The Cook County news-herald. [volume] (Grand Marais, Cook County, Minn.) 1909-current, 1920-04-14
GOOD . ROADS 70 Al
BY J. Ogden Armour !

The country us entering period.
Of road building: Projects which
We're planned during the war are be-
ing put into effect. The Federal
Government has made large ap-
preparations, to be spent conjointly
with appropriations by the various
states. Good roads have become "a
watchword of postwar progress. r
There is location. for reflection in
the fact that the greatest of ancient
empires was conspicuous for it's road
building. The Roman roads were the
railways and telegraph Of an age that
did not know steam and electricity.
They were the pathways Of the i'm
perial couriers and the imperial
legions. These roads were the gir-
ders that held the empire together.
It iseustomary, today, to admire the
Romans for their practical sagacity,
nowhere better exemplified than in
their building
In a manner, "history repeats it.
self" in our newly bestirred zeal for
constructing good highways. What
to the Romans was national neces-
sity, has become. for us an urgent
need; and this by virtue of modern
| invention-the motor car. l look for
much advancement to grow out of
the "motor age," and I am certain
that this advancement will be con-
tingent upon the attention we give
to the improvement Of our roads.
| Those of us who have made OBJ
servations for two decades have seen
wondrous changes resulting directly
from the use of the pleasure auto
mobile. Once the city was the city,
and the country was the country.
Today they merge into one another.
The city man knows the country as
never before-is glad to have access
to it and to live in it when possible.
The country man knows the city and
frequents it often. Small villages
of yesterday have become the rural
metropolises that one finds here and
there, everywhere. This is all good
for it is we'll that a nation be knit
together in the spirit Of mutual
understanding and in a reciprocity
of advantages.
But there. are better arguments
for good roads than those which
apply merely to the pleasure car
| We are told, on the authority of the
Government, that farmers lose $780,,
100000 yearly in marketing thei,
crops, because of bad roads. That
is too much to waste. We shoulc
contemplate this figure in connection
with the high cost of living.
There is no more serious problem
before US today than the matter OF
reducing the cost of getting the pro
ducts of the farm to the table 81
the consumer. One step, at least, II
the solution is plain better roads
AS an instrument of economy the
motor truck has not yet come into
it's own. Efficient servant as it i:
in certain respected realms, it nov
awaits the further development d
interurban and country highways tt
reach the measure of its full attain
ment. 1t has power and speed that
put it outside the class of the horse
drawn vehicle, and a nimbleness ane
fiexibility which gives it certain
advantage over the railways. It i:
my expectation to see it assume more
and more the function of the "short
haul as its own peculiar province
in part, relieving the railroad Of
these duties which they are least
able to perform; and in part, ex
panding the field Of our nationa
transportation system.
| I say, therefore, all speed to the
good road movement! It will cheap
en- our methods of distribution anc
help to bring the people of ou>
country closer to each other. com
mend it's common sense and practica
wisdom. It may be less spectacula,
than some of our other nationa
issues, but it strikes deep into the
froots of fundamental progress.
| Morris Olson, proprietor of the
| North Shore Garaye returned Tues