The Glasgow courier. [volume] (Glasgow, Mont.) 1913-current, 1918-07-12

of every industry that makes roads or
vehicles or accessories. Call these
men selfish if you will, bent upon
maintaining the market for their own
product. l prefer to believe in a cer-
tain degree of industrial idkalism,
and to respect their sense of their own
national Importance and their own
capacity to serve. PROFESSIONALLY
they knew the highway game, and
their prompt measures of organization
forced upon the government a realiza-
ton of the great latent transportation
force which they had lately proposed
to ignore if not to stiAe. .
Assurance comes, as the result of
the associations efforts, that every
possible facility for the movement of
highway material will be afforded this
year, but that the government will ex-
pect to exercise a supervision over
the choice of construction jobs with
view to making every yards OF paving
count in the general object of getting
from center to center, quickly, surely,
and directly. Already government en-
gineers are telling local road officials
what unimproved sections OF highway
must be put in shape for heavy traffic
before another winter comes. 10 be
sure, the federal government has no
authority 70 order a certain county IN
Pennsylvania or Indiana that a certain
three miles of mud must be covered
with substantial pavement as quickly
as possible, but in this year of the
world war many short cuts are taken
through the customary tangles OF red
tape. No community likes to feel that
it's roads n an obstruction to wal
traffic, and sentiment supports eX-
| penditures which in time of peace
might be debated for half a decade
without action.
The Highways transport bureau.
headed by Roy D. Chaplin is perhaps
the most important manifestation OF
the governments awakened interest
in roads, since it is authorized to IAN
die the road question broadly, both
with respect to highways and to We
hicles. Under this bureau m the
development and production of the
Liberty truck, which the government
is specifying in its contracts for new
, army equipment.
The postoffice department has de-
signs of it's own with respect to the
development of paved roads. James
|. Blakeslee. fourth assistant post
master general, i sa vigorous advocate
of government trunk lines to carry
parcel freight to the farmer and to
bring food stuff back for direct de-
livery to the consignee. Some seven
routes, approximately n hundred
miles in length apiece, have been oper-
ated experimentally, and Mr.. Blakes-
Lee is seeking the authority of congress
to extend the service wherever a COM
mercial center is connected by sub
stantial highways with productive
rural territory. Farm produce reach
ing cities at the present time, he says
must be handled at least seven times
and in many cases it is handled twenty
times. His proposal would call TO,
but two landings, one from the pro-
ducer's gateway and n at the con-
sumer's doorstep.
And so we have the federal govern
ment engaged in actual war transpor
tation by through routes of travel
We have it planning nationalizet
peace functions of great Importance
We have the office of public road,
acting as a tribunal in deciding wha
highways may and what may not b
paved. We have government pressur
upon local authorities, directing then
to fill in the broken links of the high
way chain. hctual government con
struction of highways near the ma
tional cantonments has also been wit
messed within the last year. These
with a federal aid appropriation o
ST. ,OO0,0 900 for highways seem to in