The Clarksburg telegram. [volume] (Clarksburg, W. Va.) 1874-1926, 1908-04-30
Good Roads and Good Times.

-
Under the above caption the Sat
urday Evening Post publishes a
splendid article by Howard H.
Gross, of Chicago, secretary OF the
Farmers Good Roads League OF IL
linois. Mr.. Gross's introduction is
out of the ordinary. but few here
abouts having considered 1t in that
light but true 1t is nevertheless. The
Telegram quotes Mr.. Gross:
The schoolmaster and good roads
are the most important agencies to
advance civilization declared the
great Sumner, decades ago, in the
United States Senate. The school
master has done his work 80 well
that his figure seems almost to fill
the American horizon. But the good
roads are most conspicuous by their
absence.
THE common highways of our
country are the veins of commence
and civilized intercourse, as the rail-
roads are, the arteries. The greatest
need in this country today for its
larger social, educational and eco
nomic development is good roads.
1T outranks any other consideration
except sound money and maintaining
the public credit. believe it is
vastly more important to the people
than the Panama Canal, the irriga-
tion of the semi-arid lands of the
West, or the Lakes-to-the-Gulfw water
way, essential as are these great en-
terprises. The worlds food supply
passes on wagons over country roads
that tells the story In a sentence.
Any interruption of traffic upon our
roads affects market conditions, re-
sulting in an erratic and irregular de-
livery to meet constant and uniform
demand. The fact is that for
hundred years the products of the
farm have been sold more upon the
conditions of the roads than upon the
requirements of the market.
1.-THE people now expect, with each
recurring autumn, a money stringen-
cy more or less acute. The enorm-
GUS amount of currency required to
move the crops. amounting to over
hundred and fifty: million dollars,
comes all in a heap. upsets business
conditions. demoralizes trade, adj
vances interest rates and makes
money tight.
1.-THE late financial unpleasantness,
the memory of which will linger with
us for some time, certainly was large
ly due to feverish activity to move
the crops to market before the sea-
son of bad roads set In. This made
violent drain upon the money CEN
tiers for the, currency necessary to
finance this great transaction.
With ninety-two per cent. of all
the highways of the country unim-
proved, practically the entire crop is
more or less subject to the vicissi-
tudes of road conditions. 1t does
not seem to matter that only small
part of the crop is needed for i'm
mediate use; to move 1t to market is
immediate and imperative. The at
tempt to do in two or three months
what should extend over three times
that period works always mischief,
waste and sometimes disaster.
ut is impossible for the railways
to furnish the equipment to meet the
>excessive demand made upon them
at these times; confusion and disor-
der follow. The wires from hund-
red stations on the system are hot
with messages calling for cars that
cannot be had. AS the trough of the
wave succeeds the crest, so in few
weeks much of the car equipment
that had been so urgently in demand
stands idle on the storage tracks,"
Z. go City Committees.