Arizona republican., 1918-11-03
MUST HAVE HIGHWAYS THE ROAD ID BERLIN. BEGINS IN AMERICA"

These United States need highways, more highways and better highways, and needs them worse than any of her allies, yet the construction of highways is being held up in this country.
 On the other hand England is work ing out a general plan for a series of main trunk motor highways for heavy traffic, to tap every part of the ''Is- land Kingdom" and Canada Is plan ming truck highways to reach from coast to coast.
 It is a fortuaate thing for the coun- try that connected with some of the great automobile and motor truck companies there are men of broad vision who realize that the greatest work which they can do for the coun- try is not merely to build motor trucks and automobiles and to adver- tise them, but to become the leaders through publicity work, broadly planned and ably carried out, in be- half of the building of improved high ways. The automobile and motor truck have marked a distinct era in human affairs as vitally important as that of the first locomotive ever built and the
 
 We have reached a point where the motor truck and the automobile are becoming so vitally related to the fa- tional life that it is not now conceivable how we could exist and do business l without these facilities for travel and traffic any more that We could do with out the railroads.
 For long time, however the auto mobile and the motor truck people | felt that their publicity work must largely be given to making known the merits of their particular product A broader view has been growing up in the industry, and many of the men connected with it have recognized the fact that they are directly respon- sible to the nation for concentrating their work very largely upon high ways.
 Build highways adequate to the needs of the hour, and every automo- bile and motor truck plant in Amer ica will for many years to come have no difficulty in selling every machine it can produce. We are only at the beginning of this industry, this new power in the world of transportation, and the war has only intensified what the Manufacturers Record" has been trying for the last ten years to press upon the American people, and that is that motor transportation for freight to and from the farm and to and from the factory, and automobile transportation for country life as well as for city people, are becoming more and more dominant factors in all hu- man civilization.
 Without the automobile and the mo- tor truck this war could not have been l fought rt n fr1l clusion. Practically every highway leading from the west to the seaboard sees an almost endless stream of mo- tor trucks hurrying with men and freight to the seaboard, and so heavy Is the traffic that it has well nigh within twelve months destroyed many of the highways which had been con- structed adequately strong for the lighter traffic of pre-war days. Sud- denly we have jumped ahead fifteen or twenty years in the utilization of the motor truck and in the realization of the shortage of our highway facili- ties.
 We must build highways designed for the heaviest motor traffic with the same thoroughness that We build the best railroads across mountain districts. These highways must be built at a cost of billions of dollars and the main highways must be laid out and constructed by the national government as a part of the nations activities, without which the nation itself would suffer irreparable loss.
 Motor truck manufacturers have en- gagged in kindred campaigns to i'm press upon the country the import ance of this new system-for new il is comparatively-of transportation as supplement to railroad and water transportation. But many others have not yet apparently fully under stood that all the publicity which they put forth should carry the question of highways as a dominant thought It is not enough for the automobile ol the motor truck manufacturers to ad. vertise the particular merits of theil product, for their product is almos valueless except where good roads exist.
 . The manufacturers who carry or this campaign of education should no be charged with selfishness any more than the Canadian railroads should bt charged with selfishness when today they are widely advertising through. out America the advantages of Can. ada for American farmers. In doing this they are drawing thousands O settlers to Canada The railroads vii incidentally benefit. Canada will b' enormously benefited. The same thing was true when American rail roads were permitted to advertise th' agricultural and industrial resource; of their territory, from which the. are unfortunat[fs cut off from doin, now, to large extent, at least, by tn, action of the Railroad Administra ton.
 The automobile and the motor trucl manufacturers can we'll afford to en tirely ignore any thought that il working for good roads they are work ing in their own interest. Broadl speaking, they are working for tn , interest of the nation, and every mil of good road built and made availabl for the motor truck adds to the sum o human happiness and to the nation ability to utilize it's resources for tn production of foodstuffs, for increas ing it's manufacturing facilities, an6 in these war times, for the winning o | the war.
 Some organized business institution must take the lead in highway worl and there is no other body of me upon whom this responsibility fall so heavily as upon the manufacturer of motor trucks and automobiles. B virtue of their business, by virtue c their realization of the need of high ways and what good highways meaI they are in a position to do a broade and more helpful work of publicity behalf of highways than any othe class of people in the country.-Man ufacturers' Record.
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