The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-12-13

It has been known forever that no new thing at it's first appearance comes to us ir it's final form. The auto Is Il years old. In 10 years more it will reach it's ma turity. When it reaches 21 years it will have ceased to wear its infantile clothes of inflated tires, shock absorbers, etc; it will have ceased it's hopping around over the horse read like some grotesque figure and have got down to work. The auto produced various impressions on the pub lie mind. Some people say the machine is a devil and never ought to be allowed out of a subway built for its exclusive use. The motor during it's Il years of ex- istence certainly has had wider exper- ieLces than any one other inanimate thing that has ever raised itself above the hor- izon of humanity. In a mail which has covered all cur states, territories and islands and most foreign countries, we have had most of the requests sent us for ir formation asking us about road which shoul1 be 100 feet wide and never anything about a road less than 40 feet in width This may seem strange and uncalled for, but it is not as strange and , unreasonable, or anything like as, well, as like an impossibility, as the other request, which always went with it, for light sprinkle, or facing of something although they all knew that the motor was a heavier affair than the horse and wagon. When I came to analyze this re- | quest the first result l arrived at was that they had had to give so much for the auto that they hadn't anything left to pay for the road, and that clearly l wasn't the Case either, for the rail car costs more than the motor, and yet people 1 build railroads. But right here I struck l the truth. People conceived of the auto as toy the railroad as business. We have arrived now at the business stage of the auto, and it's road is in sight. Now | let me give you some straight facts. Every highway in existence is a horse road like Poe's Croaking of the Raven, That and nothing more"
 But what must the motor road be?
 Right nere again you get it.
 The railway is the highway. The high | way is the railway; one the wholesale, the other the retail department Both must
 
 have an elastic base. Both must have one standard form to connect every house ir the land with competent transportation.
 New York Herald, November 29. 1908 "A congress of roadmakers An interna- tional road congress was held in Paris from October Il to October IS last with ar attendance from all the principal coun- tries in the world, including the United States" One point that was brought out clearly was the community of interest be- tween road-huilders and road-users The vehicle that wears out the road quickly also wears itself out quickly, for the re- action of the road on the vehicle is exact ly equal to the action of the vehicle or the road. One thing seems certain, oul machnists are more radical and progress | sve than our road engineers, and the lat ter must adopt different methods if they are to adapt themselves and their worf to the changed conditions of traffic. The motor car has come to stay, and we mus build solid, Gustess roads to fit 1t. IT | Warren county, New Jersey Is some ol the cheap iand of the east with this pc l culiar feature that the wealthy summer residents of Stroudsberg, the Delaware ] Water Gap and Haclketts Town traVe over it, as a connectiok between these places. They have autos 0f the largest and heaviest sizes made, and many ol :, them These roads, many of them, nave ! not even ditches at the sides, put are only streaks of wirt between two sldes Of grass. These roads run from eight reel three inchas to 10 or 12 feet wide. Ihere are in various places continuous roads