The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1902-07-21
GOOD ROADS TRAIN.

There is no section of the entire
country in which the gospel of good
roads can be preached and exemplified
with greater measure of advantage to
the people than in the Northwest. This
is necessarily due, in a great measure,
to the fact that the material develop
ment of this section is the most recent
of all others, and because here, in the
urgent demands which the virtual
opening of wilderness has made upon
the resources and energies of the peo-
pie, there has been less time and incIi-
nation than elsewhere to bestow
thought or effort in this direction. The
movement of population which has
been in progress toward the North
west during the past twenty years has
thus far produced chiefly the result of
having opened up our fruitful lands to
settlement Hundreds of thousands of
acres of fertile soil still remain, how
ever, uncuftivated and unoccupied in
! the Northwestern states; and the chief
deterrent to the settlement of vast re-
gions continues to be that there ase
no roads worthy of the name
The movement for good roads neces-
! sarily advances from the older to the
| newer communities The thorough
fares in the settled portions of the
| Eastern States are in a far better con-
| dition than they can be found after
the Alleghenies are passed, and, CORE
Spondingly, those of the Middle West
ern states are in far better condition
for local travel than those of the
! Northwest. Great advances have been
made in the education of the agricul-
| tural communities to the urgent need
in which they stand of improved thor
oughfares, and that advancement has
| extended as far west as iowa and Wis
| consin. It's extention to this region
| will be an inca1cd1able blessing to the
| people. Many of the most powerful
| forces of social and industrial life are
| operating today to make the improve
| ment of the public highway a matter
| of immediate concern The people
have been absolutely without educa-
ton on the road building art The ex-
listing provisions for the improvement
of local thoroughfares is purely of a
| makeshift character. 1t must so re-
main indefinitely unless encouragement
and instruction are afforded to the res
| ldents of this section which are still
behind in the condition of their public
Eroads. Such encouragement and in
| struction has been furnished onIy
| through the initiative of those rail-
roads which have thought proper to
| concern themselves in the undertake
ing. The Illinois Central road, for in
stance, has rendered incaIculabIe serv-
ice to the people along it's line by the
succession of object lessons which it
has furnished to them in the art Of the
construction of cheap, passable and
durable roads.
This work appears now to have been
| undertaken in this section by the Great
| Northern railroad. 1t is taken up al
a great expense to that road and its
management. The gain to the road
| which will accrue from that expendi-
ture is still very far in the future. In
deed, we doubt whether it can be re-
garded as an appreciable circumstance
at all in the undertaking of the Great
| Northern road. But the public value
of the step taken is itself beyond esti-
nation.
Of course, the great deterrent thus