Pioneer press. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1882-19??, 1914-10-31

EVERY phase or the road question is
discussed and broadly covered De
tails Of expenditures that are being
made by the sixteen Southern states
show that the South is now annual
ly putting out over $50 100000 in the
building and maintenance of roads
without counting its expenditures on
street improvements in towns and
cities. The work that is being done
If. every state is covered by letters
from the governors or from the high
way commissioners or other authori-
ties who are handling the road qucs-
ton in the various states. Experts
discuss various road building mater
ials, including sand-clay, brick, ce-
ment, macadam and all other phases
OF road work.
In the opening editorial outlining
its reasons for the work which it has
been doing for years in behalf of
good roads the Manufacturers Rec
ord says:
Reader! Are you a road engineer,
road builder, a road supervisor, or
are you a county or town official
charged with responsibilities of road
and street building or maintenance?
Are you maker or a seller Of road
machinery, or road building equip
ment, or are you, as taxpayer, en-
couraging the building Of good roads?
II to any Of these questions you
can answer, I am, then rejoice that
you are numbered among those whose
work is more than material in it's
scope. Perchance you think only Of
the material side Of it. If so, look
to the higher side and idealize your
work as part Of a great campaign for
human Advancement; a campaign for
extending the highest benefits Of civ
ilization, and the moral, religious and
educational life Of a nation. Yours is
more than business. 1t is a voca-
ton, calling that should in it's wide
scope include In your thought the
idealism Of the work as well as the
routine Of the business
It Is difficult to measure the good
accomplished by the building of good
roads or to catalogue their advan-
tages. 1t is equally difficult to enum-
crate the disadvantages which neces-
sarily inure to bad roads. The good
road opens to the country and to the
city possibilities for larger business
and for the larger profits on the
business done. 1t increases the
value Of al adjacent land; but it does
farming or of business carried on or
these adjacent lands. The farmer
who lives on mud road is hampered
in summer and in winter. The bur
den Of hauling to and from the farm
the freight rate that he pays the rail
roads. If one-tenth Of the energy
that has been expended in the last
ten years in trying to regulate rail
roads and reduce freight rates had
been given to the betterment Of the
highways Of the country, infinitely
larger results would have been
achieved for the good of everybody.
The railroad freight rate is a small
item to the farmer as compared with
that heavy burden he bears when
he hauls the product Of his farm
over a mud road. or brings back to
the farm the various things-Whcther
they be dry-goods, or groceries, or
lumber-that he buys in the neighbor-
ing town or. city Not only is his
ability to do business to profit les
sened by bad roads and broadened
by good roads, but In the former case
his family is shut up for much of the
year an reprieved Of the advantages
of social and educational life; while
the man who lives on good ROAD
L. 80