The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-11-28
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS


 Senator Bankhead, with all his knowl- edge of the subject, would never have seen his good roads dreams realized if he had not travelled with man who could interpret them in way to inter- est the public. This has been Asa's end of the good roads propaganda. It's a hard thing for statesman to find an issue that has not been ridden to death. You have got to hand it to our senior senator for having discovered little travelled road and made it beaten path. When he took up the ques- tion of good roads. he was a pioneer.
 take off my hat to the wise old man who put the national highway on the map of the United States, for before he made it one of his blanks. it was in the dream stage and lay hid in no mans land. Kipling once boasted, that he wrote tract, and justly considered it feat, for he got it read. There had been good road workers before Bankhead's day, but they never got the attention of Uncle Sam This is what put him in the lead.
 It was quite 8 feather in his cap when the undertaking got the name of the Bankhead highway. Please remember am boosting him for what he has ac- complished. It was not only good Bank country's notice that Alabama had a live man at Washington. They called Bishop Asbury the prophet of the long road" but Bankhead is the apostle of the lane. It began way back in Walker county, but led to the capitol at Wash ington.
 Now the Bankheads are good political pathfinders The old man blazed the trail. and Will followed in his footsteps, and found a seat in Congress. and there by set a new precedent, for both father and son have jobs in the talking end of the government. The father lifts up his voice in the Senate, while the son airs his lungs in the House. There be some who think that the son will keep on following In the steps of his parent until he, too, lands in the upper house.
 
 | know all about the old familiar song 1 that Jordan is hard road to travel" and I am sure that with others fighting 1 for the right of way that the pathway {, will be over rocks, but who wants to go into office "on flowery beds of ease?' I am sure the Bankheads have no such hopes or illusions. But this is in no 1 sense political article. It is written with far different purpose. although inadvertently strayed into the bypaths l of politics.
 1 I got started on this line because the Alabama Good Roads and the Bank head Highway associations were in ses- sion here Monday and Tuesday and be- cause a big parade and banquet was pulled off to celebrate the joint sessions and because the meetings were attended l by good road enthusiasts from in and out of the state. The Alabama crowd had headquarters at the Hillman, while the national delegates foregathered at the Tutwiler.
 One of the visitors from below Mont gomeryo who motored over the Calera road to the Magic City says that he knows whoever wrote the old song, "Jor- dan is a rock road to travel, had just ! made the trip over the Birmingham Montgomery highway from Pelham to the city limits. A local man to uphold the stranger within our gates testified that he had made the trip and had suf- fered two blow-outs and had five pune lures. The 2o-mile stretch was much commented upon, but some of the talk about it cannot be printed unless issued in an expursated edition.
 1 I was amused at one of the visitors account of his trip around Highland ave nue. He says he entered a long, wide boulevard which might have been as ' aptly described as the famous one in
 Damascus of old, which was set out in holy writ as the street that was called straight but before he had gone far ! it became 8 serpentine affair and after looping the loop a dozen or more times,
 he was catapulted into the heart of the i business city.
 | The session held here was far-reaching i in it's effects, as the board of directors had met to settle the route between At 1 ianta, Birmingham and Memphis, after fully hearing the report of the pathfind- CTS. reckon I got inveigled into politi- I cal paths as there were numerous con- testing delegations and some of the meetings smacSed of the good old days before conventions were put on the po- llitical scrap heap. I daresay it brought
 back many memories to Senator Bank ] head.
 Yes. as l began. if Senator BanlShead is the apostle of good roads, Asa Roun- agent. He is genius in publicity Some day when good roads are a blessed
 reality and a grateful people rise up
 to build towering monument to Bank
 head, hope someone will erect a mod
 est stone in memory of Rountree, the
 man who got more copy about highways
 into the newspapers than any score or
 more of other good roads boosters in
 America. l admit that I have fallen for his dope time and time again, and now lhere am making copy for him, knowing full well that when he sees it. he wit laugh and say, Well, I put another one
 over Barnett..' But what care I? One good turn deserves another. If he is giv- ling his time to make roads smoother for
 other people. I reckon I can help him by