Weekly journal-miner., 1915-10-20
BRILLIANT ADDRESS AT
 GOOD ROADS CONVENTION
(From Wednesdays Daily)

was delivered by Dr. Percival R. Lowell, head of the Lowell observa- tory. and evoked much laudatory comment because Of its literary merit. The speech, in part, was as follows:
 Nothing. perhaps. is more distinc- tive of civilization than good roads and nothing that speaks better for their builders down the corridors Of time. Among the most enduring monuments of the great empires oi the past are the highways those em- pires have left behind them, eXtant still long after the empires themsel- yes had crumbled into dust. One may yet drive along the pikes the Romans constructed, though it is two milleniums since their skilled en- eineers laid them down. By their length and continuity they tell him more articulately than temples, col iseum or forum of the world con quest their builders had achieved. Far off into Britain the network stretched binding the remotest parts of the colossal Latin domain to the throbbing center of its political life. Like a spiders web each thread re ported any stir along it and the news spread at once to Rome.
 Modern civilization. in its turn, has recognized the all-impOrtance ot roads. The French, those masters in the art of living. have raised road building to the dignity of a separate branch of their engineering work.
 Think. too, how they thus prolong life. For ones life Is measured not by time alone but by the number of sensations one can crowd into it.
 Now though we might praise the making of good roads from many points Of view. there are two aspects of the subject so fundamental that we shall do well to consider them specl- fcally. The one concerns us as in dividuals; the other affects our. na- tional life.
 From the individuals standpoint good roads were never so universally appealing as the, are today. Within the last ten years has come about revolution in the use Of roads, which the boldest fortune-teller would not have dared divine Had some one predicted decade ago that what was then the mere luxury of the very rich would now be the everyday indis- Densable of everybody, he would have been derided as a visionary. Yet. what do we see? We hardly see the road for the automobiles.
 While q car costing small fortune most of which went into the ca pacious and extendable pockets Of some of the eastern demonstrators was to be had only by the wealthy, It played no part in economies, and was viewed by most people as dan gerous animal let loose in the steets. Its claws were clipped by special reg ulations so ridiculously conceived as to cause private discomfort, without attaining public security.
 Then a change set in. It was found possible by curtailing the afore- said eastern agents profits from mil lionarism to affluence and greatly in creasing production. to bring the price within the orasp of the many. Now every farmer must have one. The very face of the earth has changed within the memory of boys still l1v- ing-as such.
 With the attenuation in the means of locomotion has come the need for better roads. What a long suffering ambiatory public will put up with in discomfort when its speed is eight miles an hour becomes unendurable when that speed rises to thirty. Bumps increase in incalculable ratio What did very well for Dobbin. will not do for an Overland. And the many are now of this mind. The thing painfully affects their persons, and few judiciou5 jolts convince the most penuriously hardened of the advisability of alleviation.
 Thus on the score of the individ- ual alone good roads from being a rather despised luxury have become crying need.
 The second point I wish to make concerns their national importance. A country IS great, not in proportion to its area only nor to the number Of its inhabitants, but according as they are knit into a united whole. Good foreigners we have justly welcomed, whatever their previous nationality, but dual allegiance will not dO Who- ever comes must come to be an Am crican only We have just been fur nishcd a startling object lesson of the effect Of our lack of foresight and consequent cohesion due to our own fatuity and -goingness. For years we have opened wide our doors to the ruck and rabble of the old world. All those whom Europe wished to get rid of, or who wished to be rid of Europe have been dumped at our Ellis Island gates. With simple hos pitalitv we have welcomed this most undesirable element and with fatuous faith in our principles have even ad- mitted it 10 our national councils. We have warmed this import into action at the first opportunity the viper has turned and stung.
 It is time, more than time, this spoliation. leading to the eventual de struction of our country, were stopped. Our immigration laws must be changed, and the hostile portion Of our alien contingent must be pre- vented from ruling our property and persons. Unless this be done and done quickly America will no longer be ours.
 Soon it will be too late For the worst is yet to come. The instant the world war is over our land will be flooded with the dregs of Eur