The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1921-11-25
A CHALLENGE

We are realizing today as never
before the Importance of good roads.
Industry, travel, education, employ
ment, business, and a thousand incl
dental phases of life must depend on
GOOD ROADS for progress. For a
long time we have done no more than
growl when we had to travel bad
roads, and fail to add our apprecia-
ton for those we found to be good.
But now we are waking up to the
extreme Importance of good roads,
and the part they in our existence.
People are not content any longer
with simply growing when the find
bad roads they are demanding that
they be made GOOD. Road building
gratis are coming to their end as
they should. Only this week a num-
Der of Freeholders in Cape May Co.
have had sentences passed on them
after trials and convictions for I'M
lawful conduct in road building They
have been kicked out of office as they
should have been, and the people are
determined to have honest men in
their places.
One of the many sources of graft
in road building is in the use of So
called "petented road binders" They
sell for exhorbitant prices prices
so high, that the manufacturers can
afford to pay graft to officials who
endorse and force its use on roads
over which they have control.
But there is one man in New Jersey
who has the courage of his convict
ions, based on thorough knowledge
of road materials, who has been con-
Quoting long and successful fight
against this evil. 1t was largely thru
his efforts that the splendid White
Horse Pike in Atlantic County was
made possible. A letter of apprecia-
ton was addressed to him by the
Washington office of the American
Automobile Asso. expressing graft
tude for what he had done in complet-
ing this highway.
This man is Samuel P. Leeds, pres
ident of the Atlantic City Chamber
of Commerce, and a member of the
firm of Leeds Hotel Co. in Atlantic
City. His efforts in civic and state
improvements has led him into the
careful study of road building be-
cause he believes it is one of the
most important phases of modern
development. This resulted in his APP
pointment to the National Highway
Commission at Washington. The re-
suits of his study and investigation
have convinced him that these high
priced patented road materials are
exhorbitant in price and unservicable
in proportion to the price. Mr. Leeds
contends that the concrete road, prop
erly constructed, is the cheapest and
best road material yet discovered.
His opposition to these patented
and expensive. materials has caused
him to issue the following challenge
which appears in the Atlantic City
Chamber of Commerce Bulletin:
"The Atlantic City Chamber of
Commerce challenges the Governor,
the State Highway Commission, its
engineers, the State Association of
Boards of Freeholders, the Atlantic
County Board of Freeholders, its en-
gineers, or any other Freebooter or
official in the county or elsewhere to
affirm to any difference between as
phalt or Warrenite as to their dura-
bility, that would indicate in their
value as wearing surface one pen
ny's difference as road material.
The same applies to concrete This
statement has been published from
month to month in the Chamber Bull
letin, but without answer. It has the
endorsement of ex-State Highway
Engineer William G. Thompson; En-
gineer and Secretary of the Highway
Council, Henry G. Shirley; Charles
M. Upham, State Highway Engineer
of North Carolina, and ex-State
Highway Engineer of Delaware; Jno.
c. Mackall, Chairman State Roads
Commission of Maryland, and Thos.
G. Macdonald, director of the Office
of Public Roads and Engineer of the
Department of Agriculture, U. S.
Government, Washington, D. C.
an closing we beg to inform the
public that one of the present State
Highway Commissioners has been in
Atlantic City on two or three occas-
ions using his endeavor to throttle
the publicity given to road construct
ion by the Atlantic City Chamber of
Commerce Bulletin, but so far as we
are able to ascertain, he has not sue
ceeded. When such a body will resort
to tactics of this kind, it must be TAX
en- that their acts, Judging from out
ward appearances, might be termed
peanut politics"
That kind of politics was in effect
before the Goethals appointment, but
disappeared afterwards, although it
is now with US again. 1t is hoped that
sort of an administration will soon
disappear from New Jersey"