Arizona republican., 1918-12-25
GOOD ROADS RANK AS PRIME FACTOR
 0F CIVILIZATION

Wealth, Labor and Good Roads Is the title of a constructive and interest ing editorial in the current number of the Southwest Bulletin by Edward F. Parker, general manager of the South west Cotton company. From all these production springs, MT. Parker makes the point that there cannot properly be such thing as over production. What is called over production is really a lack of distribution. He says:
 Prosperity is dependent upon pro- duction and production upon labor.
 Wealth is a sufficiency of food. raj ment. shelter. Wealth is reduction to it's lowst terms of poverty, sickness. crime. Wealth is certainty of the nc cessities of life and some of those be- neficent luxuries which so stimulate mans brain and give him heart" Wealth is education. art, science, love, faith, ambition. All these are wealth.
 Tn an ordered social system, there can be no such thing as over -produc- tion of wealth. The problem of wealth is it's production, not it's over produc- tion. The corollary of the production problem is that of distribution Without labor there can be no pro- duction; without production there can be no distribution And all who work, either with hand or brain, all who pro- duce-labor.
 If business in the United States is not hampered and discouraged and made fearful by radical legislative eX- periments and excessive taxes, it will rapidly move forward. There is every economic justification for the employ ment of the productive forces.
 The greatest incentive, the highest efficiency is derived from personal ini- tiative. Self interest. the hope of re- ward, personal pride-these are the primary spurs of ambition and without ambition there is stagnation. Govern ment may guide our altruism; it may create a national philosophy; directly or indirectly it may insure a wider wealth distribution. But government IS not initially productive. The force, the initiative, the ambition are in the indi- vidual.
 Millions of men are about to be re- leased from some form of military ser vice or war work. They will return to peace time production. They will be demobilized first by industries. They will in other words be filtered back in to the line of production that most urg- ently needs them or which can most quickly absorb them.
 1 Each day that labor is not employed 1 in some useful work the community 1 suffers loss. Every man not product 1 i've is, in some measure, a drain upon ! every man who is productive. He is a charge upon those who work.
 If the army is demobiliZed slowly 1 because jobs cannot be found rapidly l then all other industry must pay for its maintenance. With war over every man not performing a necessary wal se-vice is an economic loss. We must create useful jobs.
 Never in our history has it been SC clear that extraordinary expenditure or good roads creates wealth. Cotton rubber and the internal combustion en- zine have made good roads one of the great discoveries of the past few years Good roads today rank with the printed page, the telephone and the telegrap pt as forces for civilization.
 Today we should be building road, and bridges. Many men in the arm, are fitted for the various branches O this work. Their labor could be nt more productive. That communit, whose tax rate is high because a grea part of the proceeds have been intelli gently. efficiently and honestly ex pended on good roads-that communit, can point with pride to it's high ta, rate, for by this token it's people evi
 dence their economy, their wisdom an. their patriotism.