636 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



freight charges that the Missouri farmer and stockman enjoys, 

 really amounts to a premium over the price received by others 

 less advantageously located as regards distance and markets. 



GOVERNOR MAJOR'S GOOD ROADS DAYS. 



(Jewell Mayes, secretary.) 



On July 21, 1913, Gov. Elliott W. Major issued the first 

 State proclamation ever promulgated for a good roads day — 

 in fact, not -a good roads holiday, but, instead, two good roads 

 working days. 



Only thirty days to agitate and educate in the state-wide 

 campaign for a "new thing" in road work in a State having 

 277,244 farms and a total population of 3,293,335 — for the good 

 roads days were set for August 20th and 21st! 



Although the summer of 1913 was one of the driest and 

 hottest in the history of the middle west, the people of town and 

 city and country took up the proposition with fine spirit. To 

 the credit of the country newspapers and the daily papers let 

 it be truly recorded that they deserve the thanks and the in- 

 creased support of all lovers of better roads, for it was a great 

 publicity campaign that the papers of our State conducted. 



As these words go to every state and to many foreign 

 countries, it would not be amiss to present at this point a copy 

 of the first proclamation of its kind ever issued by any Gov- 

 ernor of any state, as follows: 



GOVERNOR MAJOR'S PROCLAMATION. 



Whereas, The public roads of the commonwealth are its highways of commerce, con- 

 stituting the strongest link in the chain of commercial greatness; and, 



Whereas, No achievement can bring quicker, surer and more lasting benefits to our 

 citizens and pay heavier dividend than the construction and improvement of our public 

 roads; and. 



Whereas, The State will this year contribute and pay to the people for good road pur- 

 poses more money from the public funds than the sum total paid in any three years in the 

 past; and, 



Whereas, Every citizen is directly interested and benefited by road construction and 

 betterment ; 



Now, therefore, I, Elliott W. Major, Governor of the State of Missouri, do hereby 

 set apart Wednesday and Thursday, August 20 and 21, A. D. 191.3, for road work in the 

 State of Missouri, and designate these two days as "Good roads days" and declare same 

 public holidays, and request that all other business be suspended as far as possible, and 

 that every able-bodied citizen labor upon the public highways of the State during these 

 two days, and that the work performed be such as will make a lasting and permanent im- 

 provement such as road grading, culvert building, ditching, graveling, dragging, etc. 



I call upon the county court of each county to issue a proclamation calling upon the 

 people to turn out and labor and see to it that the county is fully and completely organ- 

 ized, so the work will reach to every neighborhood and be conducted in a systematic and 

 business way, to the end that when the sun shall have set upon the second day there will 

 be left no community in aU the State where the hand of progress and toil has not left its 



