The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1906-01-27
THE NATIONAL AID QUESTION.


1t Is very gratifying to note thatbu few of
ment for national aid to good roads. Such re-
markable unanimity Of sentiment in the press
is clear showing Of popular feeling concern.
ing the measure. We all know, of course,
that the $4,000 600 sought to be appropriated
by the Brownlow- Latimer bills, to be expended
at 81, 900 900 year, will not more than start
the work of bodybuilding. The purpose is to
stimulate road improvement by furnishing
object lessons to the states and to aid the states
where they are willing to aid themselves.
1t is an accomplished fact that the building
of railroads by Government aid stimulated the
building of other railroads without Govern
ment aid, and so it would be in the matter of
the wagon roads. The building of railroads
has made it possible for the products of labor
of every sort to be hauled to the points of con-
sumption at the least cost and greatest profit.
The railroads have also opened up new Sec
tons and made possible our marvellous devel-
opment, and thus the Government has bene-
flied thousand fold for all the aid it extended.
When we have the same wise policy adopted
as to the highways the result will be still more
wonderful, and the country will go on to the
full fruition of American hopes.
And this is what is coming. The statesman
of today must certainly know that national
aid to highway improvement is a fixed GER
tainty of the near future. Public sentiment
in republic like ours does not sleep nor stand
still. The world is progressing; it is pro-
gressive age we are living in. The men who
hew the wood and carry the water to sustain
national life will not always bear burdens that
are unreasonable. There is nothing more
than the imposition Of all the expense of road
building and maintenance on the farming
classes when the benefits to flow from good
roads are to go into every household, work.
shop, mandatory, banking house and mer-
camille establishment in the United States and
our Territories. He will be wise who notes
these things and gets on the car of progress.
National cid to highway improvement is
demand of the people growing out of condi-
tions that are intolerable. No other civilized
country under the sun has failed in building
good roads. The people of this country pay a
penalty for bad roads that is grievous in the
extreme. The way to relief is through the en-
actment into law of the good roads bills now
before Congress. 1t is not necessary to tell
Senators and Representatives that the country
needs this legislation; they every one know it,
NO matter what states or districts they repre-
sent. But we may tell them that the demand
for it is growing every day and that the day is
close by when the proposition must be acceded
to. 1t is too stupendous in its importance to
be Hippsntly treated by the law-making body
of the land it cannot be cried down by jest
or special pleading. Nothing less than its en-
actment into law will be justice to those who
sustain the Government.
We are authorized to say that Representa-
tive Brownies will send copy of his bill and
other good roads literature to any one who
writes to him at Washington for it, A postal
card request to either of our U. 8. Senators
win bring copy of Senate Document No. 2O4,
5Sth Congress, I'd Session.