Charlevoix county herald., 1915-08-21
GOOD ROADS DEPARTMENT
CONDUCTED BY
Michigan State
Good Roads Association
r. 7. Colgrove, President. Hastings, Michigan
r1ain Market Roads
CONTINUED from last week.

Continued from last week)
Very early, the statesmen of this
wonderful city have learned, what
they believe to be the great lesson in
road building, that am undertaking
to develop and make clear. They have
taken the inverse of the proposition
for selfish purposes showing clearly
they understand the principle. Some
OF their statesmen quite agree with
the Grange that Farm to Market
Roads" are enough. Having COM
pleted the most marvellous system of
cement roads in the world, they sub
scribe to the doctrine, at least some of
their representatives in the state leg
lslature believe that farm to market
roads are all that we require and that
these roads should be built by the
farmers themselves if they desire an
outlet to their nearest market. Some
of the statesmen from Wayne County
are quite opposed to the State contri-
buting to build the great thorough
fares which have been misnamed
trunk lines. want to say here that
| am not in sympathy with those who
named these roads, "Trunk Line
Roads,"
They are nothing more or less than
main market roads, calculated to take
of ha l. IF
transport and make it possible for
communities to get in touch with one
another at any hour of the day or
night, releasing them from iron bound
lines and time schedules. This is all
the trunk lines were ever intended to
be and careful study Of the bill and
of the roads as laid out must satisfy
us that they are nothing more or less
than main market roads.
Wayne County is opposed to being
taxed for this kind of roads, although
they are in fact but mere market
roads; roads that start somewhere
and go somewhere; roads that stand
for and mean the industrial upbuild-
ing of the small towns and rural COM
munities. They are system of high
ways calculated to open up every Sec
ton of our state and to turn back
the stream Of wealth and population
to the rural districts and make the
small town stand for something as an
industrial and social center. This is
the real opposition to the Trunk Line
Roads. If indeed, the people of the
rural districts are satisfied, or can be
satisfied that this system of great
m1n market roads called Trunk
Lines" shall be able to turn back to
the rural districts the tide that is
sweeping to the great commercial CEN
ters, am confident that so great and
forceful an organization as the State
Grange would hardly be opposed to
the construction and maintenance of
this class of highways.
Let us be truly great and generous
in this nationwide onward move, to
build up our highways. In my judg-
,ment, the sooner we get away from
the present system of local road build
ing now in use in thirty counties in
Michigan, the better it will be for US.
Think of this old system of local road
building, that we inherited from the
English Common Law at a time
when England was but hermit ma
ton, with more than three-fourths Of
her land but forest, think l say Of
America with all of her boosted adj
vance and progress clinging to a sys-
tenn that we inherited from the mother
country and clinging to it for fifty
years after the mother country has