River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1904-04-14
BROWNLOW IDEA POPULAR.
ment in Congress Is Gratifying
to It's Advocates.

The movement In favor of national
appropriation to aid in the building
OF roads appears to be making great
headWay. This is proven by the num-
Der and enthusiasm of its supporters,
and even more strikingly by the con-
sternation of those who are openly or
secretly opposed to the scheme. When
the agricultural bill came up in the ma
tlonal house of representatives recent
ly, remarks were dropped by number
of speakers which indicated that let
ters, petitions and resolutions demand
ing the passage of the BrownloW road
bill are coming in from all sections.
The same thing happened again when
the bill came up in the senate. Sena-
tor Bailey, of Texas. who is opposed TO
national aid, said it was easy to see
what is coming, and addressed this sig
nificant remark: Il will live, if | live
as long as my father has done, to see 4
federal officer probably supervising al
the country roads in this country"
While none of the so-called good
roads bills have come up for action in
either end of the capitol the friends
agriculture have scored an important
victory in securing in the senate an in
crease of $4,000 in the appropriations
for road Investigations, and expert
ments including the building of object
lesson roads.
This is national aid on a small
scale But it is of great Importance
from an educational point of view.
Heretofore this object lesson work has
been conducted in the following man
ner: An application is sent in by some
experiment station or agricultural coll
lege, or by road officials or public
spirited citizens of some progressive
community, asking the government to
cooperate in the building of short
stretch OF road. The government uSu-
ally furnishes nothing more than an
engineer or an expert to make plans
and supervise the work. Road-mak-
ing machinery is usually furnished free
Of charge by the manufacturers for the
sake of the advertisement it gives
them. The railroads, also, take hand
and transport the machinery free. The
institution or community making the
application has to foot the bills for la
Dor and materials.
Among the benefits flowing from
such work are ID that it gives an ex-
cellent opportunity to investigate and
test the various local materials; (2)
that it gives the people of that locality
lesson in the methods of road build
ing and in the use of road materials
and machinery; and (3) that the build
ing of a short piece of good road usu-
ally leads to the building of a large
mileage of improved road in the vicin-
ity To have Uncle Sam come into
community and help build a good
road, be it ever so short, seems to
arouse great popular interest and slim
ulate local effort. 1t is claimed by
those who know most about the results
Of the work already done, that in no
other direction does the government
accomplish so much with so little out
lay.
But the opponents of national aid are
afraid that object-lesson roads are only
stepping stone to national aid Of
vastly greater dimensions, and in this
they are probably right. However
that may be, it appears certain that OBJ
ject-lesson road building will be car
ried on next year to a larger extent
than ever before. Many applications
are now on file in the department of
agriculture and many more are eX-
pected