The St. Lucie County tribune. (Fort Pierce, St. Lucie County, Fla.) 1905-1920, 1910-07-22
ADVANTAGE OF
GOOD ROADS
Speech Made by Congressman
SuIzner in Last Days of Session
GREAT AS DEVELOPERS
Good Roads Mean Progress and Pros
perity-They Enchance Value of Farm
Lands and Add Wealth 10 Producers

The following speech by Congress-
man Sulzner, was delivered during the
closing days of the last congress. and
contains unanswerable argument in fav-
or of good roads building:
One of the greatest and most import
ant conventions ever held in this coun-
try will be the Third National Good
Roads Congress, which has been called
by the National Good Roads Associa-
ton to meet at Niagara Falls, NJ Y,
July %, 20 and 80, 1910. The appoint
ment of delegates is invited by the
officials of every State, county, and city
of the United States, and by every
agricultural, automobile, commercial,
educational, good roads, industrial, labor,
transportation, and woman's Organiza-
ton in such number as each may deter
mine.
For years, have been an earnest ad-
vocate of postal savings, parcels posts,
and good road building. They are sure
to come, and | shall briefly discuss
some of their advantages. Good roads
mean progress and prosperity, benefit
to the people who live in the cities, an
advantage to the people who live in the
country, and it will help every section
of our vast domain. Good roads, like
good streets, make habitatlon along
them most desirable; they enhance the
value of farm lands, facilitate transpor
tation, and add untold wealth to the
producers and consumers of the country
they are the milestones marking the
advance of civilization; they economize
time, give labor lift, and make mil
lions in money; they save wear and
tear and worry and waste, they beauti-
fly the CONTRIBUTING it in touch with
the city; they aid the social and the
religious and the educational and the
educational and the industrial progress
of the people; they make better homes
and happier hearthsides; they are the
avenues of trade, the highways of COM
merce, the mail routes of information,
and the agencies of speedy commune
cation; they mean the economical trans
portation of marketable produce-the
maximum burden at the minimum cost;
they are the ligaments that binds the
country together in thrift and industry
and intelligence and patriotism, they
promote social intercourse, prevent in
telectual stagnatiOn, and increase the
happiness and the prosperity of our
producing masses; they contribute to
the glory of the country. give employ
ment to our idle workmen, distribute
the necessaries Of life-the products of
the fields and the forests and the fact
ries-encourage energy and husbandry
inculcate love of our scenic wonders,
and make mankind better and broader
and greater and grander.
The plain people of the land are
familiar with the trnths of history.
They know the past. They realize that
often the differen lie between good roads
and bad roads is the difference between
profit and loss. Good roads have a
money value far beyond our ordinary
greatest drawback to inernal develop
ment and material progress. Good
roads mean prosperous farmers; bad
roads mean abandoned farms, sparsely
settled country districts, and congested
populated cities, where the poor are
destined to become poorer. Good roads
mean more cultivated farms and cheap
er food products for the tolers in the
towns; bad roads mean poor ,ranspor-
tation, lack of communication, high
prices for the necessarles of lire, the
loss of untold millions of wealth, and
idle workmen seeking employment.
Good roads will help those who cult
vate the soil and feed the multitude,
and whatever aids the producers and
the farmers of our country will increase
our wealth and our greatness and bene-
fit all the people. We cannot destroy
our farms with final decay. They are
to-day the heart of our national life
and the chief source of our material
greatness. Tear down every edifice in
our cities and labor will rebuild them,
but abandon the farms and our cities
will disappear forever.
One of the crying needs in this cOun-
try, especially in the south and west,
is good roads. The establishment of
good roads would in great measure
solve the question of the high price of
food and the increasing cost of living.
BY reducing the cost of transportation
it would enable the farmer to market
his product at a lower price and at
larger profit at the same time. 1t
would bring communities closer tOgeth-
er and in touch with the centers Of
population, thereby facilitating the
commerce of ideas as well as of mater
ial products.
When the agricultural production
alone of the United States for the past
eleven years totals $40, 900. 600, 900
sum to stagger the imagination, and it
cost more to take this product from the
farm to the railway station than from
such station to the American and Eu-
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