The importance and benefit of good roads is more and more coming to be
appreciated. The National Government has been making liberal contributions
to encourage their construction. The results and benefits have been very
gratifying. National participation, however, should be confined to
trunk-line systems. The national tax on automobiles is now nearly
sufficient to meet this outlay. This tax is very small, and on low-priced
cars is not more than $2 or $3 each year.
While the advantage of having good roads is very large, the desire for
improved highways is not limited to our own country. It should and does
include all the Western Hemisphere. The principal points in Canada are
already accessible. We ought to lend our encouragement in any way we can
for more good roads to all the principal points in this hemisphere south of
the Rio Grande. It has been our practice to supply these countries with
military and naval advisers, when they have requested it, to assist them in
national defense. The arts of peace are even more important to them and to
us. Authority should be given by law to provide them at their request with
engineering advisers for the construction of roads and bridges. In some of
these countries already wonderful progress is being made in road building,
but the engineering features are often very exacting and the financing
difficult. Private interests should look with favor on all reasonable loans
sought by these countries to open such main lines of travel.
This general subject has been promoted by the Pan American Congress of
Highways, which will convene again at Rio de Janeiro in July, 1928. It is
desirable that the Congress should provide for the appointment of delegates
to represent the Government of the United States.