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Show ROAD QUESTION MID AUTOMOBILES i Birmingham Will Talk Good Roads April 17 at Big Meeting Meet-ing U. S. Senator to Speak. WASHINGTON, D. C. March 31, 1017. Insistently the need of roads in connection with comprehensive pre parednes is being expressed all over tho country Down in Birmingham, beginning April 17. a monster good roads gathering will be held in which the senior United States senator from Alabama will play a prominent part. Chairman John H. Bankhead of the Senate Committee on Postoffices and 1 Postroads thus comments on the preparedness pre-paredness situation: "If we are to have war, we must have roads, if we ' have peace, we must also have roads. It may be that I can be of the most service to my country, whether in war j or In peace, by promoting in every way possible the building of better I highways." Out in California the first public utterance of Governor William B. ! Stephens calls for "Federal, state and county co-operation in the construction con-struction of military roads for coast protection and for defense in other ways." Governor Walter E. Edge of New Jersey was an impelling factor in the recent adoption of a one-mill tax for state road purposes. The amount to be raised is $15,000,000 and the man sought to be the state highway engineer engi-neer is none other than Gen. George W. Goethals, the Panama canal builder. build-er. The plans also call for improved communication between New Jersey and New York state through the building build-ing of a bridge and a vehicle tunnel under the Hudson. It was former 1 Governor Franklin Fort of ev Jersey Jer-sey who suggested an ocean boulevard, boule-vard, the name of which could now easily be changed to that of the Atlan. tic Defense Highway. One of the last acts performed by President Woodrow Wilson as chief executive of New Jersey was to approve of a law ! which looked forward to the state bnilr road system which will become i a reality through the legislation ob- ' talned by Governor Edge. ' Under the direction of Chairman George C. Dlehl of the A. A. A. Good 1 Roads Board, a special edition of the . A. A. A. transcontinental map has been prepared containing the present 1 main travelable interstate and intra- , state roads which would fit into a I countrywide system that would lend 1 itself in great degree for military pur- ( poses. One of these maps goes to President Wilson, one to Maj. Gen. 1 Hugh L. Scott, one to Brig. Gen. Joseph E. Kuhn of the War College Divlson, and a fourth to Director W. 1 S. Gifford of the Council of National ' i Defense. While many A. A. A. state and local 1 clubs throughout the country have 1 1 offered their services for mobilization 1 purposes, the exact manner in which 1 they would fit into the plans of the War Department has not been definite ly decided upon. Announcement is expected in the comparatively near 1 1 future. , |
