The Robesonian. [volume] (Lumberton, N.C.) 1870-current, 1909-02-25
THE PRESIDENT ON ROADS.
Difference Between Barbarism
and Civilization Is That Be-
tweer. Good and Bad Roads.

In response to a request,
made by The Richmond Times
Dispatch for his views on the
Importance to the country of
good roads, President Theodore
Roosevelt sent the following
statement:
When we wish to use de-
scriptive terms fit to characterize
great empires and the men who
made those empires great, in
variably one of the terms used is
to signify that empire built
good roads. The faculty, the
art, the habit of bodybuilding
marks in a nation those solid,
stable qualities which tell for
permanent greatness. Merely
from the standpoint of historic
analogy we should have a right
to ask this people which has tam
ed a continent, which has built
up a country with a continent
for it's base, which boasts itself,
with truth, as the mightiest re-
public that the world has ever
seen, which | firmly believe will
in this century rise to a position
of headship and leadership such
as no other nation has ever yet
attained-merely from historic
analogy, | say, we should have a
right to demand that such a ma
ton build good roads. Much
more have we the right to de-
mand it from the practical stand
point. The great difference be-
tween the semi-barbarism of the
Middle Ages and the civilization
which succeeded it was the differ
ence between poor and good
means of communication.
1T is a fine thing to see our
cities built up, but not at the ex-
pense of the country districts.
The healthy thing to see is the
building up of both the country
and the city go hand in hand.
But we cannot expect the ablest,
the most eager, the most ambi-
tlous young men to stay in the
country, to stay on the farm,
unless they have certain advan-
tages. If the farm life is a life
of isolation, a life in which it is
a matter of great and real diff
Guilty for one man to communi-
cate with his neighbor, you can
rest assured that there will be a
tendency to leave it on the part
Of those very people whom we
should most wish to see stay in
it. 1t is a good thing to en-
courage in every way any ten
dency which will tend to check
an unhealthy flow from the
country to the city. There are
several such tendencies in evil
dence at present.
But no one thing can do more
to offset the tendency toward an
unhealthy growth from the coun-
try into the city than the making
and keeping of good roads. They
are needed for the sake of their
effect upon the industrial condi-
tons in the country districts; and
| am almost tempted to say they
are needed for the sake of social
conditions in the country dis
tricts. If winter means to the
average farmer the existence of
a long line of liquid morasses
through which he is to move his
goods if bent on business, or to
wade and swim if bent on pleas
ure; if winter means that after
an ordinary rain the farmer boy
or girl cannot use his or her
bicycle; if a little heavy weather
means the stoppage of all com
munication not only with indus
trial centres, but with the neigh
bors, you must expect that there
will be great many young peo-
pie Of both sexes who will not
find farm life attractive.
1T is for this reason that
feel the work you are doing is
so pre-eminently one in the in
terest of the nation as a whole.
l congratulate you upon the fact
that you are doing it,