The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1910-07-21

of every city, county anad State are
invited to send delegates. Agricul-
tural, automobile, commercial, edu-
cational, good roads, industrial, la
Dor, transportation and women's Or
CARNATIONS are urged to send rep
resentatives. This meeting should be
largely attended and Vermont should
be well represented.
The Republican State platform
plainly declares Its belief that Yer
mont has no more urgent material
need than the development of a sys-
TEN of first class inter-urban high
ways"
In recent speech in Congress,
Hon. William Sulzer, of New York,
said:
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 re-
ducing the cost of transportation it
would enable the farmer to market
his produce at lower price and at a
larger profit at the same time. 1t
would bring communities closer to-
gether and in touch with the centers
rof population, thereby facilitating the
commerce of ideas as well as of ma
Iterial products.
when the agricultural production
alone of the United States for the
past eleven years totals $4,000, 000,-
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 Ameri-
can and European markets, and
when the saving in cost of moving this
product of agriculture over good
| highways instead of bad would have
built a million miles of good roads,
! the incalculable waste of bad roads
in this country is shown to be of such
enormous proportions as to demand
immediate reformation and the wis
TEST and best craftsmanship; but great
as is the loss to transportation, mer-
camille, industrial, and farming inter
ests, incomparably greater is the ma
Iterial loss to the women and children
and the social life, a matter as i'm
Iportant as civilization itself. The
truth of the declaration of Charles
Sumner fifty years ago, that the
| two greatest forces for the advance
ment of civilization are the school
master and good roads, is emphasized
/ by the experience of the intervening
Years and points to the wisdom of a
union of the educational, CONNER
cial, transportation, and industrial
interests of our country in aggressive
action for permanent good roads"
| This presentation of facts is very
/ impressive as it points out what bad
roads are costing the American peo-
pie. We are inclined to look at the
immediate outlay which the construc-
ton of permanent highways would
necessitate and tell ourselves we
cannot afford the outlay. We do not
! look ahead to see the great saving
which We would effect by means of
good roads.
1t is said that Hon. James A. Enl.
erson plans to introduce at the next
session of the New York Legislature
a bill appropriating the sum of ST.
! 100000 which shall be used for the
building of stretches of State road be-
tween Mechanicville and Round Lake.
the Adirondacks and their foothills.
The whole when completed will con-
stitute a fine macadam automobile
trunk line, extending through a coun-
try rare in scenic beauty. Senator
Emerson says there are only three
principal stretches of road to be
built to complete this magnificent Ad-
irondack highway. Coming from AL
bany the first such stretch encoun-
tered is that of about six miles be-
tween Mechanicville and Round Lake.
North of that there is another bad
stretch about eighteen miles between
Lake George village and Chester
town. The principal amount of work
to be done under Senator Emerson 8
plan is upon the third stretch of poor
road extending through the noun
tains distance of siXty-four miles
from Schroon Lake to Ausable Forks.
At Ausable Forks connection would
be made with the fine State road eX-
tending north to Mooers, within a few
miles of the Canadian line.
1t ought not to be considered i'm
possible for Vermont to build trunk
line on each side of the Green Noun
tains, with three or four connecting
links. We need such roads, and need
them now.
| 1t is to be hoped that our law
makers this fall will give very care
full attention to the subject of good
roads.