The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1922-03-29
DEVELOPING THE NATION

The Telegram may be pardoned for frequent
reference to good roads and is glad to plead
guilty because of the belief that permanent high
ways, next to education, mean to this country
and this state than any other material thing Stu
dents of progress know that as an agency for de-
velcpment paved highways are scarcely second in
importance 10 the railroads Naturally the railroads
were the pioneers, deserving full credit for pushing
outward to and through the wilderness, ever ex-
tending the borders of civilization into unknown and
mysterious lands. But the days have almost gone
when any rail route in the United States may be
said to be strictly pioneer enterprise because there
is scarcely a section Of our country that has not
come under the influence of railway progress. 1t
naturally followed that with the strategic points
reached, some other agency has to be relied on to
still further develop the system of communication
between the centers of population and the widely
scattered rural population. That agency was good
reads. 1t is true that not until the coming of the
automobile and motor truck was that agency fully
understood or appreciated. 1t is now a matter of
history how the gasoline wagon revolutionized
transportation methods and presented new situa-
ton hitherto never thought Of AT first the rail-
roads were inclined 10 be hostile to the motor car
and to the building Of good roads but experience
proved that in those sections Of the country where
good roads were the rule and not the exception, the
railroads Jared the best for the simple reason that
paved roads brough new people to settle on and
cultivate the land and these people had to be fed
and clothes, thus creating increased commerce We
are no wpassing from the period of mild interest
In road building to that more emphatic period of
genuine interest. an interest awakened by prac-
teal demonstration of what paved highways have
done for the communities ambitious enough to
build such highways. Ten years ago marked the
hrst real effort to secure the cooperation of the
federal government in the extension and develop
ments of national highways. At first the agitation
met with little success because congressman and
senators were not impressed with the stupendous
change about to take place as regards domestic
transportation methods But that congress has
walked up is amply evident in the appropriation Of
nearly enc hundred and ninety-Gve million dollars
covering period of three years, to be divided
among the States desiring to share in the benefits
According to a Washington dispatch the amount
OF $50,00O,000 has been set aside fer this year.
So, 100000 fer next year and SIS 100000 for
the year following. This is 6fty-ffty proposition
the several states matching the federal fund dol
lar for dollar SO that the country has in prospect
the expenditure of practically $4OO0O0,0OO fer
better highways within at least a 6vc-year period
DO we realize what this means? 1t ought to bring
a WIDE concrete CT asphalt road from WASHINGTON
to Cape Sable. 1t ought to make it possible to
go the length and breadth of the country, north
and south and east and west, over government
built reads unequaled by any country in the world
and of mileage scarcely possible anywhere else
en- the globe. 1t is stated that funds will be avail
able before the first of July and that actual con-
St'uctlOn operations can be entered upon by that
date.