The Prescott daily news., 1917-11-07
ID WE NEED
 GOOD ROADS?
Why Bobby, Answering the Lure of Travel, Climbed a Tree to View Distant Lands in the Next Lot.

S1 lands beyond the hill, he unconscious ly answered the call of the road. He wanted to travel. Later, the lure of ! the road still pulling, he salIied forth like valiant knight of old, riding a 1 stick horse, made a gallant dash of | many leagues across the pasture, took { mental notes on the new land. put the | lash to his steed, and was back at the | kitchen door in time for supper, travel | worn, and hungry. He tracked up the kitchen with his muddy boots and got spanked, and thereby learned his l first lesson on the advantages of trav- cling on a good road.
 Not every one of course is interest ed in Bobby and his earlier travels, | but we thought that perhaps you might be interested, so we have used | in an illustrative way, this incident from little boys life-an incident which you can match in your own | life-to lure you on to reading the answer to the question::
 Do we need good roads? ?"
 It should be unnecessary to ask question like this in any community in the United States today. We should be so far ahead of that stage in com munity building, that to ask such a question would at once mark our own position far back in the ranks of citi- zenship. However that may be, we must ask the question, because bad roads are still with us and our com munity life will not speed up until our community machinery is "limbered Iup." Our roads are the bolts and pulleys in this machinery. They transmit our social, educational and agricultural power. If these belts and pulleys are "guemmed up" they pull slowly and irregularly, and our social, educational and agricultural life is "gummed up" in like proportion. There is no escaping this truth.
 We know that travel educates, but too often we use the word travel in the sense that we must get way off wonder somewhere before the educa- tion begins to "seep in," when as a matter of fact the need for travel is right here at home. We need closer communication to know each other better; and there is nothing in this world which will more quickly break down the barriers of isolation and the monotony of the farm than easy and smooth travelling.
 We do need good roads.
 There is really no reason to argue on this subject among ourselves. This need is a fact-a fact as hard and as solid as a concrete road But we do need to have impressed upon our minds the intensity of this need for better highways and to have this need impressed so deeply that we will act instad of talk. and thus put bur community on the basis, as financiers would say, of a going concern. If we continue to talk without action, good roads in our community will be as in- definite and distant as the milky way.
 The history of man is the record of mans struggle against nature. Slowly | he has loosed the bonds that have held him at the mercy of his foes. But we who are yet living on bad roads are bound hand and foot while the ele- l ments play about us. When the rains | come we are stuck fast in the mud, | blocked from the markets and from | the profits which would be ours but for our own stupidity.
 If we are not going to build modern | highways, get out of the mud and con meet up with the outside world on hard surface roads. we would display | wisdom by turning back to cave days and "hole up," not for the winter, but | for eternity, so far as our community | life is concerned.
 But we started out, you say, to hang this discussion on this peg:
 Do we need good roads?"
 Yes, we do.
 We need good roads if we are going to add interest to life in this com munity To add interest, make the most profit from our farms, and hold our young people, we must keep in line with other communities. This is not mere talk, repeated so many times