The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1913-12-05
THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY"


| To the Editor Ocala Banner:
| From coast to coast, one night re-
Gently there were celebrations by
/ bonfires, speeches and jubilation and
wassail, the location of a new road
road wherein, when it is finished,
a man with his family may travel in
/ his own vehicle from Atlantic to Pa
cific, and back again, with conven-
fence, comfort, security and speed.
How many of the celebrators,
wonder, will realize that this project
to which they are giving their sup
port is but the beginning of an
achievement that will be larger and
more wonderful, more beneficent in
| its results an hundred times over,
than the Panama canal itself?
The steam railroads have held back
! permanent road making in the United
States for almost a century They
must needs come first in this land OF
magnificent distances. But, now, at
last, the permanent public highways
are to follow them, and they are des-
tined to do as much as, perhaps more
! than any other single influence to
deepen and widen the blessings of
our civilizataion Though in some
sections of the south, and in most
portions of the Atlantic seaboard
states, there are already turn pixies
and made roads" but the Lincoln
highway marks the real beginning
of a great national movement that
shall ultimately knit together, not
alone all the states, but all the coun-
ties and towns of all the states.
Good roads are the very foundation
stones of civilization. 1t was the
great highways running into Babylon
that helped make Babylon great. The
Carthagenians, masters of commerce,
and made mighty by it, were system
attic makers of costly and permanent
roads. The greatest material
achievement of imperial Rome con-
sisted of her roads, and parts of the
! famed Appian way still remain and
are used for the purpose to which
they were originally dedicated.
| made a motor trip from Brindezi,
Italy, to Rome, over the Appian way
few years ago, and found it in
a splendid state of preservation, after
withstanding the constant stream of
travel for so many centuries. The
stone and Macadam roads of France
and England, constantly in the course
century, and earlier, did their full
share to give unity, solidarity, order,
security and prosperity to those great
nations.
In the United States, because we
are yet an infant in the family of ma
tons, we developed the big things
first. We have built the steam rail
roads, and without them our nation
might and development would have
been an impossibility. But the great
free public highways, and their net
work of feeders, open to the free use
of the public, are yet to be developed.
With the new problems confronting
our civilization, they are as necessary
as the railroads themselves. They
are needed to bring the country and
fn0nfhnr RI CrQ
tensive farming, to stimulate loca.
markets, to inspire local spirit, to
create communities that will be suffi
cient unto themselves by bringing raw
material and factory into juxtaposi
ton. Their social and political ben
efits will be on a par with their eco
nomic advantages.
| This Lincoln highway" is the be-
ginning-large as it is, small begin
ming. There will be other highways,
from east to west, and from north to
south-a great many of them. From
the important centers they will ra-
date in all directions. They will be
criss-crossed and connected by
feeders" The smaller the political
unit to which the system is applied
| the greater will be the immediate
and local benefit.
Eventually there will be no school
district, no single farm, remote from
, civilization. They will be parts of
one great whole, and along these ar
teries will pulsate the life-blood of the
nation, carrying the foods of the
farms, the factories, the shops, the
gardens; of literature, the arts and
sciences; of progress and invention
and inspiration, to every part alike.