144 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL RErORT. 



ever get a system of good roads where it is necessary to have good roads, 

 you must have the National State and county co-operation. 



Now, there is another matter I desire to present to you. The Na- 

 tional Good Roads Association and the Department I represent, and I 

 have the honor to be Secretary of the National Association, is doing 

 everything possible to stimulate this movement ; that is to get the people 

 awakened to the idea that they are going to have these things and that 

 is the first condition before you will ever secure them. They are trying 

 to promote interest alf over the length and breadth of this country. 



DISCUSSION OF MR. RICHARDSON's ADDRESS. 



Col. Waters : I would like to refer briefly to some points brought 

 out in this address. I would like to say to Mr. Richardson and all of you 

 that we have scarcely claimed Missouri to have a very good law on the 

 subject of building rock roads. That, I must confess, is the weak place 

 in our laws. Our endeavor — the endeavor of this Association has been 

 to begin at the beginning and inaugurate a road system at the bottom 

 and I would say to him here now that this very question was discussed — 

 the question that I spoke of this morning was discussed in the Pan-Ameri- 

 can Road Congress at Buffalo in September, 1901, of which he was 

 secretary, and a gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. John Hamilton, the 

 secretary of the Pennsylvania Board of Agriculture, said some things at 

 that meeting I had intended to read to you this morning, but I did not 

 get quite to it for want of time. Mr. Hamilton took precisely the same 

 view of this question taken by the framers of the general road law of 

 the State of Missouri. He was speaking of the question of state aid — 

 endorsing it, it may be, but he made this remarkable statement in that 

 great convention. He said : "Before state aid and before anything else 

 can be done, and paramount to all, there must be competent supervision. 

 It is the greatest folly to appropriate money which is to go to men who 

 are incapable of spending it judiciously * * * much as I am inter- 

 ested in good roads, in Pennsylvania, if I were in the legislature anri 

 $1,000,000 or $5,000,000 were to be given for public roads, and its ap- 

 propriation depended upon my vote under our present system of super- 

 vision, I would vote 'No.'" (Applause.) 



We in the State of Missouri are getting upon a business basis. I do 

 say that the law, in so far as a primar)' organization of our road manage- 

 ment is concerned, is built upon business principles, and when we have 

 proved our ability to carry on our business, as we may, then I am in favor 

 of going to the legislature and asking assistance from the State. I be- 

 lieve it is going to come, but it will not come and ought not to come until 

 we have proved to the world that we are competent to disperse the funds 



