The Logan Republican. [volume] (Logan, Utah) 1902-1924, 1913-02-27
ROAD BUILDING
By Samuel Hill

nineteen hundred ten, only twent
can we maintain our form of govern
ment? By putting people on the Ian
and keeping them there. To do thi
we must furnish them first, goo
roads; second, good telephone sci
vice; third, food rural free deliver
of mall fourth, good schools fiftf
market for farm products.
The freight rate begins at the farm
house door. The Oregon and Wash
ington country is famed, and just!
so for its fruit. If the fruit be bruls
ed in passing over four or five mile!
of bad roads before 1t reaches Tho
market, it may change the qaulity
from first grade to fourth grade, YET
the ultimate market for which II
was intended may have been London
Paris or Vladivoistok.
Economically no country Is so ex'
travagant as America. We have had
in no sense a distinctly constructive
policy. The United States has never
been operated as a business corpor-
alton. We should ask ourselves, what
can We make out Of our farms; what
can we make out of our cotton crop,
our corn crop, our wheat crop, or our
fruit crop. We have grown to be a
great nation almost in spite OF our
selves, but we have left too much to
the hired man, and the hired man has
not always run the farm to the best
advantage. BY the hired man.
mean the representatives of the PEG
pie who have been sent to frame
laws under which We can do bust
ness and develop the country. He
has not been a trained man in city,
county, state or nation building.
There are few simple rules which
We have ignored. We want the best
operated government, and We still
have within our borders people who
believe as / do, that We have the
best form OF government
The real object of nation should
be not to be rich, but to make the
best quality OF citizenship. To attain
this end We must so shape things
that each person will have a definite
interest in the country. The great
conservative force in America mas
er has always proven himself equal
to the emergency. At the Battle of
Gettysburg the First Regiment of
Minnesota, the majority of whom
were farmers, showed what they
could do, and that regiment still
holds the worlds record in fighting
having lost eighty.three per cent in
killed or wounded in the first thirty.
five minutes
The great cities always recruit
their strong men from the land.
There is no exception to this rule.
transportation Costs
Having enumerated what believe
the requisites to solve the most i'm.
portant question before the American
people today, 1t seems we'll to elab-
crate and show how the farmers
transportation to market can be
improved. The United States leads
the world in its low cost OF steam
transportation, three quarters Of one
cent per ton per mile having been
for many years about the average
cost Of moving ton, of the dailways
in America.
No one knows just what it costs
in America to move u ton one mile
on the highways We do know that
1t costs more than thirty cents. We
do know that the Central European
countries move their tonnage for ten
cents or less per ton per mile; so
We see that the farmer is handicap.
ped by bad wagon haul freight
rate Of twenty cents per ton per mile
in his competition with his European
brother. How can we obviate or les.
sen this unnecessary cost? Only by
building improved highways. The
University of Washington at Seattle
established the first chair devoted ex.
clusively to road building in the Uni.
ted States, and built the first build.
ing ever marked Good Roads" in the
history of the world.
The time will come when the
money spent and to be spent for
roads will be just as sacredly regard.
ed as the school fund Is regarded
Some day the people will realize
that these funds are not intended as
nucleus to form political organiza.
lions and as sum TO be spent in
maintaining and in furthering per-
sonal political schemes. The one
great thing today in America is edu-
cation, and then more education. I
do not mean that all tbasa man y,b,,