The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1923-10-19
NEWSPAPER ASSOCIATION
MEMBER NO. 1871.

millions and millions of dollars,
when in a few short years all the
freight and passenger traffic will be
carried in the air."
The question is always being
asked by some one, usually some
one who is unendowed by nature
with faculty of thinking straight,
but sometimes by those who think,
but without data on which to go.
The next ten, or the next hundred
years, will see enormous strides
made in aviation. Mail, some ex-
press, some passenger traffic will go
via plane, and much sport and travel
will use it. But no future develop
ment of aeronautics can overcome
the fundamental fact of nature, that
to raise a weight in the air and
maintain it there, requires power,
and that power is an equivalent for
value; in our terms, money.
Therefore, no matter how desir-
able otherwise, no system OF trans
portation which requires expendit-
ure to support a weight, can com
pete in cheapness with those in
which the weight is borne by the
earth.
There will always be railroads, al
ways be vessels on the water, al
ways be roads and road vehicles
They will change, improve, become
more economical, more speedy, more
safe, but the earth will continue to
carry the bulk of the traffic, simply
and solely because it doesn't charge
anything for holding up the weight
whereas nature makes US pay, and
heavily, to hold the weight up in
the air, while we transport it.
Those who build roads today will
not live to see the time when THEN
roads are not used. Those who bond
themselves for roads today will new
er see the day when those bonds are
outstanding against disused high
ways. The airways will be increas
ingly used, but not for freight.
+
In its editorial column the Indus
trial Index notes that "road build
ing has developed into great;
really tremendous-industry IL
America 1t is an industry witt
many charlottesville mining O
manufacturing of road-bridge build
ing materials; the transportation O
these bulky commodities; the dis
tribution of these materials b,
agents and jobbers; the professiona
energy of the many engineers VIII
have made a special study of thi
branch of construction; the activ
tiles of thousands upon thousands o
road and bridge contractors; tn
armies of workmen who are out OF
the firing line of these innumerabl
projects. The investment in roa
building, when considered in it
various aspects, is enormous. An
it will grow heavier with each pass
ing year."
1t will, indeed, grow heavier
Road building is shortly to be tn
premier industry mot considering
farming) of the United States.
will be as much greater than is auto
mobile making, in the men an
money required, as that industry
now the first in this country,
greater than railroading, which TO
so many years held the premie
place.
And as yet we have scarce begun
to build roads! In all our years o
national existence we have succeed
ed in building less than three hund
red thousand miles of improve,
roads, although we have almos
three million miles to improve! o
course, the need of roads was no
felt until the automobile demonstrat
ed the economy of new trans
portation, but the automobile is al
ready old; men and women now i
college do not remember when ther
were no automobiles!
1t is not enough that this countr
build roads; it must build road
which connect with each other, thu
securing the maximum use of .eac
mile, and it must build roads whic
last. As the several States hav
found that only a central Stat
Highway Commission can lay on
and construct State highway sys
tenn to which counties and town
can build heir feeder roads, so mus
the nation come to realize that onl
central National Highways Com
mission can lay out and build ian
forever maintain) national syster
of roads, to which States can builC
as part of their own systems, thos
roads which will make the nations
system serve all the people.
Ten years ago any sort of Fed
eral participation in road buildin
was looked upon as a chimerica
idea. Since 1916 we have spen
hundreds of millions of dollars o
Federal money for Federal aid roads
In another ten or twenty years w
will spend not hundreds of millions
but billion or more for nationa
highways system which will, indeed
lift America from the mud.