Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-01-27

the touring horizon OF the American
moborist bids fair to be immeasurably
widened in the reasonably near future,
according to reports Of highway prog
ress in Lati. America and recent &C
%AY, cooking toward the realization of
an inter-American highway linking the
Peoples Of the Western Hemisphere.
already. according 20 authoritative re-
ports, the countries of Central and
South America are alert to the adj
SAntages of highway improvement, and
after decades of planning and specula-
tiun the first practical steps toward
the construction of the age-old dream
of q pan-American highway stretching
from the cold reaches Of the North
to the tropical lands of South America
and beyond again to the temperate
zones, are about to be undertaken by
responsible governments and organiza-
tons.
The physical difficulties, long held
inSurmountable, are now by competent
engineers said to be no greater than
those encountered in certain stretches
of highway construction in the United
States, nor more forbidding than those
overcome by engineers in building the
recently completed highway from Rio
de Janeiro, Brazil. south to Sac Paulo
and north to Petropolis. The economic
and political considerations are other
matters, but they too are expected to
yield to the influences at work and to
the growing sentiment of mutually and
friendship among the countries en-
braced in the Pan-American Union.
In behalf Of the Pan-American Con-
federation for Highway Education, DR..
l.. S. Rowe, chairman of the executive
committee Of that organization and
diPANfRP af AS.Sn p-;p
Union, recently made inquiries of the
ministers of the Central American
States to know if their respective gov
ernmentS have made surveys of pros
pective routes and other studies which
would represent practical effort toward
the building OF longitudinal highway
connecting their several republics If
these surveys have been made, he asks
II the confederation may not have the
benefit Of their experience, and if they
have not been undertaken. he expresses
the willingness Of the confederation to
cooperate II desired in a field recon-
Nuisance by competent engineers
studying the topographic conditions
and proposed route of such highway.
Studies to Be Basis of Report.
These studies, when made, will form
the basis OF report by the confedera-
ton to the governing board of the Pan
American Union, which in turn will
submit its conclusions to the Second
Pan-American Congress of Highways at
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. next June. Out
OF this congress, which debated the
problem at its earlier session at Buenos
Aires in 1925, are expected to come
speciflc recommendations for the con-
tinuance Of activity in behalf Of the
highway.
The project is not new to the gov
ernmentS Of Latin America and OF
North America, having been considered
at the Sixth International Conference
OF American, States at its sessions at
Havana In May. 1928. There a resolu-
ticn was adopted directing the union to
make such study for the information
OF the forthcoming Rio congress, and
the union. by recent action of the
governing board, transferred the prof.
ect TO the hands Of the confederation.
The governing board Of the union con-
sists of the Ambassadors and Ministers
OF the several Latin American nations,
with the Secretary of State Of the
United States, while the n-American
Confederation is a Latin American or
eanization with branches in most OF
the countries Of North, Central and
South America.
The field reconnaissance, it is said by
confederation officials, will confine itself
Tor the present to the countries Of
Guatemala. Honduras, San Salvador,
Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama, be-
cause Of the limited time available 60
ing no farther than the Colombian Dor
der. The engineers viii not concern
themselves at this time with the United
States, since ample highways already
exist to many points on the Mexican
border; nor with Mexico, since the gov
eminent Of Mexico already has forn1u-
lated an extensive road program. DIR.
Octav1o Dubois, chairman Of the ma
tioI1al highway commission of Mexico.
has promised that much of the Mexican
sector Of the Pan-American Highway
from Laredo. Tex, or Nuevo Laredo,
state OF Nuevo Leon, Mexico, through
Mexico City to the Guatemalen border,
Will be completed within the next two
years.
Following the Rio congress it is con-
fidently hoped that similar surveys will
be made In the countries OF South
Amer ca, and the work of actual con-
struction proceed thereafter as rapidly
as practical.
Actual Details ProbIematicaL
Whether actual construction of the
highway will be undertaken as one
task, or whether the Pan-American
Highway will become a reality through
the building Of national networks of
highways, connected and interrelated.
as In the case of the United States and
Of other countries, it is yet too early to
say. Many factors are to be overcome,
but the fact remains that this stupen-
dous problem Of communication by the
most effective means yet available to
the public at large has been wrested
from the realm of inpracticable ideal