OCR Text |
Show EVERYBODY WOUXD BENEFIT That which serves all the people should be paid for by all the people. That which is paid for by all the people peo-ple should be under the control of all the people. These are self-evident truths. We act by them when we build a Panama Canal, set aside and care for an area of natural beauty as a public park, give land to a transcontinental railroad, rail-road, establish and run an Army and a Navy, and conduct a Postal System. The entire Nation pays to build and maintain a Navy to protect New York and other seacoast cities. The people of a great many States never see a battleship during their entire lives. There is no valid objection to this, because everyone realizes that the capture of ruin of the seacoast cities would affect the entire Nation. The same principl holds in the construction of a national system of good roads. The whole Nation will benefit vastly from good roads in increased properity, better education, and development of natural resources. re-sources. The money spent on rivers is all paid by the Federal Government from general taxation, yet this traffic is only a small fraction of the traffic along our improved highways, and its benefits are proportionately small. To the farmer, a hard road means more than any other Federal activity, even the Postal Service. It is a convenience con-venience to get his mail promptly, but a good road makes it possible for him to run his farm or dairy at a much higher rate of production and greater profit, gives him and his family fam-ily more of the comforts and luxuries of life, helps his children to get a better bet-ter education, and raises his entire standard of living. Why contend that roads, a public utility for all the people, should be left to different groups of people to develop, when Postal Service, Army, Navy, and the projected superpower system are admitted to be national affairs? |