Salt Lake Tribune | 1917-03-25 | Page 33 | Important of Highway Defense

IMPORTANCE OF MGWDEFEKSE Strategic Value of Lincoln Route Considered First by Military Advisors. IMPROVEMENTS URGED May Be Soon Used for Transportation of Men and Supplies. The aAtual possibilities of a plunge into the world strife has created a new interest in the American road situation. Added to the worries of thosa giving serious consideration to the crying needs of the country in the way of preparedness, pre-paredness, now that conditions have reached a stago more critical than even the pacifists care to ignore, is the woeful woe-ful condition of the average rural highway high-way as a means of transportation from the military standpoint. It is the through, connected routes of travel, particularly the transcontinental highways, that are being most carefully studied." The Lincoln highway, because of its strategic routing between Kow York and San Francisco, is one of the roads of first importance in a military sense. Importance Shown. Major John F. O 'Kyan, division commander, com-mander, New York National Guard, is authoritv for the statement that the value oi a coast-to-coast highway, such as the Lincoln highway, is self-evident from the military point of view. Motor transportation has been developed so rapidly in the past few years, and thero are now in use in all of the states in the Union so large a number of commercial commer-cial trucks, that they constitute an important im-portant factor in any problem invoV-ing invoV-ing the transportation of men and Supplies Sup-plies within tho continental limits of tho United States in time of war. More, it is safe to assume that the factor of motor transportation will each year have an increased value. The efficiency of thiB motor transportation trans-portation fleet would, however, be greatly hampered bv the conditions of the roads over which the vehicles would have to operate. It is the experience of every motorist touring in tiiM country that' the good roads over which rapid progress may be made with safety, are unfortunately separated from other roads of like character by miles of wretched road, and that the good time made on the former is frequently neutralized neu-tralized hy accident and delay superinduced superin-duced by the latter. It is this "crazy-quilt" "crazy-quilt" pattern of road making which lessens the value of good road work in the United States so far as military uses are concerned. Work Needed. Progress is being mado on the Lincoln highway which, when completed, wdll avoid this objection throughout the entire en-tire length of its immense 3300-mile travel zone. But the work is not done, although a vast amount of improvement has been completed and much more wtll be added during the coming year, 'flio need of highway improvement is emphasized em-phasized by the inadequacy of the great railroad systems of the countrv to provide pro-vide transportation for immediate concentration con-centration of large military forces with all their needed supplies.