Baxter Springs news. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Kan.) 1882-1919, 1904-06-30
THURSDAY, JUNE 20.

/ AsfSs>S"st SO'Ns ~
GOOD ROADS AS AN ELEMENT IN
NATIONAL GREATNESS.
The following speech was deliv-
cred by President Roosevelt at the
National Good Roads Convention,
held at st. Louis, April 10Th, 1903:
Mr.. Chairman, Ladies and Gentle.
men: When we wish TO use de.
scriptive adjectives fit to character
ize great empires, and the man who
made those empires great, invari.
bly, one of the adjectives used 10 to
signify that they build good roads.
When we speak of the Romans we
speak of them az rulers, az con.
querors, as administrators, az road
builders. There were empires that
rose over night: empires whose in.
fuence was absolutely evanescent;
who passed away without leaving
a trace of their former existence.
But wherever the Roman esta blish.
ed his rule, the traces of that rule
remain deep today stamped on the
language and customs of the peo-
pie, or stamped in tangible form on
the soil itself. Passing through
Britain, more than fifteen centuries
after the dominion OF Rome passed
away, we can see that the Roman
roads still remain.
Going through Italy, where pow
er after power has risen, flourished,
and vanished since the days when
the temporal dominion of the Ro.
man Emperors transferred ito seat
from Rome to Byzantium; going
through Italy after the Lombard,
the Goth, the Byzantine, and all the
people of the middle ages have
ruled that country, it 10 the imper.
ishable Roman road that reappears
The faculty, the art, the habit of
road building marks in a nation
those solid, stable qualities, which
tell for permanent greatness. lab
plause.
Merely from a standpoint of his
torical analogy we should have a
right to ask that this people which
has tanned a continent, which has
built up a nation with continent
for ito base, which boasts itself with
truth 40 the mightiest republic that
the world has ever seen. and which
we firmly believe will in the centu-
ry row opening rise to a place of
leadership such az no other nation
has attained loud applause). mere.
ly from historical analogy, say
we should have a right to demand
that such q nation should build
good roads. Much more have we q
right to demand II from a practical
standpoint. The great difference
between the semi.barbarism of the
middle ages and the civilization
which succeeded it was the differ.
ence between poor and good means
of communication. And we to
whom space 10 less of an obstacle
than ever before in the history of
any nation, we who have spanned a
who have thrust our Dor
ders westward in the course of a
century and a quarter from the At
lantic over the Alleghenies, down
into the valley of the Mississippi,
across the Great Plains, over the
Rockies, to where the Golden Gate
lets through the long heaving wa.
ters of the Pacific, and finally to |
Alaska and the islands of the ORR. |
ent, we, who take 90 little account
Of mere space, must see to II that
the best means of nullifying the
existence of space are at our COM
mand. OF course, during the last
century there has been an altogeth-
er phenomenal growth in one kind
Of road, wholly unknown to the
people of old-the iron road. The
railway 10 of course something |
purely modern. Now, q great many
excellent people have proceeded on