Putnam patriot., 1930-09-18
.h.r M. Keith of Putnam De Iegsted to Address New
 England Council
,a. Interesting Paper at Middle bury, Vermont

in Middlebury, Vermont, Friday
 'S Saturday, to attend the twenti- .h quarterly meeting of the New s.asnd s.n Council The recreational saan of the council has recently Ssson,e interested in roadside beau .ssra,ion and development. As this .tats was the first to organize beau s;seation department the council re- s~nssted the Connecticut State High sv Commissioner to present a pa- ss, on this work. Mir. Keith, as head
 the Identification division, was Salagated to present the paper.
 Making A few impromptu remarks. ur Keith read the following inter sa;ng paper setting forth the coneep- .;or development and result to date as state highway identification in Connectieut:
 An Important Factor
 Roadside identification and de- ..sIonment is fast becoming an ini- rortant factor in our daily life. As wa look back over the past history of New England throughout its three hundred years We realize that New England was and is endowed by nature with a landscape beautiful, and that while our ancestors helped to add to it's beauty by having tree planting programs at different times and under various agencies, as the wonderful old shade trees on private grounds and along the roads and streets of our villages and hilltop towns will attest. we of the present oeneration will have to admit that in recent years too little care has been exercised and too little thought given to the saving of our natural landscape beauty and the maintain ing of the New England charms.
 Rapid growth and development has of necessity caused the loss of many beautiful trees and landscape views, yet much of this has been avoided by forethought and proper planning.
 It is a well-known fact that the rapid change in transportation from horse-drawn to motor-propelled vehi- elee and the diverting of freight and passenger service from the steam and electric railways to our highways has caused the rapid building of hard surfaced roads over the whole coun- try and none of the States have been able to keep pace with the fast growing traffic.
 In addition to this. where our high ways were formerly used for neces- sary travel and transportation, they are now part of our playground system; avenues over which we take our rest and recreation in pleasure cars, and so the thinking public and those that are interested in the things beautiful have in recent years sought a solution of the problem.
 Newspaper editorials and maga- zine articles have helped to mould public opinion. May l quote from an editorial in the Saturday Evening Post of May IS, 1929:
 Road building in recent years has assumed the proportions of a major industry. Competition and experience have combined to evolve new methods of construction, the use of new and better materials and the broader application of high-powered machinery. The more we build the better we build. The greater the mileage of highways we construct the more we demand. Road building has been elevated to the rank of a science. but it cannot yet claim, in any broad sense, to be numbered among the fine arts.
 We have. to be sure, the road sur face we paid for, but we have been cheated out of all the charm and beauty we might have had along with it had there been proper tree plant ing and an easily arranged success sion of pleasant prospects.
 Wisdom and Sense
 We proclaim the wisdom and sound sense of combining beauty with util. ity in our road building. This IS not only possible but it is practical, and it has been done with the highest de- gree of success in many parts of the country. Landscape architects worthy of the name know how to break uT straight lines and how to secure ef. fleets with the smallest sacrifice of increased distance. The simplest de- vices help out amazingly, and they can be adopted with negligible addl' tions to cost and mileage.
 Every motor tourist has travelled over thousands of miles of highways that are technically perfect wher judged by purely utilitarian stand ards, but which are as devoid of lure and interest as so many miles oi string stretched from city to city This is the sort of thing We ought to get away from. America is raising the level of her civilization by leaps and starts. She is discovering, as al no time in the past, the value oi beauty, not only as commercial asset but as a sweetener of life and as luxury without which life ii never what it might be. In score of ways civic beauty is becoming an issue. and each community must decide for itself whether it wants it whether it deserves it, whether 1t is willing to pay little extra to get it. Cities and towns which have fostered it know how many times over it pays for itself in heightened self-respect, in local pride, in attrae' tiveness to strangers and in rising properly values.
 It would be hard to find any valid reason why we should not think about beauty when laying out our highways why we should not in this way strive to make motor travel as stimulating to the eve as 1t IS to the speed ometer. Long before we wear out the reads -c are nc@ constructing