The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1898-01-20
TOr Good Roads.

tlnS Fuollc Oplnlon, was maue Dy A.
B, Farquhar, and one OF the first sub
jects he considered was the effect of
roads and urban and rural population,
and the Importance of educating public
opinion on the subject, This portion
of the address was as follows:
"The rapid increase of our urban
population is frought with danger.
Temptations increase with increased
facilities and opportunities. Children
are tumbled together in the streets as
indiscrimnately as garbage in the
sewers, and they pass into the COM
munity a mass Of filth. People are
hocking to the cities, believing they
can live happier and better life there,
and were they not debased by cOncen-
tration, there would be less disappoint-
ment. The evil conditions must be
discovered and rectifed. The thought
that where society ought to exist in its
highest state, with most cougenial en-
vironment, it must lapse into voice and
immortality is intolerable.
Country life has thousand charms
and advantages over life in the city.
Our bad highways have great deal to
do with driving the countryman to
town. The mud bitches in place of the
beautiful, smooth roads Of civilization
shut him out from society and make it
cost him more to carry ton of his pro-
duce few miles to the nearest market
than to transport it thousand miles
on the railroad. The prosperity, con-
tentment, intelligence and happiness
of the rural population, depend largely
on the condition of the highways. No
wonder the value of farm land is de-
sreasing. The best means of benefiting
the agriculturist is to improve his
roads. The countries OF Europe, i'm
poverished by their standing armies
and their enormous debts, build thSu-
sands of miles of road, and wisely spend
millions annually, in keeping them in
repair. What transformation there
would be in our country if we had this
European system of highways! An
aroused public opinion only can secure
them.
"An accidental cross path made-no
one knows how, century ago, widens
to a wheel-track, and becomes estab-
lished as century road, simply because
the actual traveller has not time to look
after the conditian of his highway; the
citizen who is not an actual traveller
neglects what concerns other citizens
equally with himself, and the county
officer is not spurred to his duty of pro-
viding suitable road by the pressure
of a sufficiently robust public opinion.
AS a result, every man, woman and
child who has occasion to pass between
one and the other of two important sec
tions of the country is compelled to go
considerably out of his way, and toll
up and down more than one long steep
hill.
''Day after day, week after week,
month after month, summer and winter,
year after year, decade after decade, -
it will soon be century after century,
the patient thousands who pass that
road submissively pay tribute Chill and
square corner taxes) to the ignorant
carelessness of their forefathers and
present county officials. Were band
of robbers to infest that road exact
one-tenth part Of the cost that our citi
zens now willingly pay for this extra
time, labor and annoyance, an outcry
, would be raised that would rssound
J throughout the globe.
} "What is best now and hereafter fol
, the many must and should overthrow
( the personal preference or caprice Of
the individual. Other forms OF i'm
/ provement are temporary; building
fall into decay, harbor and river cours
es are filed up with deposits, machine
ry becomes obsolete, inventions ar
superseded by new and better ones
: organizations of men, whether social
educational, political or religious, ar
4 disrupted and scattered by the relent
processes of time, but a properly lc
e Gated and constructed road will prov
i; an ever frightening to countless futur
b generations.
$ "Then granting the vital and far
Q reaching Importance of having road
where they are wanted, and of the bos
and most enduring character; grantin
the absolute power to accomplish thi
object, in the hands of agents chose
Il by the people themselves (neither c
,s which propositions can be questioned
v then why is it that the vast majorit
n of our thoroughfares are badly locate
A and worse managed; that country trav,
"a instead of being accomplished wit
n ease and pleasure, is usually yexatio
!, to the spirit, perpetual financial drai
a. on our resources, and a disgrace to OF
N boasted civilization?
n "There can be but one answer
~ While all persons individually are we
a. azd painfully aware of these facts, ye
h. the people collectively have not bee
N sufficiently impressed with their in
~ portance-in short, public opinion c
= this question has not been sufficient
educated.