Show j now there Is no more important question before the american public than the general improvement 0 the highways to the standard of twentieth century requirements quire ments the volume of traffa over the public highways Is equal to or ex ceede that of all the railways tte food products of the world pass over these roads to reach the market bad roads interfere with the regular distribution of these products resulting in an erratic and inconstant supply tor a fixed and demand bad roads have nece situated the tice ot rushing the crops to market all in a heap aking but two or three months instead ot spreading this delivery over six to ten months eclen farm products should be moved from producer to consumer as they are needed for consumption but the farmer will find the roads in the winter and spring bad and at times practically e and for this very reason he hurries his grain to market as soon as harvested this causes congestion on the railroads and works havoc in business conditions the moving of the crops requires an enormous amount of money and a general upheaval in financial centers every fall is the result of this sudden drain the hurried disposition of the year s crop has ne hesitated cesita ted the building of large storage houses in the grain centers to care for it in chicago the stor age charge is nine cents per bushel per year the car crying capacity of the elevators of that city alone Is about 85 bushels representing a storage charge of over 5 per year the passing of the food supply into the control of the grain kings means a loss to the farmer and an additional and unnecessary cost to the consumer the general improvement of the highways of the country Is vastly more important to the people as a whole than the building of the panama canal the am provement pro of the inland waterways or the irrigation of the semi and lands of the west those who have traveled know that the roads throughout europe are good the same Is true of australia and new zealand countries newer than our own less populous and with nothing like our aagre gate wealth the fact that the rest of the world has good roads while we haye bad ones Is significant it shows that the plan we have been pursuing has not been successful in three hundred years less than eight per cent of the highways of our country have been permanently improved and at the rate we are go li g it would require nearly four thousand years to complete tl e job so as road builders the people ot the united states have been a failure this Is all the more surprising when we consider that they are conspicuously successful in every other line of human endeavor millions upon millions of dollars have been wasted in every state in the union upon the public roads by ill timed or misdirected ef tort and with really very little to show for the ex pend iture it is only within the last ten or fifteen deais that any real progress has been made along the 1 ne of permanently improving the conditions the trouble Is we have been endeavoring to un tancle the snarl by pull ng the wrong tring without adv reason for doing so the farmers 0 the country from maine to california from the very first assumed that the country roads belonged to them and it was their business to irr prove them and this misconception held sway for nearly years A few years ago a man ao 10 isea jersey made a dis covery it was that the highways are public property as much so as the state house this raised the ques tion why it the highways are public property should not the public take care of its own why should not the state and all property therein contribute to building the everybody Is interested in them every body is affected through the markets by the road con dillons the are benefited by good roads and injured by bad ones the new thought spread throughout the state ind finally new jersey led the way to better con dillons bya passing a law by which the state should con tribute one third the money required to improve the loads other states followed increasing the alon to one halt and in one case massachusetts to three fourths in many caes ot the new england states farm property Is orly a very small portion of the total taxable erty in some cases not ten per cent and when the cost of load improvement was distributed over all prop eriv of the state the burden was hardly felt and yet immense sums were raised for road purposes best of all the roads were built under proper supervision instead of leading it to the inexperienced hands of the loca path master ten years ago bew lork state began in a small way to aid and appropriated 50 to start the work the plan grew in favor so rapidly that within five years tl e tate by an overwhelming vote passed a cons titu it providing for an issue of 50 in 1 ands to help build the highways what a record in five years from fifty to fifty millions the tax necessary to pay the interest on this enormous sum and then finally pay off the bonds will hardly be felt by the property pio perty owners of the empire state owing to their immense list of taxable property ohio after 40 years of building roads by the old plan of local taxation and bond issues in which the farmer haj to pay practically the whole bill has passed a state id law which will enable it to build three miles of improved roads where it has been build ing one without any increase whatever in taxation upon farm property iro perty arginia is the first southern state to join the state aid column for good roads kentucky is alive to the vitiation and ls taking to change its conati gutlon in oid r io be in a pos tion to spread the road tax over all the property in the state in certain parts of the country notably in the mis valle there is an entire misconception as to what tte state aid plan of load build ng means some imagine the state would take control of the highways build roads and tax the people to pay tor them others that it la a scheme to force road building against the wishes of the farmers nothing could be farther from the truth the state does not in any manner under a state aid law interfere with the ab solute local control of the highways the voters of every township decide any roads shall be am proved what roads to what extent when it shall be done if at all the state has absolutely no voice in the mailer if however the township by a majoria majo rit vote decides to build a road under the state aid plan it makes application to the state for that purpose the state engineer thereupon visits the locality goes over the road propped prop oed to be improved with the local author aties and decides upon the character of the improve ment best suited to the conditions he then prepares plans and specifications and when these are approved bv the highway commissioners or other properly conati buted local authorities the contract Is let to the lowest responsible bidder and the work is then done under the supervision of the state engineer this insures proper construction and that means durability and low cost the road afterward dundei a state aid law not a rod of road could be built unless the residents ot a township decided to do so not a dollar of state money could be expended unless the farmers who live in the rural township voted for improvements if it should be alleged that state aid was a plan to compel railroads corporations merchants and facture rs to I 1 elp build the roads it would not be far from the truth under state aid the farmers control the situation it they decide to improve the roads the other people are obliged to help pay the bill in order to build roads cheaply they should be built extensively it costs a great deal more proper tlona tely to build a halt mile of road than it does to build ten half miles no contractor cares tor a small job hut for a large one competition is keen it takes just as much time and bother to get ready to build halt a mile of load as it does to build ten miles by build ang in the baiger quantities from 20 to 25 per cent in cost of construction can be saved As loads properly built will last tor a great many years should be built as school houses and court ho aises are built viz by a bond issue thus a township arder state aid could build 10 15 or 20 miles of roads in one bear have the roads to use and spread the pay ment of the same over say 10 or 20 years if this is lone and the state aid plan prevails there will be very little it any increase in taxation few people have an idea to what eident bad roads interfere with travel and how they affect the b illness of the merchant in the country town the 11 nois 1 ishway commission has gathered some very valuable data upon the effect of road and weather conditions upon highway traffic observations were made at 72 well distributed points in the state and an actual count was made by the vehicles passing upon different days throughout each month of the year covering all kinds of weather and road conditions the report shows that traffic over stone or gravel roads was fairly uniform throughout the year while upon the earth roads it was subject to the widest varia alons the following figures are significant and tell more forcibly how g eat is the burden of bad roads than anything else can possibly do the clear lake earth road leading into springfield illinois showed in average traffic for four days in march of 65 vel ides per day over the same road in june and july the average was vehicles on the same days in peoria 60 miles away under the same weather conditions but over a hard road the traffic for march was and the average tor june and july Obe nations at champaign over an earth road showed the average for january february and march to be 62 as against for september and october the fount at decatur over a gravel road was march and viril july and august over an earth loarf bading into sullivan the count tor january february and march was 54 august and september at ligin on a hard road the report showed for mancl and an average tor june and july of at effingham on an earth road march and april august ai d september at centralia over an earth road march 28 june think of this hie be livering an address upon good roads the asked it be would writer was once interrupted and favor taxing the widows cottage to help build the roads he answered that he certainly would as the annual tax would probably not exceed 10 or 15 cents and he gave the following illustration of how bad roads burden the people A woman goes into a grocery store for a dozen eggs and a pound of butter when told the prices she protests the grocer in defense says well you see madam the roads are so bad now verv few are coming to town so butter and three cents more for eggs are scarce she pays the egge and four cents more for the butter and this beven cents represents her bad road tax paid that evening this is repeated from time to time through out the year rot only in her case but in hundreds ot others in that town and in thousands ot towns through out the length and breadth of the land there is no doubt that the woman in question would benefit through good roads by at least ten times the amount ot the tax on her cottage there Is another misconception that Is widespread and is holding back road improvements and that Is thit a permanent stone or gravel road cannot be sue cess fully built upon the rich black loam soil of the mississippi valley we sometimes hear ot parties who have tried it and in a few years the stone or gravel has sunken into the mud out of sight experienced engineer knows that there Is no difficulty whatever in building a good durable and easily maintained road up Q the follow ng table comp led from agures gathered by the cultural department in 1904 shows Q the as of improved roadways in each state 3 43 arizona 3 6 arkansas 64 california S 87 colorado 58 connecticut 16 70 dela vare 2 20 district of columbia 68 ba 5 09 georgia 2 85 idaho 8 41 ind ana 34 94 iowa 1 0 kansas kentucky 16 60 louis ana 13 ma ne 9 10 maryland 9 35 massachusetts 45 89 M cl igan 10 13 minnesota 7 87 mississippi 38 M 2 52 montana 23 nebraska 02 nevada 50 I 1 ew hampshire 8 65 new jersey IS 32 new mexico 01 new 01 k 7 96 north carolina north dakota 35 ohio 33 8 a 0 oregon 7 55 pennsylvania rl ode island 43 25 south carolina south dakota z tennessee 8 texas utah 8 57 vermont 13 45 virginia 3 08 Wa ington west u ginia 97 wisconsin 16 7 wyoming the united states 7 on this soil the only thing necessary Is to thoroughly tile the road and give it proper crown so the water will readily run off roads have been successfully built upon this soil all over indiana and successful there why not 1 the stone or gravel covering must be watertight thoroughly compacted and with a sut slope to cause the water to quickly run off the road material serves two purposes to furnish a smooth hard surface so it will give the least possible resistance to traffic and second to shed water and keep the earth beneath the stone or gravel dry water Is the only natural enemy of roads but water Is a coward and will run away it given a chance it a road la flat it does not shed water and will break up and go to pieces it requires three or four times the expense to maintain a fiat road it does one properly crowned there no difficulties whatever lu building roads sue of the corn belt of the cess fully on the black loam mississippi valley in fact it costs less to build roads there than in massachusetts where stone abounds this Is due to the fact that in the corn belt there is very little grading to be done few hills to be cut down or bol aws to be filled and less bridging the roads will cost less mone even if the road material has to be shipped 50 or miles by train the railways are benefited by road building and stand ready to con tribute to that end by making special rates upon road material it would be interesting to take a concrete example of state aid apply it to a typical farm in one of the central western states and see exactly what state ild means so far as taxes upon that farm are concerned for the purpose of let us take an average farm of acres in the corn belt of illinois and see what the effect upon the taxes on that farm would be if the state should undertake a very vigorous campaign of road building under state aid one that contemplates an expenditure of the enormous sum of 50 in ten years enough money to improve all the main highways if the state connect every community with the market town and county seat and give d corn network of good roads from galena to cairo the plan being thai the state should pay one halt the ex pense and the townships or road districts tha others it 50 were expended in ten years the state would be required to raise 25 of it there is in the state property to the total assessed valuation of 1 to raise 2 a year or 25 in ten ears would require a two mill tax upon this property so a two mill tax applied to all the property of the state of illinois at the present assessed not taking into account the possible in crease in value thereof would produce the sum required the records show that the taxing alue of an average acre farm in the corn belt of illinois Is a little less than 2 00 the actual value being 10 A two mill state tax on this farm as hessed on the value of 2 would be exactly 4 a bear and no more and in ten years the state tax would be 10 which would be the farm a proportion 0 the total where this farm would pay 40 one single corporation in the city of chicago would have to pay 50 another and the rail ways of the state over two millions of dollars thus we see by a state levy of two mills tor ten one halt of the 50 Is provided for the other halt must be raised by local taxation or by a bond issue let us assume that the township in which the farm in question Is located votes bonds to the full cons titu dional limit that Is goes into debt just as far as it can go and pays the highest interest that the law per mits it to pay the limit of the bond issue Is five per cent of the assessed valuation so |