Evening star., 1920-01-25

country factories pay good wages.
And even in mountain winter time
manufacturers to distribute and col
lect raw and finished material from
cutters and machine sewers In lone
hamlets and farms.
Why, good roads actually permitted
the trolley tracks to be laid. and
equally brought light and power
(from the waterfall stations) to VII
lagos and isolated, farms at cents
the hectowatt before the war. Good
roads solved the agricultural PROP
lem in France before the trolley.
The war, of course. made horses and
essence scarce, and dear. but the
normal use of the trolley is for pas
senger traffic, merchandise in less
than wagon loads and freight travel
Ing more than, say, thirty miles. Sut
threading dozens OF small towns tnat
would not pay a trolley went the au-
tomobile omnibuses-and they nave
begun it again. Thanks to good ROADS
the purely local country stage coacn
never died out in France, ana II IS
today a big-capacity car toiten d
troop car of the French front eousn. u1.
cheap at the military sales). OF SLOW
speed and solid tires which would 1o!t
YOU. sure. on any but these smooth
roads.
The American Idea.
Tonp Haul Jake" Wells of Pitts
hurph NAV give us the laugh here
might Hawk" Magee, who was SO re-
liz Bile that he never had but one route
back and forth with the postal cou-
riers to catch the Brest nyer. may
stand in with him. Even Am Ditlon M
Woods who jerked senator's anu
erals from Tours to Paris and return
may remember the crumpholes IN tnat
abused Army trunk road ana now MS
distinguished passengers cusseo as
w We are not talking about trunk
roads. h.d div
abused in the war. Between 1914 and
1917 they had saved France (spectacu,,
larly at the Marine and Verdun) ana
after the arrival OF the Amer
they saved France once or lwaSe
again by the intensive through trNnn truon
traffic they permitted. Ihe trunh
roads were swept and garnished'
waiting for this service. Seiah.
Wonderful straight. broad highways
connecting great cities. Be1ore tne
war they were almost useless o excepo ~ q
to aid in bringing in the Sooo.vo"'T,Ov Nv,
per year spent, in large sense oy
foreign tourists. These trunk roads
understand. were all but useless 1or
business purposes. They had become
speed routes for joy-riding Americans
and others.
railroads France had this network OF
trunk highways-the present national
roads-connecting great cities IN
straight lines. over which hauling by
horse (animal power) was very cheap;
; They had cost dear. They hao pala
posting roads. the long-haul CONNER
cial routes of prosperous old France
from Louis XIII on down to LOUIS
Philippe Then the railroads put them
out of business, so 1T seemed
A time came (around the year 1900
when there was steam railroad
within thirty miles of almost any
given point. The result was that
these magnificent trunk highroads.
seventeen feet wide in macadam. not
counting their dirt sides. and shaded
with fruit trees poplars. elms, oaks or
lost all their long-haul use.
They seemed ruin-ruinous to main
| tain in repair without proportional re-
turn. But how can good roads remain
1around 1900 the automobile world
was being born. And these magnif-
icent, deserted trunk roads-straight
| from di distant city to distant city-were
right there, perfect, to become the
/ playground of automobile JOY riders
| their gold will tell you about it.
Aye, tourist gold. And. waiting in
| the shadow, when France should be
| invaded by the would-be conQueror.
those same old grand trunk roads
were all ready for French and Ameri-
can trucks. They saved France once
and again. Today they are in holes.
But they'll be repaired in all their old
perfection.
I started to go into this question
seriously in 1915 with one of the
American industrial experts, John
n Nd hi nff
en-, in our talks was Uncle Joe" But
| Ter, the steel magnate of Youngs-
town. Ohio. president, again and
again. of the Pig Iron Association
men to whom nothing as human (and
productivity as good roads is alien.
Should 1 tell here all l learned with
! them it would be a technical report.
Greatest French Work.
| But. anyway. when the French then
minister Of public works spoke. in the
| year 1910. of 1.-The greatest French
work of the past forty years." he did
not mean the old posting roads. He
referred to something else. which you
do not dream of.
NO one outside of France" he said.
"can realize the profound sacrifices
made by our people to produce them.
Their enormous coSt-above $1,000
000, ,000-haS. nevertheless. proved the
most productive of any department of
our peace budgets"
What were they? Why, a whole
new system, conceived and perfected
after the railroad invasion! They are
the far vaster network of depart
| mental. communal and "neighborhood
interest" roads which open up to each
other. to the cities, and to rail tand
trolley) connections the smallest ham,
; let's. the most remote farms and for
| ests.
These are the ''smooth French roads I,
| which little jeff enthuses about The
war hasn't hurt them. Ask pipe
Down Joe" Lynch of Jersey City. Ask
Lunch Grabber'' Frank Reiss OF
Wilkes Barre. Pa. Ask Collision
John" Sullivan of little old New York,
or Comedy" Todd of Sullivan. Ill, or
Bed Sack" Archie Towle of Wausau
Wis. If we had sold the A. E. F.
trucks and roadsters to boys like
these instead of to the French gov
ernment. it would have been good for
both great republics. But we didn't.
All the same. you know about roads,
boys. Z: 3,
You know how these newer cross
eoads of Franco hunt out tho vita