University of Virginia Library

Some Results of Good Roads.

Improved roads are breeders of traffic. It is generally found that
new industries, new and greater production, spring up upon the line
of well-built roads, which increase commerce and enlarge business.

On the other hand, bad roads keep a community from developing
and cause material loss in many ways. There are no statistics which
show the loss to the farmer due merely to the greater cost of transportation

over bad roads, but the loss must be enormous; in fact, it
is estimated that it amounts to many millions of dollars each year.
As I have said, every citizen is directly interested in improving the
roads of the country; that the farmer is not the only one benefited,
but if he were I should vote to improve the roads of the country,
because he is the first and most powerful producer of wealth and
he has a right to insist that a portion of the money that he pays
to the Government shall be returned to him by way of benefits from
the Government.

I care nothing for the suggestion made that a few great highways
be built from one end of the country to the other, because I believe
that that will be very largely for the benefit of those who desire to
take pleasure trips in automobiles, and that those who are entitled
to the benefits of good roads, or a very few of them at least, would
receive no benefit whatever. Rather do I prefer to expend money
in order to bring the farmer in closer touch with the towns and
the town man in closer touch with the farmer to the mutual benefit
of each.