Produced by V. L. Simpson, Barbara Kosker and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
HISTORIC HIGHWAYS OF AMERICA
VOLUME 15
[Illustration: General Roy Stone
(_Father of the good-roads movement in the United States_)]
HISTORIC HIGHWAYS OF AMERICA
VOLUME 15
The Future of Road-making in America
A Symposium
BY
ARCHER BUTLER HULBERT
and others
_With Illustrations_
[Illustration]
THE ARTHUR H. CLARK COMPANY
CLEVELAND, OHIO
1905
COPYRIGHT, 1905
BY
THE ARTHUR H. CLARK COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE 11
I. THE FUTURE OF ROAD-MAKING IN AMERICA 15
II. GOVERNMENT COOPERATION IN OBJECT-LESSON ROAD WORK 67
III. GOOD ROADS FOR FARMERS 81
IV. THE SELECTION OF MATERIALS FOR MACADAM ROADS 170
V. STONE ROADS IN NEW JERSEY 190
ILLUSTRATIONS
I. PORTRAIT OF GENERAL ROY STONE
(father of the good-roads movement
in the United States) _Frontispiece_
II. A GOOD-ROADS TRAIN 59
III. SAMPLE STEEL TRACK FOR COMMON ROADS
(showing portrait of Hon. Martin Dodge) 66
IV. TYPICAL MACADAM ROAD NEAR BRYN MAWR, PENNSYLVANIA 83
V. A STUDY IN GRADING 89
VI. SAND CLAY ROAD IN RICHLAND COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA 115
VII. GRAVEL ROAD NEAR SOLDIERS' HOME, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 127
VIII. OYSTER-SHELL OBJECT-LESSON ROAD 137
IX. EARTH AND MACADAM ROADS 168
PREFACE
The present volume on the Future of Road-making in America presents
representative opinions, from laymen and specialists, on the subject of
the road question as it stands today.
After the author's sketch of the question as a whole in its sociological
as well as financial aspects, there follows the Hon. Martin Dodge's
paper on "Government Cooperation in Object-lesson Road Work." The third
chapter comprises a reprint of Hon. Maurice O. Eldridge's careful
article, "Good Roads for Farmers," revised by the author for this
volume. Professor Logan Waller Page's paper on "The Selection of
Materials for Macadam Roads" composes chapter four, and E. G. Harrison's
article on "Stone Roads in New Jersey" concludes the book, being
specially valuable because of the advanced position New Jersey has taken
in the matter of road-building.
For illustrations to this volume the author is indebted to the Office of
Public Road Inquiries, Hon. Martin Dodge, Director.
A. B. H.
MARIETTA, OHIO, May 31, 1904.
The Future of Road-making in America
CHAPTER I
THE FUTURE OF ROAD-MAKING IN AMERICA
In introducing the subject of the future of road-making in America, it
may first be observed that there is to be a future in road-building on
this continent. We have today probably the poorest roads of any
civilized nation; although, considering the extent of our roads, which
cover perhaps a million and a half miles, we of course have the best
roads of any nation of similar age. As we have elsewhere shown, the era
of railway building eclipsed the great era of road and canal building in
the third and fourth decades of the old century, and it is interesting
to note that freight rates on American railways today are cheaper than
on any railways in any other country of the world. To move a ton of
freight in England one hundred miles today, you pay two dollars and
thirty cents; in Germany, two dollars; in France, one dollar and
seventy-five cents; in "poor downtrodden" Russia, one dollar and thirty
cents. But in America it costs on the average only seventy-two cents.
This is good, but it does not by any means answer all the conditions;
the average American farm is located today--even with our vast network
of railways--at least ten miles from a railroad station. Now railway
building has about reached its limit so far as mileage is concerned in
this country; in the words of Stuyvesant Fish, president of the Illinois
Central Railroad Company, we have "in the United States generally, a
sufficiency of railroads." Thus the average farm is left a dozen miles
from a railway, and in all probability will be that far away a century
from now. And note: seventy-five per cent of the commerce of the world
starts for its destination on wagon roads, and we pay annually in the
United States six hundred million dollars freightage to get our produce
over our highways from the farms to the railways.
Let me restate these important facts: the average American farm is ten
miles from a railway; the railways have about reached their limit of
growth territorially; and we pay six hundred million dollars every year
to get the seventy-five per cent of our raw material and produce from
our farms to our railways.
This is the main proposition of the good roads problem, and the reason
why the road question is to be one of the great questions of the next
half century. The question is, How much can we save of this half a
billion dollars, at the least expenditure of money and in the most
beneficial way?
In this problem, as in many, the most important phase is the one most
difficult to study and most difficult to solve. It is as complex as
human life itself. It is the question of good roads as they affect the
social and moral life of our rural communities. It is easy to talk of
bad roads costing a half billion dollars a year--the answer should be
that of Hood's--"O God! that bread should be so dear, and flesh and
blood so cheap." You cannot count in terms of the stock exchange the
cost to this land of poor roads; for poor roads mean the decay of
country living, the abandonment of farms and farm-life, poor schools,
poor churches, and homes stricken with a social poverty that drives the
young men and girls into the cities. You cannot estimate the cost to
this country, in blood, brain, and muscle, of the hideous system of
public roads we have possessed in the decade passed. Look at any of our
cities to the men who guide the swift rush of commercial, social, and
religious affairs and you will find men whose birthplaces are not
preparing another such generation of men for the work of the future.
For instance, bad roads and good schools are incompatible. The coming
generation of strong men and strong women is crying out now for good
roads. "There is a close and permanent relation," said Alabama's
superintendent of education, "existing between good public roads and
good public schools. There can be no good country schools in the absence
of good country roads. Let us be encouraged by this movement looking
toward an improvement in road-building and road-working. I see in it a
better day for the boys and girls who must look to the country schools
for citizenship." "I have been longing for years," said President Jesse
of the University of Missouri, "to stump the capital state, if
necessary, in favor of the large consolidated schoolhouse rather than
the single schoolhouses sitting at the crossroads. But the wagons could
not get two hundred yards in most of our counties. Therefore I have had
to smother my zeal, hold my tongue, and wait for the consolidated
schoolhouse until Missouri wakes to the necessity of good roads. Then
not only shall we have consolidated schoolhouses, but also the principal
of the school and his wife will live in the school building, or in one
close by. The library and reading-room of the school will be the library
and reading-room of the neighborhood.... The main assembly room of the
consolidated schoolhouse will be an assembly place for public
lectures.... I am in favor of free text-books, but I tell you here and
now that free text-books are a trifle compared with good roads and the
consolidated schoolhouse." It is found that school attendance in states
where good roads abound is from twenty-five to fifty per cent greater
than in states which have not good roads. How long will it take for the
consolidated schoolhouse and increased and regular attendance to be
worth half a billion dollars to American men and women of the next
generation?
This applies with equal pertinency to what I might call the consolidated
church; good roads make it possible for a larger proportion of country
residents to enjoy the superior advantages of the splendid city
churches; in fact good roads have in certain instances been held guilty
of destroying the little country church. This could be true within only
a small radius of the cities, and the advantages to be gained outweigh,
I am sure, the loss occasioned by the closing of small churches within a
dozen miles of our large towns and cities--churches which, in many
cases, have only occasional services and are a constant financial drain
on the city churches. Farther out in the country, good roads will make
possible one strong, healthy church where perhaps half a dozen weak
organizations are made to lead a precarious existence because bad roads
make large congregations impossible throughout the larger part of the
year. This also applies to city schools, libraries, hospitals, museums,
and lyceums. Good roads will place these advantages within reach of
millions of country people who now know little or nothing of them. Once
beyond driving distance of the cities, good roads will make it possible
for thousands to reach the suburban railways and trolley lines. Who can
estimate in mere dollars these advantages to the quality of American
citizenship a century hence? American farms are taxed by the government
and pay one-half of the seven hundred million dollars it takes yearly to
operate this government. After receiving one-half, what per cent does
the government return to them? Only ten per cent. Ninety per cent goes
to the direct or indirect benefit of those living in our cities. Where
does the government build its fine buildings, where does it spend its
millions on rivers and harbors? How much does it expend to ease this
burden of six hundred millions which lies so largely on the farmers of
America? A few years ago a law was passed granting $50,000 to
investigate a plan to deliver mail on rural delivery routes to our
farmers and country residents. The law was treated about as respectfully
as the long-headed Jesse Hawley who wrote a series of articles
advocating the building of the Erie Canal; a certain paper printed a few
of them, but the editor sent the remainder back saying he could not use
them--they were making his sheet an object of ridicule. Eighteen years
later the canal was built and in the first year brought in a revenue of
$492,664. So with the first Rural Free Delivery appropriation--the
postmaster general to whose hands that first $50,000 was entrusted for
experimental purposes, refused to try it and sent the money back to the
treasury. Today the Rural Free Delivery is an established fact, of
immeasurable benefit; and if any of the appropriations for it are not
expended it is not because they are being sent back to the treasury by
scrupulous officials. Rural delivery routes diverge from our towns and
cities and give the country people the advantages of a splendid post
office system. Good roads to these cities would give them a score of
advantages where now they have but this one. Like rural delivery it may
seem impracticable, but in a short space of time America will leap
forward in the front rank of the nations in point of good highways.
An execrable road system, besides bringing poor schools and poor
churches, has rendered impossible any genuine community of social
interests among country people. At the very season when the farm work is
light and social intercourse feasible, at that season the highways have
been impassable. To this and the poor schools and churches may be
attributed the saddest and really most costly social revolution in
America in the past quarter of a century. The decline of country living
must in the nature of things prove disastrously costly to any nation.
"The roar of the cannon and the gleam of swords," wrote that brilliant
apostle of outdoor life, Dr. W. H. H. Murray, "is less significant than
the destruction of New England homesteads, the bricking up of New
England fireplaces and the doing away with the New England well-sweep;
for these show a change in the nature of the circulation itself, and
prove that the action of the popular heart has been interrupted,
modified and become altogether different from what it was." In the
popular mind the benefits of country living are common only as a fad;
the boy who goes to college and returns to the farm again is one of a
thousand. Who wants to be landlocked five months of the year, without
social advantages? Good roads, in one generation, would accomplish a
social revolution throughout the United States that would greatly tend
to better our condition and brighten the prospect of future strength.
President Winston of the North Carolina State College of Agriculture
said: "It might be demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that bad roads
are unfavorable to matrimony and increase of population." Seven of the
most stalwart lads and beautiful lasses of Greece were sent each year to
Crete to be sacrificed to the Minotaur; bad roads in America send
thousands of boys and girls into our cities to the Minotaurs of evil
because conditions in the country do not make for the social happiness
for which they naturally yearn.
Thus we may hint at the greater, more serious, phase of the road
problem. Beside it, the financial feature of the problem can have no
place; the farm has been too much to the American nation, its product of
boys and girls has been too eternally precious to the cause of liberty
for which our nation stands, to permit a system of highways on this
continent which will make it a place where now in the twentieth century
foreigners, only, can be happy. The sociological side of the road
question is of more moment today in this country, so far as the health
of our body politic in the future is concerned, than nine-tenths of the
questions most prominent in the two political platforms that come
annually before the people.
William Jennings Bryan, when addressing the Good Roads Convention at St.
Louis in 1903, said:
"It is a well-known fact, or a fact easily ascertained, that the people
in the country, while paying their full share of county, state, and
federal taxes, receive as a rule only the general benefits of
government, while the people in the cities have, in addition to the
protection afforded by the Government, the advantage arising from the
expenditure of public moneys in their midst. The county seat of a
county, as a rule, enjoys the refreshing influence of an expenditure of
county money out of proportion to its population. The capital of a state
and the city where the state institutions are located, likewise receive
the benefit of an expenditure of public money out of proportion to their
population. When we come to consider the distribution of the moneys
collected by the Federal Government, we find that the cities, even in a
larger measure, monopolize the incidental benefits that arise from the
expenditure of public moneys.
"The appropriations of the last session of Congress amounted to
$753,484,018, divided as follows:
Agriculture $ 5,978,160
Army 78,138,752
Diplomatic and consular service 1,968,250
District of Columbia 8,647,497
Fortifications 7,188,416
Indians 8,512,950
Legislative, executive, and judicial departments 27,595,958
Military Academy 563,248
Navy 81,877,291
Pensions $ 139,847,600
Post Office Department 153,401,409
Sundry Civil 82,722,955
Deficiencies 21,561,572
Permanent annual 132,589,820
Miscellaneous 3,250,000
"It will be seen that the appropriation for the Department of
Agriculture was insignificant when compared with the total
appropriations--less than one per cent. The appropriations for the Army
and Navy alone amounted to twenty-five times the sum appropriated for
the Department of Agriculture. An analysis of the expenditures of the
Federal Government will show that an exceedingly small proportion of the
money raised from all the people gets back to the farmers directly; how
much returns indirectly it is impossible to say, but certain it is that
the people who live in the cities receive by far the major part of the
special benefits that come from the showering of public money upon the
community. The advantage obtained locally from government expenditures
is so great that the contests for county seats and state capitals
usually exceed in interest, if not in bitterness, the contests over
political principles and policies. So great is the desire to secure an
appropriation of money for local purposes that many will excuse a
Congressman's vote on either side of any question if he can but secure
the expenditure of a large amount of public money in his district.
"I emphasize this because it is a fact to which no reference has been
made. The point is that the farmer not only pays his share of the taxes,
but more than his share, yet very little of what he pays gets back to
him.
"People in the city pay not only less than their share, as a rule, but
get back practically all of the benefits that come from the expenditure
of the people's money. Let me show you what I mean when I say that the
farmer pays more than his share. The farmer has visible property, and
under any form of direct taxation visible property pays more than its
share. Why? Because the man with visible property always pays. If he has
an acre of land the assessor can find it. He can count the horses and
cattle.... The farmer has nothing that escapes taxation; and, in all
direct taxation, he not only pays on all he has, but the farmer who has
visible property has to pay a large part of the taxes that ought to be
paid by the owners of invisible property, who escape taxation. I repeat,
therefore, that the farmer not only pays more than his share of all
direct taxation, but that when you come to expend public moneys you do
not spend them on the farms, as a rule. You spend them in the cities,
and give the incidental benefits to the people who live in the cities.
"When indirect taxation is considered, the farmer's share is even more,
because when you come to collect taxes through indirection and on
consumption, you make people pay not in proportion to what they have but
in proportion to what they need, and God has so made us that the farmer
needs as much as anybody else, even though he may not have as much with
which to supply his needs as other people. In our indirect taxation,
therefore, for the support of the Federal Government, the farmers pay
even more out of proportion to their wealth and numbers. We should
remember also that when we collect taxes through consumption we make
the farmer pay not only on that which is imported, but upon much of that
which is produced at home. Thus the farmer's burden is not measured by
what the treasury receives, but is frequently many times what the
treasury receives. Thus under indirect taxation the burden upon the
farmer is greater than it ought to be; yet when you trace the
expenditure of public moneys distributed by the Federal Government you
find that even in a larger measure special benefits go to the great
cities and not to the rural communities.
"The improvement of the country roads can be justified also on the
ground that the farmer, the first and most important of the producers of
wealth, ought to be in position to hold his crop and market it at the
most favorable opportunity, whereas at present he is virtually under
compulsion to sell it as soon as it is matured, because the roads may
become impassable at any time during the fall, winter, or spring.
Instead of being his own warehouseman, the farmer is compelled to employ
middlemen, and share with them the profits upon his labor. I believe,
as a matter of justice to the farmer, he ought to have roads that will
enable him to keep his crop and take it to the market at the best time,
and not place him in a position where they can run down the price of
what he has to sell during the months he must sell, and then, when he
has disposed of it, run the price up and give the speculator what the
farmer ought to have. The farmer has a right to insist upon roads that
will enable him to go to town, to church, to the schoolhouse, and to the
homes of his neighbors, as occasion may require; and, with the extension
of rural mail delivery, he has additional need for good roads in order
that he may be kept in communication with the outside world, for the
mail routes follow the good roads.
"A great deal has been said, and properly so, in regard to the influence
of good roads upon education. In the convention held at Raleigh, North
Carolina, the account of which I had the pleasure of reading, great
emphasis was placed upon the fact that you can not have a school system
such as you ought to have unless the roads are in condition for the
children to go to school. While we are building great libraries in the
great cities we do not have libraries in the country; and there ought to
be a library in every community. Instead of laying upon the farmer the
burden of buying his own books, we ought to make it possible for the
farmers to have the same opportunity as the people in the city to use
books in common, and thus economize on the expense of a library. I agree
with Professor Jesse in regard to the consolidation of schoolhouses in
such a way as to give the child in the country the same advantages which
the child in the city has. We have our country schools, but it is
impossible in any community to have a well-graded school with only a few
pupils, unless you go to great expense. In cities, when a child gets
through the graded school he can remain at home, and, without expense to
himself or his parents, go on through the high school. But if the
country boy or girl desires to go from the graded school to the high
school, as a rule it is necessary to go to the county seat and there
board with some one; so the expense to the country child is much
greater than to the child in the city. I was glad, therefore, to hear
Professor Jesse speak of such a consolidation of schools as will give to
the children in the country advantages equal to those enjoyed by the
children of the city.
"And as you study this subject, you find it reaches out in every
direction; it touches us at every vital point. What can be of more
interest to us than the schooling of our children? What can be of more
interest to every parent than bringing the opportunity of educational
instruction within the reach of every child? It does not matter whether
a man has children himself or not.... Every citizen of a community is
interested in the intellectual life of that community. Sometimes I have
heard people complain that they were overburdened with taxes for the
education of other people's children. My friends, the man who has no
children can not afford to live in a community where there are children
growing up in ignorance; the man with none has the same duty as the man
with many, barring the personal pride of the parent. I say, therefore,
that anything that contributes to the general diffusion of knowledge,
anything that makes more educated boys and girls throughout our country,
is a matter of intense interest to every citizen, whether he be the
father of a family or not; whether he lives in the country or in the
town.
"And ought not the people have the opportunity to attend church? I am
coming to believe that what we need in this country, even more than
education of the intellect, is the education of the moral side of our
nature. I believe, with Jefferson, that the church and the state should
be separate. I believe in religious freedom, and I would not have any
man's conscience fettered by act of law; but I do believe that the
welfare of this nation demands that man's moral nature shall be educated
in keeping with his brain and with his body. In fact, I have come to
define civilization as the harmonious development of the body, the mind,
and the heart. We make a mistake if we believe that this nation can
fulfil its high destiny and mission either with mere athletes or mere
scholars. We need the education of the moral sense; and if these good
roads will enable men, women, and children to go more frequently to
church, and there hear expounded the gospel and receive inspiration
therefrom, that alone is reason enough for good roads.
"There is a broader view of this question, however, that deserves
consideration. The farm is, and always has been, conspicuous because of
the physical development it produces, the intellectual strength it
furnishes, and the morality it encourages. The young people in the
country find health and vigor in the open air and in the exercise which
farm life gives; they acquire habits of industry and economy; their work
gives them opportunity for thought and reflection; their contact with
nature teaches them reverence, and their environment promotes good
habits. The farms supply our colleges with their best students and they
also supply our cities with leaders in business and professional life.
In the country there is neither great wealth nor great poverty--'the
rich and the poor meet together' and recognize that 'the Lord is the
father of them all.' There is a fellowship, and, to use the word in its
broadest sense, a democracy in the country that is much needed today to
temper public opinion and protect the foundations of free government. A
larger percentage of the people in the country than in the city study
public questions, and a smaller percentage are either corrupt or are
corrupted. It is important, therefore, for the welfare of our government
and for the advancement of our civilization that we make life upon the
farm as attractive as possible. Statistics have shown the constant
increase in the urban population and the constant decrease in the rural
population from decade to decade. Without treading upon controversial
ground or considering whether this trend has been increased by
legislation hostile to the farm, it will be admitted that the government
is in duty bound to guard jealously the interests of the rural
population, and, as far as it can, make farm life inviting. In the
employment of modern conveniences the city has considerably outstripped
the country, and naturally so, for in a densely populated community the
people can by cooperation supply themselves with water, light, and rapid
transit at much smaller cost than they can in a sparsely settled
country. But it is evident that during the last few years much has been
done to increase the comforts of the farm. In the first place, the rural
mail delivery has placed millions of farmers in daily communication with
the world. It has brought not only the letter but the newspaper to the
door. Its promised enlargement and extension will make it possible for
the wife to order from the village store and have her purchases
delivered by the mail-carrier. The telephone has also been a great boon
to the farmer. It lessens by one-half the time required to secure a
physician in case of accident or illness--an invention which every
mother can appreciate. The extension of the electric-car line also
deserves notice. It is destined to extend the borders of the city and to
increase the number of small farms at the expense of flats and tenement
houses. The suburban home will bring light and hope to millions of
children.
"But after all this, there still remains a pressing need for better
country roads. As long as mud placed an embargo upon city traffic, the
farmer could bear his mud-made isolation with less complaint, but with
the improvement of city streets and with the establishment of parks and
boulevards, the farmer's just demands for better roads find increasing
expression."
The late brilliant congressman, Hon. Thomas H. Tongue of Oregon, left on
record a few paragraphs on the sociological effect of good roads that
ought to be preserved:
"Good roads do not concern our pockets only. They may become the
instrumentalities for improved health, increased happiness and pleasure,
for refining tastes, strengthening, broadening, and elevating the
character. The toiler in the great city must have rest and recreation.
Old and young, and especially the young, with character unformed, must
and will sweeten the daily labor with some pleasure. It is not the hours
of industry, but the hours devoted to pleasure, that furnish the devil
his opportunity. It is not while we are at work but while we are at
play that temptations steal over the senses, put conscience to sleep,
despoil manhood, and destroy character. Healthful and innocent
recreations and pleasure are national needs and national blessings. They
are among the most important instrumentalities of moral reform. They are
as essential to purity of mind and soul as to healthfulness of body. Out
beyond the confines of the city, with its dust and dirt and filth,
morally and physically, these are to be found, and good roads help to
find them. What peace and inspiration may come from flowers and music,
brooks and waterfalls! How the mountains pointing heavenward, yesterday
battling with storms, today bathed with sunshine, bid you stand firm,
walk erect, look upward, cherish hope, and for light and guidance to
call upon the Creator of all light and of all wisdom! How such scenes as
these kindle the imagination of the poet, quicken and enlarge the
conception of the artist, fire the soul of the orator, purify and
elevate us all! But if love of action rather than contemplation and
reflection tempts you, how the blood thrills and the spirits rise as
one springs lightly into the saddle, caresses the slender neck of an
equine beauty, grasps firmly the reins, bids farewell to the impurities
of the city, and dashes into the hills and the valleys and the mountains
to commune with nature and nature's God. Or what joy more exquisite than
with pleasant companionship to dash along the smooth highway, drawn by a
noble American trotter? What poor city scenes can so inspire poetic
feeling, can so increase the love of the beautiful, can so elevate and
broaden and strengthen the character, and so inspire us with reverence
for the great Father of us all? But for the full enjoyment of such
pleasures good roads are indispensable.
"Another blessing to come with good roads will be the stimulus and
encouragements to rural life, farm life. The present tendency of
population to rush into the great cities makes neither for the health
nor the character, the intelligence nor the morals of the nation. It has
been said that no living man can trace his ancestry on both sides to
four generations of city residents. The brain and the brawn and the
morals of the city are constantly replenished from the country. The best
home life is upon the farm, and the most sacred thing in America is the
American home. It lies at the foundation of our institutions, of our
health, of our character, our prosperity, our happiness, here and
hereafter. The snares and pitfalls set for our feet are not near the
home. The pathways upon which stones are hardest and thorns sharpest are
not those that lead to the sacred spot hallowed by a father's love and a
mother's prayers. The bravest and best of men, the purest and holiest
women, are those who best love, cherish, and protect the home. God guard
well the American home, and this done, come all the powers of darkness
and they shall not prevail against us. Fatherhood and motherhood are
nowhere more sacred, more holy, or better beloved than upon the farm.
The ties of brotherhood and sisterhood are nowhere more sweet or tender.
The fair flower of patriotism there reaches its greatest perfection.
Every battlefield that marks the world's progress, the victory of
liberty over tyranny or right over wrong, has been deluged with the
blood of farmers. He evades neither the taxgatherer nor the recruiting
officer. He shirks the performance of no public duty. In the hour of its
greatest needs our country never called for help upon its stalwart
yeomen when the cry was unheeded. The sons and daughters of American
farmers are filling the seminaries and colleges and universities of the
land. From the American farm home have gone in the past, as they are
going now, leaders in literature, the arts and sciences, presidents of
great universities, the heads of great industrial enterprises, governors
of states, and members of Congress. They have filled the benches of the
supreme court, the chairs of the cabinet, and the greatest executive
office in the civilized world. Our greatest jurist, our greatest
soldier, our greatest orators, Webster and Clay, our three greatest
presidents, Washington, Lincoln, and McKinley, were the product of rural
homes. The great presidents which Virginia has given to the nation,
whose monuments are all around us, whose remains rest in your midst,
whose fame is immortal, drew life and inspiration from rural homes. The
typical American today is the American farmer. The city life, with its
bustle and stir, its hurry and rush, its feverish anxiety for wealth,
position, and rank in society, its fretting over ceremonies and
precedents, is breaking down the health and intellect and the morals of
its inhabitants. These must be replenished from the rural home. Whatever
shall tend to create a love for country life, to decrease the rush for
the city, instil a desire to dwell in the society of nature, will make
for the health, the happiness, the refinement, the moral and
intellectual improvement of the people. Nothing will contribute more to
this than the improvement of our common roads, to facilitate the means
of communication between one section of the country and the other, and
between all and the city."
* * * * *
Turning now from the high plane of the social and moral effect of good
roads, let us look at the financial side of the question.
Good roads pay well. In urging good roads in Virginia, an official of
the Southern Railway said that if good roads improved the value of
lands only one dollar per acre, the gain to the state by the improvement
of all the roads would be twenty-five million dollars. Yet this is an
inconceivably low estimate; lands upon improved roads advance in value
from four to twenty dollars per acre. Virginia could therefore expect a
benefit from improved highways of at least one hundred million
dollars--more than enough to improve her roads many times over. Indeed
this matter of the increase in value of land occasioned by good roads
can hardly be overestimated. Near all of our large towns and cities the
land will advance until it is worth per foot what it was formerly worth
per acre. Take Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Beginning in 1880 to
macadamize three or four miles of road a year with an annual fund of
$10,000, the county now has over a hundred miles of splendid roads; the
county seat has increased in population from 5,000 to 30,000. "I know of
a thirty-acre farm," said President Barringer of the University of
Virginia, a native of that county, "that cost ten dollars an acre, and
forty-six dollars an acre has been refused for it, and yet not a dollar
has been put on it, not even to fertilize it. Some of the farms five and
six miles from town have quadrupled in value." In Alabama the same thing
has been found true. "The result of building these roads," said Mayor
Drennen of Birmingham, "is that the property adjoining them has more
than doubled in value." That wise financier, D. F. Francis, President of
the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, when suggesting that Missouri would
do well to bond herself for one hundred million to build good roads,
said: "The average increase in the value of the lands in Missouri would
be at least five dollars per acre." Taking President Francis at his
word, the difference between the value of Missouri before and after the
era of good roads would buy up the four hundred and eighty-four state
banks in Missouri eleven times over. What President Francis estimates
Missouri would be worth with good roads over and above what her farms
are now worth would buy all the goods that the city of St. Louis
produces in a year. In other words, the estimated gain to Missouri would
be more than two hundred and twenty million dollars.
Passing the increased value of lands, look at the equally vital question
of increased values of crops. Take first the crops that would be raised
on lands not cultivated today but which would be cultivated in a day of
good roads. Look at Virginia, where only one-third of the land is being
cultivated; the value of crops which it is certain would ultimately be
raised on land that is now unproductive would amount to at least sixty
million dollars. The general passenger agent of the Oregon Railway and
Navigation Company said recently that his lines were crying out for
wheat to ship to China; "we have about reached the limit of our
facilities; twelve or fifteen miles is the only distance farmers can
afford to haul their wheat to us. Make it possible for them to haul it
double that distance and you will double the business of our railway."
And the business of local nature done by a railroad is a good criterion
of the prosperity of the country in which it operates.
Crops now raised on lands within reach of railways would of course be
enhanced in value by good roads; more loads could be taken at less cost;
weather interferences would not enter into the question. But of more
moment perhaps than anything else, a vast amount of land thus placed
within quick reach of our towns and cities would be given over to
gardening for city markets, a line of agriculture immensely profitable,
as city people well know. "The citizens of Birmingham," said the mayor
of that city, "enjoy the benefits of fresh products raised on the farms
along these [improved] roads. The dairymen, the truck farmers, and
others ... are put in touch with our markets daily, thereby receiving
the benefits of any advance in farm products."
Poor roads are like the interest on a debt, and they are working against
one all the time. It is noticeable that when good roads are built,
farmers, who are always conservative, adjust themselves more readily to
conditions. They are in touch with the world and they feel more keenly
its pulse, much to their advantage. Too many farmers, damned by bad
roads, are guilty of the faults of which Birmingham's mayor accused
Alabama planters: "The farmers in this section," he said, "are selling
cotton today for less than seven cents per pound, while they could have
sold Irish potatoes within the past few months at two dollars per
bushel." Farmers over the entire country are held to be slow in taking
advantage of their whole opportunities; bad roads take the life out of
them and out of their horses; they think somewhat as they
ride--desperately slow; and they will not think faster until they ride
faster. It is said that a man riding on a heavy southern road saw a hat
in the mud; stopping to pick it up he was surprised to find a head of
hair beneath it: then a voice came out of the ground: "Hold on, boss,
don't take my hat; I've got a powerful fine mule down here somewhere if
I can ever get him out." You can write and speak to farmers until
doomsday about taking quick advantage of the exigencies of the markets
that are dependent on them, but if they have to hunt for their horses in
a hog-wallow road all your talk will be in vain.
When we seriously face the question of how a fine system of highways is
to be built in this country, it is found to be a complex problem. For
about ten years now it has been seriously debated, and these years have
seen a large advance; until now the problem has become almost national.
One great fundamental idea has been proposed and is now generally
accepted by all who have paid the matter any attention, and that is that
those who live along our present roads cannot be expected to bear the
entire cost of building good roads. This may be said to be settled and
need no debate. Practically all men are agreed that the rural population
should not bear the entire expense of an improvement of which they,
however, are to be the chief beneficiaries; the state itself, in all its
parts, benefits from the improved conditions which follow improved
roads, and should bear a portion of the expense. Do not think that city
people escape the tax of bad roads. In St. Louis four hundred thousand
people consume five hundred tons of produce every day. The cost of
hauling this produce over bad roads averages twenty-five cents per mile
and over good roads about ten cents per mile, making a difference of
fifteen cents per mile per ton. For five hundred tons, hauled from farms
averaging ten miles distance, this would be seven hundred and fifty
dollars per day, or a quarter of a million dollars a year--enough to
build fifty miles of macadamized road a year. The farmers shift as much
as they can of their heavy tax on the city people--the consumer pays the
freight. Everybody is concerned in the "mud-tax" of bad roads.
And so what is known as the "state aid" plan has become popular. By this
plan the state pays a fixed part of the cost of building roads out of
the general fund raised by taxation of all the people and all the
property in the state. Under these circumstances corporations,
railroads, and the various representatives of the concentrated wealth of
the cities all contribute to this fund. The funds are expended in rural
districts and are supplemented by money raised by local taxation.
The state of New York, which has a good system, pays one-half of the
good roads fund; each county pays thirty-five per cent, and the
township fifteen per cent. Pennsylvania has appropriated at one time six
and a half millions as a good roads fund. The new Ohio law apportions
the cost of new roads as follows: The state pays twenty-five per cent,
the townships twenty-five per cent, and the county fifty per cent. Of
the twenty-five per cent paid by the townships fifteen per cent is to be
paid by owners of abutting property and ten per cent by the township as
a whole. In New Jersey, which has a model system of road-building and
many model roads, the state pays a third, the county a third, and the
property owners a third.
A more recent theory in American road-building which has been advanced
is a plan of national aid.[1] This is no new thing in America, though it
has been many years since the government has paid attention to roadways.
In the early days the wisest of our statesmen advocated large plans of
internal improvement; one great national road, as we have seen, was
built by the War Department from the Potomac almost to the Mississippi,
through Wheeling, Columbus, Indianapolis and Vandalia, at a cost of over
six million dollars. And this famous national road was built, in part,
upon an earlier pathway, cut through Ohio by Ebenezer Zane in 1796, also
at the order of Congress, and for which he received grants of land which
formed the nucleus of the three thriving Ohio cities, Zanesville,
Lancaster, and Chillicothe. The constitutionality of road-building by
the government was questioned by some, but that clause granting it the
right to establish post-offices and post roads "must, in every view, be
a harmless power," said James Madison, "and may perhaps, by judicious
management, become productive of great public conveniency. Nothing which
tends to facilitate the intercourse between the states can be deemed
unworthy of the public care."[2] But the government was interested not
only in building roads but in many other phases of public improvement;
it took stock in the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal; Congress voted $30,000
to survey the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal route, and the work was done by
government engineers. When railways superseded highways, the government
was almost persuaded to complete the old National Road with rails and
ties instead of broken stone. When the Erie Canal was proposed, a vast
scheme of government aid was favored by leading statesmen;[3] the
government has greatly assisted the western railways by gigantic grants
of land worth one hundred and thirty-eight million dollars. The vast
funds of private capital that have been seeking investment in this
country, at first in turnpike, plank, and macadamized roads, then in
canals, and later in railways, has rendered government aid comparatively
unnecessary. In the last few years the only work of internal improvement
aided by the government is the improvement of the rivers and harbors,
which for 1904 takes over fifty millions of revenue a year. The sum of
$130,565,485 has been well spent on river and harbor improvement in the
past seven years. Not only are the great rivers, such as the Ohio and
Mississippi, improved, but lesser streams. A short time ago I made a
journey of one hundred miles down the Elk River in West Virginia in a
boat eleven inches deep and twelve feet long; a channel all the way down
had been made about two feet wide by picking out the stones; the United
States did this at an expense of fifteen hundred dollars. The groceries
and dry goods for thousands were poled up that river in dug-outs through
that two-foot channel. I doubt if a two-wheel vehicle could traverse the
road which runs throughout that valley, but I know a four-wheel vehicle
could not.
The advocates of national aid urge the right to establish post roads; "I
had an ancestor in the United States Senate," said ex-Senator Butler of
South Carolina, "who refused to vote a dollar for the improvement of
Charleston Harbor; but almost the first act of my official life was to
get an appropriation of two hundred and fifty thousand for that purpose.
There is as ample constitutional warrant for the improvement of public
roads out of the United States Treasury--as large as there is for the
improvement of rivers and harbors, or for the support of the
agricultural colleges."
"But few judicial opinions have been rendered on this subject. In the
case of Dickey against the Turnpike Company, the Kentucky court of
appeals decided that the power given to Congress by the constitution to
establish post roads enabled them to make, repair, keep open, and
improve post roads when they shall deem the exercise of the power
expedient. But in the exercise of the right of eminent domain on this
subject the United States has no right to adopt and use roads, bridges,
or ferries constructed and owned by states, corporations, and
individuals without their consent or without making to the parties
concerned just compensation. If the United States elects to use such
accommodations, it stands upon the same footing and is subject to the
same tolls and regulations as a private individual. It has been asserted
that Jefferson was opposed to the appropriation of money for internal
improvements, but, in 1808, in writing to Mr. Lieper, he said, 'Give us
peace until our revenues are liberated from debt, ... and then during
peace we may chequer our whole country with canals, roads, etc.' Writing
to J. W. Eppes in 1813 he says, 'The fondest wish of my heart ever was
that the surplus portion of these taxes destined for the payment of the
Revolutionary debt should, when that object is accomplished, be
continued by annual or biennial reenactments and applied in times of
peace to the improvement of our country by canals, roads, and useful
institutions.' Congress has always claimed the power to lay out,
construct, and improve post roads with the assent of the states through
which they pass; also, to open, construct, and improve military roads on
like terms; and the right to cut canals through the several states with
their consent for the purpose of promoting and securing internal
commerce and for the safe and economical transportation of military
stores in times of war. The president has sometimes objected to the
exercise of this constitutional right, but Congress has never denied it.
Cooley, the highest authority on constitutional law, says:
"'Every road within a State, including railroads, canals, turnpikes, and
navigable streams, existing or created within a State, becomes a
post-road, whenever by law or by the action of the Post-Office
Department provision is made for the transportation of the mail upon or
over it. Many statesmen and jurists have contended that the power
comprehends the laying out and construction of any roads which Congress
may deem proper and needful for the conveyance of the mails, and keeping
them repaired for the purpose.'"[4]
It has been many years since the United States government was interested
considerably in mail routes on the roadways of this country; in the past
half century the government has spent but one hundred thousand dollars
for the improvement of mail roads. The new era of rural delivery brings
a return, in one sense, of the old stagecoach days. A thousand country
roads are now used daily by government mail-carriers, but the government
demands that the roads used be kept in good condition by the local
authorities. Thus the situation is reversed; instead of holding it to be
the duty of the government to deliver mail in rural districts, Congress
holds that the debt is on the other side and that, in return for the
boon of rural delivery, the rural population must make good roads.
Madison well saw that government improvement of roads as mail routes
would be of great general benefit; for in _The Federalist_ he adds that
the power "may perhaps by judicious management become productive of
great public conveniency."
[Illustration: A GOOD-ROADS TRAIN
[_The Southern Roadway's good-roads train, October 29, 1901, consisting
of two coaches for officials and road experts and ten cars of road
machinery; for itinerary through Virginia, North Carolina. Tennessee,
Alabama, and Georgia_]]
One great work the government has done and is doing. It has founded an
Office of Public Road Inquiries (described elsewhere) at Washington, and
under the efficient management of Hon. Martin Dodge and Maurice O.
Eldridge a great work of education has been carried on--samples of good
roads have been built, good road trains have been sent out by the
Southern Railway and the Illinois Central into the South, a laboratory
has been established at Washington, under the efficient charge of
Professor L. W. Page, for the testing of materials free of charge,
and a great deal of road information has been published and sent out.
The Brownlow Bill, introduced into Congress at the last session, is the
latest plan of national aid, and is thus described by Hon. Martin Dodge
of the Office of Public Road Inquiries:
"The bill provides for an appropriation of twenty million dollars. This
is to be used only in connection and cooperation with the various states
or civil subdivisions of states that may make application to the General
Government for the purpose of securing its aid to build certain roads.
The application must be made for a specific road to be built, and the
state or county making the application must be ready to pay half of the
cost, according to the plans and specifications made by the General
Government. In no case can any state or any number of counties within
the state receive any greater proportion of the twenty million dollars
than the population of the state bears to the population of the United
States.
"In other words, all of the plans must originate in the community. The
bill does not provide that the United States shall go forward and say a
road shall be built here or a road shall be built there. The United
States shall hold itself in readiness, when requested to do so, to
cooperate with those who have selected a road they desire to build,
provided they are ready and willing to pay one-half the cost. Then, if
the road is a suitable one and is approved by the government
authorities, they go forward and build that road, each contributing
one-half of the expense. In order to prevent the state losing
jurisdiction of the road, it is provided that it may go forward and
build the road if it will accept the government engineer's estimate. For
instance, if a state or county asks for ten miles of road, the estimated
cost of which is thirty thousand dollars, and the state or county
officials say they are willing to undertake the work for thirty thousand
dollars, the government authorizes them to go ahead and build that road
according to specifications, and when it is finished the government will
pay the fifteen thousand dollars. If the state or county does not wish
to take the contract, the General Government will advertise and give it
to the lowest bidder, and will pay its contributory share and the other
party will pay its contributory share.
"It is no part of the essential principle involved in this national aid
plan that the exact proportion should be fifty per cent on each side.
Any other figure can be adopted. Some think ten per cent is sufficient;
some think thirty-three and one-third is the proper percentage; others
think twenty-five per cent only should be paid by the government,
twenty-five per cent by the state, twenty-five per cent by the county,
and twenty-five per cent by the township. The one idea that seems to be
generally accepted is that the government should do something."
Thus the interest in the great question is beginning to forge to the
front; through the Office of Public Road Inquiries a great deal of
information is being circulated touching all phases of the question.
There is a fine spirit of independence displayed by the leaders of the
movement; no one plan is over-urged; the situation is such that the
final concerted popular action will come from the real governing
power--the people. When they demand that the United States shall not
have the poorest rural roads of any civilized and some uncivilized
nations, we as a nation will hasten into the fore front and finally lead
the world in this vital department of civic life, as we are leading it
in so many other departments today.
[Illustration: SAMPLE STEEL TRACK FOR COMMON ROADS
[_On the driver's right is seated Hon. Martin Dodge, since 1898 Director
of the Office of Public Road Inquiries_]]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See _post_, pp. 68-80.
[2] _The Federalist_, p. 198.
[3] _Historic Highways of America_, vol. xiv, p. 57.
[4] Thomas M. Cooley, _Constitutional Law_ (Boston, 1891), pp. 85-86.