The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1906-09-13
VALUE OF GOOD ROADS.
They Help Farmers and Assist in Devei-
opment of a Great Nation.

lney He1p FARMERS ana ASSIST IN DeV01.
opment of a Great Nation.
National aid to highway construc-
ton as plain, practical business
proposition is, in my opinion, para
mount to any question that now pre-
sents or that can possibly be suggest
ed, because good roads would do
more for the country than any other
one thing that can be named or any
dozen or more things combined, says
W. P. Brownlow, congressman from
Tennessee, in Golfers Weekly.
There is a feature of this question
which persons accustomed to thor
oughness in every other line of
thought seem to entirely overlook,
especially dwellers in towns and cities.
If the common roads of the country
were brought to condition that
would enable farmers to market their
products at all seasons of the year the
cost of living in town and city would
be greatly lessened and discomfort
among laboring people and the oper-
atives of industrial concerns would
largely decrease, if it did not entirely
disappear. Why and how?
Present road conditions compel
farmers to rush their products to
market as soon as harvested, when
the roads are at their best, since by
waiting a convenient time they may
not get there at all because of bad
roads. This naturally congests the
market, forcing low prices, to the
great detriment of the producer and
without appreciable benefit to the con-
sumer, because the average family in
town or city buys only in small guam
titles at one time. say days or a
weeks supply. What is the result?
The speculator, finding prices low
and knowing that in little while the
bad roads season will be on, when
competing products will be kept from
the trade centers, buys up the surplus
and stores it away for the day of ne
cessity when he can demand and re-
ceive his own price for his holdings
the stuff for which men toll, which
they are compelled to have at what
ever cost.
And when the citizen in a town-the
mechanic and operative of the shops
and factories is forced in winter and
spring to pay e2orbitant prices for
those articles of household necessity
which went begging for buyers at low
prices the preceding fall he figures the
increased cost of living in comparison
and grows restless and disconnected
and is easily led into strikes and
other labor disturbances that are so
disastrous to the business of the coun-
try and so prolific of other hurtful
consequences. This of course is not
all that enters into strike causes, but
it contributes full share.
The prices of foodstuffs from the
farm would be always at a decent liv-
ing level to all concerned if the coun-
try had Systematically improved
highways over which farmers could
travel to market any day in the year.
These farmers would then realize
better prices for their products than
they now do, at less cost for market
ing and still be able to sell to all
classes of consumers at lower prices
than are forced by spectators in the
bad roads season.
While it is undeniable that the in
f1uence of public schools, the press, the
pulpit and other institutions mark
the progress of civilization, yet all
these are more or less dependent upon
the facilities of intercourse between
the people. Good roads through the
country would do much to relieve the
congestion of population in great
cities, and thus the social fabric
would be strengthened, because rural
life is conducive to the highest moral
standards, whereas in crowded CITY
tenements vice runs riot with it's
malign influence.
Bad roads in the United States
cost the producing people 81, 500, 900
every twenty-four hours. This
drain is fearful. It is deadening the
national life and is national dis
grace. Good roads develop good
people. The wagon roads are the
highways along which civilization
and development move.