The Alaska daily empire., 1920-03-03
SECRETARY LANE ON GOOD ROADS
 AND OTHER THINGS

AND OIttER ollNOo Secretary l,-ne has been go intimately connec In the goverrmcnt of Alaska. and her developm ord of the last s ven years, that almost anyth may say is of interest On February II, MT de a speech to the Public Land States High' ,ociaton, in which he discussed the roads pl I. and very plainly intimated that there is ch politics and not enough engineering in lntry He said:
 There ought to be in this government more definite planning.
 If democracy ever breaks down, It Will break down just because it lacks in what l call engineering. The engineer IS the man who thinks ahead and sees how things can be done, who makes dreams real. He finds a practical way by which the impossible can be done.
 We have Congress that is supposed to be the engineering board of the people of the United States You see when our Congress was created, when our Constitution drafted, and when most preliminary bodies that in existence today were brought into existence, they thought there only one kind of question that government ever would have to deal with and that was purely political question:; and we went upon the theory in England that the statesman was man of good lineage, good bearing, could make a.lgood speech,s and who could think in terms of the nation with relation to its political life, and which policies with re- laton to other countries might be adopted as respects tariff, or alliances, and so with 
 Our fight in the for independence was to get the right to determine for our selves what our state should be, and not be subject to anybody else. That was a political question. We wanted political in- dependence and political liberty We had no idea of a government that to be created. or government that to deal with economic policies, with great schemes of public Improvements; that the govern ment was 10 be an expression of the am bition that is inside the people, to make this collective community called the Ma tion something very large and useful to the people. We went upon the theory that if men got political independence, the rest could be taken care of by the individual
 Now. the result has been that we have as our Board of Engineers. Congress which is not picked with relation to our real problems, and they have got to be supple mented by men who definitely plan for the development of country in a great many ways that not political. that are economical and social That is what l call engineering It is the same thing statesmanshp
 Roads are the best of the civilization of country. Go through the United States and you findsthose parts of the country that are most benighted are those that have the poorest sroads You go through Europe and where there' are no roads. there Is the largest percentage of illiteracy and the greatest of isolation, the greater lack of in dependence, the greatest amount of poverty the greatest possibilities of famine So all ever the world, good roads are proof that people are getting together and living to. Gether That is what the whole movement or civilization is, getting away from the cave-man state where We lived as individ- uals. and to the community where we live as units in . great body of people
 This war could not l&se been won if 1t had not been for the foresight of men.
 
 Caesar built good roads in France Ma poieon bettered them The people of France supported them. maintained them with the result that yhen Verdun was cut off bv rail- read, the good roads came in and they had trucks in an endless circle, thirty feet apart. from Paris. the base of supplies. out 10 serdun. That was the turning point in ; luis war because if Nerdun had gone Ger many would have smashed through and caught Paris in the nippers So that there IS every Kind of strategic reason why good roads should be built There arc ruch higher social reasons
 When l was on the Interstate Commerce commission. we discovered some of the most surprising figures to the relative cost of trdhsporing the farmers ton of wheat from his Farm to the railroad as compared wth the cost Of transporting by rHilroad to the sea coast. l cannot recall these figures now but for ten mile haul into town in cost more per loo pounds than it cost for me transportation from Chicago to New York
 Now. Of course. il is d real problem to know how that cost can be reduced and the only way it can be reduced is by the construction of good roads, and the con struction or the right kind of vehicles to carry the products over these roads
 You are engaged in a work that looks toward the future. l should say that we ought to have in the United States not merely program for or two years. but program for 20 to 50 years on roads. and tbat that program should be one that