Miscellaneous. 641 



good roads built. Governor Hodges agreed to come if Governor 

 Major would furnish the overalls. Major accepted the offer 

 on condition that Hodges would work after he put on the over- 

 alls. Thus started what resulted in Governor Hodges making 

 the trip to Missouri and becoming enamored of the idea — and 

 Kansas and a full dozen other states followed suit with good 

 roads days later in the season, patterning after Missouri, the 

 latest being Illinois on April 15, 1914. 



ATTRACTED WORLD-WIDE ATTENTION. 



Hon. Jesse Taylor of Jamestown, Ohio, editor of "Better 

 Roads," says: 



The news of Governor Major's Missouri proclamation spread beyond the borders of 

 the State. The Brooklyn Eagle of New York said, in a congratulatory editorial, that the 

 eyes of the nation were centered on Missouri and were watching the experiment with in- 

 terest. Like comment was made by the press of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and 

 Boston. Even the staid Britishers took cognizance of the mobilization of an army of Amer- 

 ican road makers, for much comment appeared in the press of London and Liverpool. Mis- 

 sourians sojourning in Paris started a generous subscription list for the benefit of the work 

 back home. 



MOVEMENT NON-PARTISAN AND NON-POLITICAL. 



State, district, county and township officers joined with the 

 citizens to make ready for real road work. The rarest and most 

 unique element in the observance of the days, as well as in the 

 preliminaries, was the non-political and non-partisan spirit man- 

 ifested everywhere. 



SAYS EVERY STATE SHOULD DO LIKEWISE. 



The Brooklyn (N. Y.) Eagle, in endorsing the good roads 

 days movement in this State, said this: 



There is a curious reversion to older and better notions of citizenship in the plan of 

 Governor Major of Missouri to set aside two days in August on which every able-bodied 

 man in the State will be requested to give his service to the cause of good roads. There is 

 nothing compulsory about it, but the Governor believes that fully three hundred thousand 

 men will be patriots enough to give their brawn and muscle in this way to the State, and 

 others will lend mules and horses and wagons and machinery. By simple mathematics it 

 appears that three hundred thousand men working each two days would be the equivalent 

 of two thousand men working every day of the year, which would make a marked differ- 

 ence in the Missouri roads. No contractor will get any graft or any profit out of this ex- 

 periment. No politician will get anything. Public confidence is established at once. If 

 the work can be organized properly and co-ordinated properly, the result ought to be all 

 that the Governor hopes for. We wait with eager interest the Missouri experiment. It 

 may be an example to every state in the Union. 



A BOOST FROM THE NEW YORK SUN. 



The ever conservative and sarcastic New York Sun made 

 this optimistic comment in advance of the big days which gave 

 Missouri its biggest advertisement of a quarter of a century: 



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