The weekly chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Craig County, Okla.) 1905-1913, 1911-03-03

t. II is your money, and in the hands
Il the committee that you select your
elves to carry out this proposition
Now, believe that l have stated all
If the details, and will be glad to an
swer anw questions that you hay ask
ne, but before coming to that, | want
10 say that in no one hour or no one
day will you inbibe the full meaning
0 fthis proposition. What it means
is a graded highway, macadamized,
hard road bed, over which will pour
thousands of people; tens of thou
sands of people will travel over it TO
the Ozark mountains too see that coun-
try and to enjoy it's climate. Over the
four roads centering here, thousands,
tends of thousands, in time, will come
to Vinita 70 trade.
This is the day of motor power, and
automobiles are becoming the estab-
lished method of transportation over
roads, and this highway made with
its turnpikes leading into it from Okla
homa and from Kansas City and Jop-
lin, will give you an opportunity to
realize more upon your investments
and bring here more population than
any other one thing that could be done,
not excepting even a trunk railroad.
Improved motor power is now being
applied to cars, now in use in the cities
by which passenger cars are carry
ing over the streets and roads as many
as 80 and 40 passengers to a car, also
freight motor cars hauling as much
as 20 tons. Inventions are being made
increasing the power of these cars
and reducing them by one-half in ex-
pense, gasoline is being cheapened by
the discovery of making it out of nat
ural gas. We must be far seeing and
looking forward to the future, we may
expect to see upon this highway, that
we propose to build, auto passenger
cars carrying as many as forty pas
sengers and freight cars carrying as
much as 20 tons of freight with pas
senger and freight rates as cheap, and
in competition with the railroads. The
freight cars will have wide tired rims
on their heels as wide as 10 and -
inches, that will serve, in a way, the
same purpose as a steam roller, max
ing the road bed smoother and harder.
We are establishing nothing to exceed
per cent grade. l have fought for
grade and am going to maintain it.
We are now right up to the period
where the adoption of motor power to
all classes of road vehicles is being
made, and the motor car for the trans
portation of passengers and freight
will soon be with US. Thus this great
highway will not only serve our pur-
pose for wagons and all classes of
vehicles, in all conditions of weather,
but also will give us what is betteSu
than another railroad or an interur-
ban line, highway and a motor line,
free to all. Congress has spent mil
lions of dollars on rivers on the econ
omic theory that slow, plodding, steam
ers may carry passengers and freight,
with the river channel free to all own
ers of steamboats, and a monopoly to
no one. In the building of this high
way, considering the new order of
things, we are making free highway,
with monopoly to no one, over which
the improved method of transporta-
tion may quickly transport both pas
sengers and freight, highway wide
enough for vehicles to pass each other
and be 20 to 80 feet apart.
want to say for the benefit of the
farmers, that experience demonstrates,
and is true in the cities and highways
around the cities where motor cars are
used, that the animals become used
to them, and pass right along by them
without paying any attention to them
Experience teaches this to be true.
The horse is an intelligent animal,
next to man for intelligence and soon
gets use to the motor car I elso want
to say that if this Great White Way
is to bring tens of thousands of peo-
pie among us. as it will do, If the farm
ers have any fear that their teams
will scare when they meet these cars.
that there is along this whole route
parallel roads. not more than a mile
away, and in many instances only half
a mile, over which they can travel, and.
/ want to ask them to look broadly y
on this proposition, because it is a
mightier enterprise than anything that
has been proposed for our well fare
and advancement. The building of
this turnpike will bring a new era in
respect to the making of roads, be-
cause our people looking at it and
seeing its advantages are not going to
be satisfied until more roads are made.
So, If the farmer thinks his team will
scare, upon this great highway. he