The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1914-10-08

pool rapids to be avoided that the on
| ly question left is: What is the thing
to do Simply bring forward bill de-
fining a general system of national
highways. This will give everybody
a chance for his white alley.
| OF course, everybody could not get a
national road. Fifty thousand miles,
if adopted, is only per cent of the
roads of the country, but this per
cent will give every state in the Union
from 2 to roads entirely across the
state and will relieve the state of its
| most expensive road construction.
Apply the national revenues to ma
tional roads only.
If $4,000 miles are built, it will take
only 10 years to construct them if the
| $25,O00,000 is appropriated annually.
| S25, ,000,0 900 is a bagatelle of the annual
appropriations.
France has per cent of her roads
national roads. Can't we build 3 per
cent?
ct is well to remember always,
that every land grant or appropria-
ton made to railroads by congress,
has been sustained by the supreme
| court of the United States on the pre-
cedent established by the government
in building the Cumberland Road.
The advantage of standing for de
fined system, although only tenta-
tive system, is, among others, that it
is not bureaucratic, but democratic in
the best sense.
Each state would have the right to
say where and what roads, constitut-
ing part of such system, should be
taken over to be built and maintained
by the general government. 1t would
preserve and adhere to the well de-
fined limitations of our dual system
of government The nation would exer-
else control only over such roads as
were national and to which the ma
tional revenues were applied, while
the states would be supreme over all
state and local roads.
| cannot close this better than to
quote from the famous message of
President Monroe, as follows:
Good roads will promote many very
important national purposes. They will
facilitate the operations of war, the
movement of troops, the transporta-
ton of cannon, of provisions, and ev-
cry warlike store, much to our ad.
vantage and to the disadvantage of
the enemy in time of war. Good roads
will facilitate the transportation of
mail, and thereby promote the pur-
poses of commerce and political in
telligence among the people. They
will by being properly directed to
these objects enhance the value of our
vacant lands, treasure of vast re-
source to the nation. To the appro-
priation of the public money to i'm.
provements having these objects in
view and carried to a certain extent. |
do not see any well founded con
stitutional objection.
There is another view in |
which these Improvements are of still
more vital Importance. The effect that |
they would have on the bond of union |
itself affords an inducement for them
more powerful than any which have
been urged or than all of them united.
The only danger to which our system
is exposed, arises from its expansion
over a waste territory. Our union is
not held together by standing armies
or by any ties other than the positive
interests and powerful attractions of
its parts toward each other Ambitious
men may hereafter grow up among us
who may promise to themselves ad-
'ancement from a change, and by prac-
ticing upon the sectional interests,
feelings, and prjudices, endeavor upon
various pretexts to promote it. The
history of the world is replete with ex.
amples of this kind-of military com.
nFn- alIa -ns~ go