THE COMING ERA OF GOOD ROADS.
"Since our mobile excursion to the farm village of Fenwick, I have been
haunted by the beauty, smoothness, utility and durability, of the
magnificent highway, which now connects the two villages. I am more than
ever impressed with the power of the co-operative movement, to effect a
revolution in all industrial methods; especially, in travel and the
transportation of farm products. Tell me, Fillmore! Do you think this
road-building fever, will continue to spread with the growth of the
movement?"
"Yes, George, with every new road, will come an added impetus to the
movement, which will insure a steady progress. The importance of good
roads as a source of wealth, and a mark of civilization, is just
beginning to be understood by agricultural people, and by rural
populations generally. Oppressed on every hand by the universal
extortion of railroad monopoly, they are slowly awakening to a
realization of the fact, that the question of cheap transportation, is
for them, the one, overshadowing question, which demands immediate
attention.
"As an object lesson on the subject of good roads, the introduction, and
constantly increasing use, of bicycles, motor cycles, motor freight
wagons, automobiles, electro mobiles, locomobiles, and the entire class
of vehicles equipped with rubber tires, has aroused a widespread
interest, which is prophetic of great results. Acting as a strong
reinforcement to this educational work, the co-operative farm, with the
advantage of its village organization, representing in the public mind,
such an attractive combination of agricultural, industrial and social
life; will by the force of example, give an additional impetus to the
systematic construction of broad, permanent highways; that shall prove a
source of pride, to the community through which they pass; roads, that
shall last for centuries.
"Reacting favorably, in broadening the mission of the co-operative
farm-village, with its promise of permanent homes, and employment for
the unemployed, and the homeless; the continuous construction of these
free avenues of travel and transportation, will soon affect the status
of all rural populations, by vastly increasing their wealth and power.
For them, the vexed problem of transportation, will be solved. They will
discover by actual experience, that these wide, durable wagon roads,
will connect them with distant centers of traffic, and serve them better
and more honestly, than steam railroads; that in cost of construction
and repair, they are much cheaper; that when constructed, they belong to
the people as absolutely, free highways; that no greedy corporation, can
control them; that no threatening, irritating, lawless force, of
Pinkerton's armed thugs, is required to protect them; and finally, that
they offer every inducement to unfettered genius, to invent and to
freely exploit, better and cheaper vehicles.
"As one grand result of this combined educational work, rural life will
become exceedingly desirable and charming. The great city, will lose its
attractive force. The tide of migration, will flow back to the pure air,
invigorating sunshine, blue sky, and the verdure-clad hills of the
country. In a general way, we may predict, that a few years hence,
everywhere throughout this broad land, we shall find picturesque,
prosperous, well populated villages. As the minor centers of education,
art-culture, refinement, amusement, progressive race-culture, scientific
agriculture, esthetic, social and co-operative life; they will be
embroidered, like a vast net-work of shining pearls, on a perfect system
of broad, smooth, highways. In their construction, ornamentation and
maintenance, these good roads will utilize and express, the pride,
energy and best inventive genius, of the village centers thus linked
together. As a result, the Republic will be gridironed with a superb
system of free highways, more permanent, more perfect, and more
beautiful, than those old, historic, Roman roads, which even now are
existing monuments to the solid character of Roman civilization.
"This imperial road system will be complete, when the co-operative farm
has reached every township in the union. Then, we may calculate the
results, which are to follow. Broad, tree-shaded, park-lined,
flower-bordered boulevards, will connect New York with San Francisco;
Galveston with Saint Paul; Portland, Maine, with Portland, Oregon; Los
Angeles with Saint Louis; Boston with Buffalo, Philadelphia, and
Baltimore with Jacksonville, Florida; New Orleans with Cincinnati and
Chicago; the wonders of Yellowstone Park, with the crags and glens of
the White Mountains, Niagara Falls, with the Grand Canon of the
Colorado; the orange groves of Florida and California, with the
picturesque, cool, invigorating, health resorts of Lake Superior; the
wheat fields of the great Northwest, with the coal mines of
Pennsylvania; Washington, the nation's capital, with every seaside
resort, every mountain view, every beautiful city, every healing
spring, and every hamlet and village of the Republic.
"Pulsing with a new tide of social and industrial life, flowing through
the arteries of this unequaled system of great highways; all of these
places, both great and small, will become more closely bound together,
by the links of a new social order; representing the beginning of a
higher civilization. Then, these beautiful highways, will be glorified
and appreciated by mankind, as the monumental work of one, broad system,
of co-operative farm villages. Then, these villages, which have made
such a system possible, may collectively claim the proud distinction, of
being known as the Nation's Committee on Good Roads."
"Excellent! Most excellent! Fillmore. Your prophetic vision, with the
vastness and the brilliancy of its sweeping scope, fairly takes my
breath! Yet, I must confess, that judging from the masterly system of
road-building inaugurated by Solaris and Fenwick, the evolutionary
results which you so confidently predict, are both reasonable and
logical. What additional results, do you claim for the system?"
"At this time, George, neither tongue nor pen, may attempt to describe
the marvelous results which will follow the introduction of an era of
good roads. In a brief way, I will try to give a few of the most
important. In the matter of travel and transportation, these free
highways, will annually, save millions of dollars to citizens of the
Republic, by enabling them to escape from the clutches of the largest
and most powerful of all monopolies; the railway monopoly. A monopoly,
that for many years, has held the public by the throat; exacting a
tariff so exorbitant, as to be almost prohibitory. A monopoly, which
has had the amazing gall to pose as the farmer's especial benefactor. A
monopoly, that while so posing, has robbed the country of one-half its
wealth, by transferring the same to cities. A monopoly, that in the name
of good business, has had the stupidity to decree through its tariff
schedule, that miles and miles of empty freight cars, shall daily,
throughout the land, roll past hundreds of thousands of farms, where
countless tons of heavy freight, in the way of fresh vegetables, lie
rotting for the want of a market. A monopoly, that never neglects an
opportunity for fleecing the public. A monopoly, so unscrupulous, that
for the pork trust, it will haul a hog across the continent for ninety
cents; while for indifferent service, it dares to charge the people,
from two and one-half, to five cents per mile.
"And yet, George, just think of it! In the beginning, this monopoly was
chartered to serve the people who granted the franchise. A monopoly, now
grown so bold, that when the public protests that the franchise is
violated, because the interests of the people are no longer served; a
Vanderbilt railroad king, insolently replies: 'The public be damned!' A
monopoly that has killed all healthy competition, by organizing all
railroads into one giant pool; thereby creating the mother of trusts,
controlling a corruption fund of enormous magnitude. A monopolistic
trust, grown so rich and powerful, as to be beyond the reach of law;
boldly corrupting courts, buying legislators, and turning the
administration of justice into a farce. In fact, this monstrous combine,
has become so dangerous to every interest of good government, that the
law of self-preservation demands that it shall be speedily wiped out, by
the government ownership of all railroads.
"We may now consider the ways and means, by which our co-operative
system of good roads, can control railroad freights, and finally drive
railroads to government ownership. Long before the close of the first
half of the twentieth century, thousands of miles of these fine wagon
roads, will be found in every State. Responding to the demands of
legions of voters, who reside in the co-operative farm villages
bordering these charming highways; a strong force of legislators, will
everywhere rise up, as eloquent advocates of the good roads movement.
Honest and faithful, inspired by a tenacity of purpose which will brook
no opposition from railroad lobbies; encouraged and strengthened, by an
ever increasing army of enthusiastic voters behind them, these tireless
legislators will not halt, until the entire system of good roads, so
well begun by the farm villages, shall be taken up, completed, and
perfected by the State. Ten years of such forceful work, will surely
accomplish the task.
"Then, to the champions of the system, shall come their reward. They
shall behold, flowing in mighty streams, over the wide, petroleum
treated, dustless surfaces, of these far-reaching, absolutely free
highways, the traffic and travel of a mighty Republic!
"Then, will come the demonstration of what American genius can do,
toward the evolution of a superior class of rubber tired, horseless
vehicles, which shall prove the best, cheapest and most durable, for
purposes of freight, traffic, and travel, on such a complete system of
fine roads. The best of our present types, when compared with these
twentieth century road flyers and freight rollers, will seem poor, crude
affairs. The irresistible volume of this swift stream of the new
travel, and the new transportation, eloquent with the progress of the
century, will herald the coming of a well-merited doom for the
monopolistic railroad combines.
"Then, local travel and traffic, will make haste to desert the iron
rails. Railroad freights everywhere, will fall to zero. Short
railroads--branches and feeders to main lines--will become useless and
worthless. Many of them will be sold at auction, for less than the cost
of the iron in the road-bed.
"Then, shorn of their ill-gotten gains, the mighty railroad kings of the
land, will fall from their tall pedestals of pride, where for years,
they have posed as owners of the earth. With financial ruin staring them
in the face, they, and the whole brood of erstwhile railroad kings, will
make urgent haste to sell to the government, at the bare cost of
construction, such great through lines as may be necessary to maintain
inter-state commerce, and across-the-continent traffic. Other roads,
they may not sell at any price. A government for the people, and by the
people, will have no further use for them.
"Then at last, the supreme folly of having a half-dozen competing lines,
running side by side through the same territory, will be fully
demonstrated. With this demonstration, will come the opportunity, to
scores of paid press writers, pessimistic bigots, self-conceited,
unprogressive wiseacres, who have so long and so loudly derided the
government ownership of railroads, as the most suicidal and unbusiness
like scheme ever hatched; to answer this pertinent question: Would it be
possible, for government engineers building public railroads, to ever be
guilty of such monumental stupidity?
"The social effect of these good roads, on the lives of all
agricultural people, will prove even more important than the financial
advantages gained. Hitherto, they have been so hampered by environments,
by lack of means, and lack of leisure, that as a class they have been
unable to enjoy or to appreciate the wonderful, the educational, the
broadening and the refining effect of much travel, on the mind of the
individual. From lack of experience, they do not realize that the sum of
human life is the sum of its sensations, which are produced by change of
environment, contact with a larger or lesser series of natural
phenomena, and more especially with other lives.
"The more progressive lessons of life, are learned from example and not
from precept. Men and women, are only children of a larger growth, they
are imitative creatures with a natural instinct to choose other, higher,
and better lives as models. Hence the great value of travel as an
educator. The larger the area covered by the traveler, the wider the
field of experience and choice. Through the law of action and reaction,
social contact with a multitude of actors and thinkers, refines the
individual. A healthy spirit of emulation is aroused, which leads on to
progress.
"With the advent of a universal system of good roads, cheap travel, and
a dominant combination of co-operative, industrial and agricultural
enterprise, an extraordinary era of recreation and travel, will dawn for
all rural people. Opportunity, leisure, and means will be abundant. All
co-operative workers, can afford to take an annual vacation of at least
one month. The ownership of a swift, roomy, durable, road machine,
capable of making from twenty to thirty-five miles an hour, will be
within the means of every family. In this private car, the family, or a
select party, could easily and leisurely accomplish a five thousand mile
tour in twenty days. Along the whole distance, farm villages, from
fifteen to twenty minutes apart, would offer the travelers, machine
supplies, repairs, and excellent hotel accommodations, for an expense
not in excess of the same at home. Than this, no traveling excursion
could be more delightful! For pure enjoyment, a select party of
nineteenth century millionaires, could not equal it.
"The enjoyment of such delightful opportunities for even a single
decade, would make the rank and file of the republic thoroughly
acquainted, with the soil, scenery, forests, lakes and rivers; the
mining and manufacturing possibilities; the peculiar characteristics of
the people, their local ambitions, political wants and future demands,
of every state and county in the union.
"Thus equipped with this important knowledge, each voter, both men and
women alike, would be prepared at any time to vote intelligently and
wisely, on every question affecting the welfare of the republic as a
whole, or in part. Elected to Congress, these voters would appear as the
ablest, most patriotic, most just, and most incorruptible body of
law-makers ever known. Understanding the equities of righteous dealing
between themselves as fellow citizens, they would be prepared to decide
correctly on all questions of an international character, which might
affect the interests of the world at large. This would be a
demonstration of the rule, as to the formation of a true republic. To
make the entire political fabric both enduring and progressive, the
units or voters, must be well born and rightly trained. Of this
training, travel is an essential part, which should not, which must not
be overlooked.
"As affecting their social and intellectual progress, these years of
travel would improve all classes of agricultural and industrial people,
to a still higher degree than the one achieved in political expression.
A general interest would be aroused in questions of political economy,
race culture, psychology, and physiology; geology, geography and
history, botany, chemistry, and mineralogy; which later, would lead to
close reading and hard study in the whole domain of scientific research,
as the one sure method of increasing the scope of individual happiness.
Every succeeding year of this travel-training, would result in binding
all classes still more firmly together, into one harmonious, homogeneous
mass. Now George, tell me what you think of the good-roads question! Is
it not one affecting the vital interests of humanity to a marvelous
extent?"
"Marvelous, Fillmore! Most marvelous! Hereafter, you can count on me as
an enthusiastic advocate. I cannot say too much in its favor."