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Show NEW ROAD LAW OPENS BIG FIELD Great Territory, Now Closed to Motor Cars Will be Unlocked Perhaps not one motorist in fifty realizes that the year just closed has been the greatest single accomplishment accomplish-ment in the cause of good roadj since the revolutionary war. When Preaidfent Wilson placed his signature to the Bankhead-Shackleford Bankhead-Shackleford good roads bill, $85,-000,000 $85,-000,000 of federal fundB and a like amount to come from the various state treasuries was dedicated to the cause of better American highways. This means that for the next five years $34,000,000 will be Bpent annually In making the road system of the United States comparable or superior to the present fine roads of Europe. No more splendid tribute to tlie educational value of the automobile could be paid than this action on the part of Congress. Until the coming com-ing of the motor car the good roads issue possessed little vitality. For seventy-five years the government exercised a passive policy toward the building of permanent highways. Railroads pushed Into virgin territory, terri-tory, cities sprang up along the right of way, but the rural arteries of travel remained in the same hopeless hope-less condition as when the pioneers ploughed through them afoot or on horseback. How it All Started With the first motor cars came the first feeble impulse of the good roads movement. The first cars were sold to city men who very soon found out that where city pavements ended, there ended all further hopes of travel. Pneumatic tires availing nothing against trackless stretches of gumbo mud or corduroy roads. With the mechanical Improvements in motor cars, the owner chafed at his limitations and demanded better state roads. Many states have been active toward promoting their own road systems as a result of this agitation agi-tation and quite a little has been accomplished in some localities. But it has remained for government co-operation to open up the full possibilities pos-sibilities of the country by appropriating appropri-ating this huge sum for road Improve ment. Just what the federal aid bill will bring to business in general can only be conjectured. That It will vastly benefit the farmer In transporting trans-porting his goods to market Is well known, and it should work to reduce re-duce the high cost of living by bringing bring-ing foodstuffs heretofore destroyed or wasted because of lack of communication com-munication with marketable points to city markets where the demand is great. One thing we are certain of. and that Is a remarkable expansion expan-sion in the business of American automobile manufacturers. Now Listen to Woodrow People who have shaken their heads over the future of the automobile auto-mobile Industry, have failed to appreciate ap-preciate the magnitude of American wealth. As President Wilson said in his address on good roads at Indianapolis, In-dianapolis, "You cannot know what the resources of the country' are unless un-less the country is covered with a network of roads which will release jail the locked up riches of all the i I countrysides," Those of us who i have been Connected with sales dls-I dls-I tribution of motor cars in the past : ten years know that this statement is true. We know that vaBt stretches stretch-es of territory practically isolated by lack of transportation facilities will be opened up with new roads and that the development of the rich farming or mining territory will create wealth for a new class of pioneers. "I venture to say," says E. C. Morse, of the Chalmers Motor Company, Com-pany, "that the automobile will prove one of the biggest factors toward to-ward this development and that shipments ship-ments of cars will follow new highways high-ways as fast as they are opened. With Uncle Sam firmly backing up a national highways program, the automobile manufao'turer has less reason than ever for believing In tho existence of a 'saturation' point for the motor car Industry. Expansion and increased sales will be tho slo- pan for this giant of American in-('iistries in-('iistries for years to come." |