The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1905-11-25
AN ENDLESS CHAIN OF GOOD.

Immediately upon the assembling of Con-
gress next month the Brownlow- Latimer good
roads bill will be introduced in the House and
Senate. and il the proposed legislation is back
ed up as it should be by the people, it will be
made law before that Congress dies. The pas
sage Of this bill will be distinctive and era
making event IN the history of the country.
To one who properly considers all the benefits
that will accrue to the nation and to all its cit
liens, it must be conceded that no other legis-
lation has been fraught with SO much good for
the people and with such grand possibilities.
Say what We please about the influence of pub
lie schools, the pulpit, the platform and other
institutions that mark the civilized progress Of
mankind, yet all these are more or less DEEPEN
dent upon the facilities Of intercourse between
the people. In fact, it is an undeniable truth
that civilization means labor in some form,
and labor is the ability to move things from
place to place, and its efficiency depends upon
the ease with which they are moved.
No nation has ever yet built good roads and
regretted it afterwards. No community in
possession of good roads would be willing to
surrender them upon the repayment of their
cost and maintenance. Ofal the expenditures
made by aggregated bodies or by government
agencies that devoted to good roads produces
the greatest return and the greatest satisfaction
to the greatest number of people. Everybody
uses the highways; the rich man and the beg
gar, the white man and the black, the lame
and the blind, women and children. the far
mer the tradesman, the lawyer, doctor, tour
list, hunter-alI, of every class and condition,
participate in and enjoy the blessing of good
roads wherever they abound. The wagon
roads of any country are the fountain heads
of trade and commerce they are the avenues
over which pass the main agencies for the dis
semination of knowledge and the increase of
intelligence, as well as the eDjoyments of social
intercourse in rural life. They provide the
means for the performance of public duty: of
reaching schools and churches and local mar
kets or shipping points on railways. Why.
should the United States, which has attained
supremacy over all other nations in wealth
and in a worldwide influence in commerce
and diplomacy hesitate to enter upon work
that will bind its citizens to it in more loyal
faith than ever? Why should Congress hesi-
tate to do that which every person desires to
see done in some way? Why hesitate when
good roads are the most important factor in
the life of the people; in the life of the Govern
ment?
This Government belongs to the people.
They instituted it for their own welfare, and
have sustained it for the common good-not
for special interests or classes. Congress is but
one of the agencies they have created to pro-
vide for their wants and to execute their will.
If the people now make demand for the pas
sage of the Brownlow- Latimer bill for national
aid to highway construction, that demand will
be needed. Each individual can help this
work along by writing his views to his Sena-
tors and Representatives in Congress, and it is
his duty to himself, his family, his neighbors,
his state and county and the nation to do it.
Every neighborhood has duty to perform in
this matter as neighborhood. Senator Lati-
mer and Representative Brownlow and other
friends of national aid in Congress will do their
duty. 1t is up to the people to sustain them in
every possible way. Write to your U. s. Sena-
tor for Senate Document No. 204, Fifty.eighth
Congress, I'd Session.