586 CIVIL ENGINEERING 



upon the basis of payments for results secured, by whatever 

 method. 



These details of transportation, and their related factors of legis- 

 lation, finance, and policy, have been elaborated to some extent, 

 since they affect the well-being of the people of all nations. It is 

 as true to-day as in the time of MacCauley, that the civiliza- 

 tion of a country is determined by the conditions of its highways, 

 and yet, as has been shown, the provision made for this purpose in 

 this country, at least for common roads and waterways, is wholly 

 inadequate to meet even present demands. We have no executive 

 department of highways, and that for waterways is but an adjunct 

 to the military arm of the government, presumably inaugurated 

 for the movement of naval vessels in the event of war and not to 

 promote the arts of peace and commerce, such as exist in other 

 great nations of the world. The general demand for national aid 

 for our public roads should meet with a prompt and generous re- 

 sponse from the general government as well as from all sections 

 of the country in a local cooperation, to place the highways of 

 the nation, state, county, or township in the best possible con- 

 dition, and for this purpose all legitimate local influences should 

 be concentrated upon the citizens who are selected to represent 

 their constituents in the honorable service of legislation, to secure 

 their active efforts in its behalf. 



The momentous importance of immediately providing for the 

 more general and cheaper distribution of the products of the earth 

 is apparently not fully realized, and certain it is that the increased 

 supply of transportation has not kept pace with the demand. The 

 operating expenses of some of the best managed trunk-line rail- 

 roads, last year, were increased 25 per cent because of their overtaxed 

 facilities. 



It does not appear to be generally known that the population 

 of the United States is increasing at a more rapid ratio than that 

 of any other portion of the globe and that by the year 1935 the 

 enumeration of the last census will have become doubled, while 

 the tonnage movement is expanding at a much more rapid rate, in 

 consequence of the greater output of mines, mills, and manufac- 

 tories, as well as from the increased acreage under cultivation. 



As this is a fundamental element affecting all industries, it is 

 respectfully submitted to this distinguished Congress in a care- 

 fully compiled graphical diagram, showing the increments of growth 

 during the past century, as actually recorded, subject to all the 

 vicissitudes of wars, famines, plagues, immigration, births, deaths, 

 and conditions of servitude which affect vital statistics, and to 

 these data the curve of population has been closely applied and 

 its law of evolution determined. It is thus found that the incre- 



