Show MUST BEGIN AT THE BOTTOM first thing to do Is to improve bad dirt roads money required Is astonishingly small the dirt roads are the real highways of commerce without them you would have little use for macadam roads or other highways of like character in the road fabric we must begin at the bottom As th the e dirt roads are improved year by year by process of evolution when necessity requires a certain percentage of them will bacome trunk lines and be converted into rock macadam concrete or roads of like character this will como come about when the betterment of the dirt roads has so improved agricultural and other communities through which they pass that the wealth and population and commerce justify it wo we cannot make all the roads rock macadam or concrete roads but we 51 X building a good road through a hill can make all our bad dirt roads good dirt roads we can make the rock macadam or concrete roads in certain sections and communities where country growth wealth population and volume of heavy traffic demand and justify it the amount of money really required to convert a bad dirt road into a good dirt road by the use of modern road equipment Is astonishingly small where the roads from the farm to the railway station are partly bad dirt roads partly good dirt dia roads and partly rock concrete or macadam roads the farmer must gauge his load not by the good dirt road not by the good macadam road over which he passes a part of the distance but by the bad dirt road he must travel what we should do is to improve the road gauging the load the producer must haul it if he be has to struggle with bad dirt roads he be is the man we wish to serve these roads are the arteries of the commerce of the soil and our very life credit prosperity education church and future interests depend upon them the closer we place the producer to the markets the lower will be our cost of living the roads which serve the producers today are the dirt roads roads of the people roads reaching every community and 50 years from now the great majority of the roads serving the producers will still be dirt roads we must deal with things real not ideal gov major of missouri |