LIVE STOCK BKEliDEKS. 129 



Now this Road Association, of which I happen to be Secretary, has 

 been in existence about twelve years and the first work that we had in 

 mind and in hand appertained very largely to the modification, amend- 

 ment and improvement of our road law. There was a widespread senti- 

 ment over the State that the laws of our State upon the statute books were 

 absolutely inadequate and that if we could get the laws amended, we would 

 have good roads. We worked in that direction and labored in it and had 

 conventions. We had State conventions in all the principal towns of the 

 State of Missouri outside of St. Louis and Kansas City — conventions at 

 Sedalia, Columbia, Chillicothe, Cameron and all over the State. We 

 eventually secured such laws, in the main, as this Association wanted. 

 We were not able to secure just the laws we wanted, but we have gotten 

 llie laws practically as we asked for them. 



And then the people of the State began to see something — they be- 

 gan to see that the laws of the State and the constitutional amendments 

 liiat we had clamored for, that these things did not make us roads. There 

 seemed to be a sentiment that had gotten abroad in the minds of the people 

 that if we just had the right sort of laws we would have good roads ; 

 but laws and constitutional amendments do not make roads. Now we 

 have gotten to a point where there is a re-awakening ; there was first an 

 awakening in the direction of the improvement of our laws, but we have 

 arrived at the point where there is something of a renaissance, something 

 of a revival got into the people in 1900 and there is now a re-awakening 

 which is widespread all over the State and the people are casting about 

 in their minds and making inquiry about how to proceed about the im- 

 provement of our roads and highways. 



Now I \vant to speak about the law just a little while. A law is 

 something that should be, if it is a good law, crystallized sentiment, the 

 result of experience, and the law if it is any account at all, must conform 

 to business principles and to the conditions demanded, as based upon the 

 experiences of men in business circles. The law does not make the in- 

 stitution, the law is such as to conform to the business principles in the 

 thing. Now we will make an inquiry first as to what business principles 

 are in a road system and then let us see, having discovered the principles 

 of a road system, whether we have laws that conform to these principles. 

 Now we will look at it in that way just for a few minutes. A road sys- 

 tem^ — all road systems must be co-operative systems, that is absolutely nec- 

 essary. IMy friend, Mr. Canaday, might have the very best conception 

 of how a road should be constructed and maintained; he might have the 

 very best conception that could be thought out by the human intellect 

 but he could not make use of it until his neighbors and all the people in 



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