The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1910-07-06
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'Castle ana Clty BuliuerS-noau-
Makers"
In his recent address upon "The
World Movement" at the University
of Berlin, Theodore Roosevelt an
alyzed in the following striking
phrase the activities of those early
rulers upon whom devolved the task
of laying the foundation for the civil
&ation of Germany as well as West
ern Europe:
"They were castle-builders, city,
founders-road-m makers"
To-day the first two qualifications
have been modified into commercial
and industrial variants.
The last Is absolutely unchanged.
Road-making underlies the sheer
existence, in an intensified degree the
progress, of the entire social fabric Of
our day, as decisively as 1t did the
first faint STRINGS Of civilization in
Western Europe or the splendid struc-
lures reared by the Greeks and the
Romans-still further back, the
Egyptians.
At every stage wherein humanity
has recorded an advancement, wheth-
er in the stone-age or in the twentieth
century, road-making has walked
hand in hand with the trail-blazers,
hand in hand with those that followed
in their steps and amplifed the work
begun by their endeavors.
Europe has not been slow in realiz-
ing and materializing the principle.
The highways of practically every
old-world country are the delight and
the envy of the American tourist,
who watches the swift touring car
glide by the wagon in which the
peasant is transporting his product
to the city market.
That is one radical respect in which
Europe takes precedence of the lusty
and intelligent new world.
The small and large farmer of the
old.countries pays no ruinous tire tax,
no exorbitant tribute to mud and the
god Of delay.
His products, measure for measure,
are worth often twice as much as
those of the American farmer, be-
cause
lie can get them to the buyer, or
to the railroad, at expense beside
which the similar item in America Is
mountainous.
In another direction, also, the good
roads wisdom of Europe has given its
people superiority over America.
With negligible exceptions, the old
world is thickly settled There are
few waste places. Every arabic inch,
fiiguratively speaking, is occupied.
There are few wide, vacant, fertile
areas clamoring vainly for the hoe
and the plow and the reaper.
The reason is elemental. Good
roads Is paramount issue in Europe.
They take it as matter Of course,
as they do the government, or the
coming of Sunday, or the necessity of
buying coal and clothing and food.
Trunk lines bisect Kingdom and
empire, republic and duchy.
Good roads and their building is a
fine science in Europe.
1t has been so since civilization un-
furled its pennants. War, pestilence,
famine, panic have not been allowed
to interfere with its steady main
tenance, for the reason that the peo-
pie and their leaders knew that the
issue was the lifeblood of any people,
any country, any system.
The ripened wisdom of Europe re-
proaches the short-sighted neglect Of
America, and calls to us for revolu-
tionary change.
In America, our forefathers built
staunchly the foundations of civiliza-
tion. Since then we have strengtta
ened each separate stone, but one
Until recently we have ignored
good roads!
To-day, in every American State,
the whole population, farmer and
city man, pay blackmail to mud, to
ruts, to mpassability--to no roads at
all!
We enhance. the cost of living, we
paralyze development, we perpetuate
the waste places and stunt the ma
tional wealth by making highway
construction dependent upon haphaz-
ard and casual practices, rather than
upon systematic, generous and con-
tinual appropriation and methods.
In Georgia, we have recorded an
awakening. But We are yet long
way, here and throughout the Nation,
from what that mature philosophy
which gives stability to the civiliza-
tion of Europe and which rebukes our
own boasted supremacy.-Atlanta
Constitution.