The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1904-06-10


roads are not desirable or necessary
would discredit the wisdom of the
brightest minds in the railroad
world
Railroad managers are spending
millions upon millions of dollars to
do for the properties they represent
exactly what the gentlemen inter
ested in the good roads question are
endeavoring to have done for our
wagon roads. All this expenditure
means what? Simply that given
amount of power shall be able to
haul more tons than heretofore and
that i'll the transportation of the
railroads business its motive power
and rolling stock shall not be sub
jected to the strain and shocks that
had to be borne when the road was
less nearly perfect.
"To use home example, why has
the Oregon Railroad and Navigation
Company spent millions of dollars in
eliminating curves, i'll reducing
grades, in building steel bridges, IN
more solid entertainments and laying
heavier rails? Do YOU think it is
simply that someone may ride with
a little more comfort than hereto
fore? Not by any means. While the
comfort Of its patrons is always
strong element for consideration, the
main reason for the Improvement is
that the expenditure of this money
will mean such saving i'll the ex-
pense of the operation that the result
is a greater profit on all the capital
invested.
eff single railroad finds it neces-
sary to spend many millions in this
direction, would l dare to say that a
proportionate expenditure on the
wagon roads would not be consist
ent with the truest economy?
To-day, am informed, that about
the greatest distance a farmer can
afford to haul wheat over existing
wagon roads to the railroad, is
about 20 miles. If the wagon road
can be so improved that with the
same number of horses and with the
same wagon two tons can be hauled
where one is the present limit, it will
also be found that the extreme
boundary of the profitable wheat
area would be 10 miles, or double
what it is now. That is, a farmer
under the improved condition Of
wagon roads, 40 miles distant from
the market, could produce wheat
with as much profit for himself as
the farmer who todayis but one-half
that distance removed from the buy
er at the railway station.
"If an additional strip only five
miles wide could be brought within
reach of market by good roads,
contiguous to the entire line of the
Oregon Railroad and Navigation
Company, and only every other sec
ton could be made productive, over
three and one-half millions of acres
would be added to the producing
area of the Pacific Northwest, which
on the generous basis of 1G0 acres to
each family, would support nearly
%, 900 families. Yet five miles is not
a great distance to extend the profit
able productive belt if you go at the
good road proposition i'll the right
way.
"Have you, who live from 10 to 20
miles from the railway, ever consid-
cred that i'll addition to a great re-
duction i'll the wear and tear on
horses and wagons as we'll as upon
yourselves, good roads would in
crease the value of the land itself by,
as it were, picking it up bodily and
placing it nearer the town?
"The old settler in Oregon, who
came across the plains, knows that
the same number of miles intervene
between the Missouri and William
cite rivers that were there in the
'fifties' and Sixties but he also
knows that the distance, in effect,
has been shortened SO that the rela-
Non between then and now is as six
months is to three days. And what
has brought this about? Nothing
but good roads, railroads, to be sure,
but good railroad is simplya good
road for locomotives and cars to run
on and is an evolution from the
wagon road. If the best results could
have been obtainable from runninga
locomotive on a good wagon road,
do you think that hundreds of mil
lions of dollars would have been
spent for rails and ties, which had
been brought sometimes from over
the ocean, when the material for the
wagon road was practically at hand?
Certainly not. Instead, the railroad
men would have constructed the
best wagon road they could con-
ceive of.
"The railroads, therefore, have met
the exigencies of the situation and
are trying to make the best road
they can build; and it pays therail-
road to do this, why will not the
same reasoning hold good for the
people i'll connection with the public
highways? Railroad men appreciate
what good roads mean, and it is
time our towns and country districts
were awakening to the true meaning
of what good wagon roads would
do for them.
81 will leave it to the gentlemen
who have made the wagon road
more of a study than l to go into de-
tails of cost and construction, hay
ing, hope, made clear to you the
cardinal thought had in mind, viz,
there isno essential difference i'll prin-
ciplc between the Improvement of
railroad and the improvement of a
wagon road and that railroad men
have learned that the best railroad
which can be constructed is the most
economical"
HARLAN AND WEBSTER, Solicitors.