146 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



influences have come about which have caused one of the greatest steps 

 forward that has ever been made by a civilized country, so far as the 

 farmer is concerned — the Department of free rural mail delivery. There 

 must follow closely upon its heels some interest taken by the Federal 

 Government in the very roads over which these rural routes are estab- 

 lished. 



I do not know precisely the nature of the Brownlow bill. The rural 

 routes would be post roads and we now have' something which catches 

 on to the constitution. We have a constitutional cover for our rural 

 routes. When they wanted the Government to make an appropriation 

 for the great turnpike that started from the east and came through Wheel- 

 ing — the Cumberland-Pike, the President fought it and said it was not 

 a post road, and therefore a government appropriation was unconstitu- 

 tional. Every one of these rural roads is a post road and we have there- 

 fore a constitutional right back of us. 



Mr. King : I am a farmer myself, but I desire to at least apologize 

 for the poor management of the roads by the farmers and offer an ex- 

 planation. About twenty-two or twenty-three years ago I knew a young 

 fellow who got married and he and his wife went to housekeeping on the 

 farm in a one-room house, say twelve feet one way and thirteen and one- 

 half feet the other. They rolled the mattress up in the morning and tied 

 it with three strings and stood it in the corner during the day, and when 

 the older members of the family came from the East to visit them, when 

 it came time to retire they went out the door and around the front of this 

 one-roomed establishment and went up a ladder and into the half-story 

 through a half window and slept on the ceiling. Now, gentlemen, the 

 United States is only just beginning to keep house. Can anybody tell 

 me how old the rural routes are? This country is only five hundred 

 years old from its birth, let alone its wedding day — let alone the time it 

 has been housekeeping — only five hundred years from its birth. Wash- 

 ington is only four hundred years old. How old is Rome? The roads 

 of Rome were built 750 years B. C, and it is 1903 years since Christ. 

 Please do not blame the farmers because they are still keeping house in 

 one room in America. We are going to do better, and that is what we are 

 here for today, to learn to do better. 



Mr. : I did not get what Mr. Richardson considered to be 



an equitable ratio between the General Government, the State and the 

 county and the farmer — the equitable proportion that it takes to build 

 these roads. Under your system you proposed to let the general Gov- 

 ernment, the State and the county and of course the farmer all assist in 

 building the roads. I did not catch the ratio. 



Mr. Richardson : There are different rates in the different states. 

 In New York the general fund pays 50 per cent, the county 35 per cent 



