cities, even though it be a fact
that work is harder to get there than in
the country and not bit more regular
Not only is this the case with laborers,
but we find, whenever we choose to in
qure, that the best youths born of coun-
try families early begin to feel banker
ing for town life. If they staid at
home to till the soil or fields there
would not be this scarcity of agricul.
tural laborers which has just been noted;
but no sooner does an adventuresome
youth in the country begin to feel the
down upon his cheeks changing into
whiskers than he is fired with an ambi-
ton to go to some city and become a
member of the great hustle and strife
which the close competition of men with
men produces. This doesn't mean that
he is afraid of the hard work that has
to be done on the farm, for none but a
fool would believe that man to succeed
even moderately does not have to work
just as hard in town as in the country
and farmers boys are not fools-at least
they have not proved themselves to be
in America, for the great majority OF
our distinguished and successful men
have been recruited not from the col
leges and universities of learning, but
from these very fields which now suffer
because there are not men enough to
cultivate them.
Among those who conspicuously ad.
vocate the idea that the national gov
eminent should take part and lead in
this matter of road improvement is Gen
eral Roy Stone, of New York, the engi
neer and inventor. The restless activity
of General Stones mind has been di-
rected to this problem for many years,
and he has recently secured the cooper
alton of several prominent statesmen in
Washington in a project soon to be
formulated in a bill to be brought be.
fore congress. This bill proposes the
formation of national highway COM
mission which shall examine the whole
subject, formulate plan for national
school of roads and bridges and make
an exhibit at the Worlds fair.
The suggestion that it shall be shown
during the Worlds fair that America is
alive to the necessity of improving her
interior method Of communication is
particularly happy. 1t is true that the
larger portion of foreign visitors who
will come to America in 1893 will see
only such highways as railroads and
city streets; but those who come really
to study us and to measure our civiliza-
ton and general progress will go further
afield, and they, of course, will see the
disgraceful condition of our common
roads. 1t viii be well worth while to
show to such as these that we are alive
to the Importance Of the subject and
aware of the reproach of our wretched
ways.-Jno. Gilmer Speed in Harper'a
Weekly.