604 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



v.'e have been trying to build roads without the last item too long, but 

 then, we have the roads accordingly. 



A railroad corporation would not think of starting the construction of 

 a railway v.ithout first consulting and employing competent engineers to 

 make careful surveys and calculation. In laying out a public highway 

 v/ith us the only requirement in the way of engineering is to be able to 

 see straight from one section corner to another. If for one reason or an- 

 other the old settlers established public highways between two objective 

 points along the lines of least resistance, v.-e always have a board of su- 

 pervisors willing to remedy those defects from earlier days. 



As to the cost of building public highways, that ought not to cut much 

 figure with us. We can surely afford to travel on paved streets and macad- 

 amized roads through the length and breadth of the whole country, when 

 we with complaisance can spend all of four hundred million dollars in dig- 

 ging a big ditch thousands of miles from home, in a part of our hemi- 

 sphere where the chief occupation of the inhabitants is killing one an- 

 other, and which, if ever completed won't benefit us as much as a ten 

 dollar culvert in some wet place through a hi'ghway — we who spend a 

 hundred million dollars every year in building and maintaining machines 

 of death and destruction — otherv.ise called a navy, that no one even ex- 

 pects or wishes shall ever be of any benefit to the nation — other than to 

 deprive the labor market of some of the surplus of its best material and 

 to show off in foreign waters how big and strong we are. 



How would it be to turn both the war and navy department loose on our 

 prairies for a few years and set them to work at full pay to earn their 

 salaries in building roads for the country? That would be putting them to 

 some use. In their present vocation they are of no use to the country 

 whatever — only to consume wiiat others are earning. The old Romans 

 did so 2,500 years ago. Their armies constructed highways leading into 

 Rome that are marvels of perfectness to this day. 



Even if we took the hundred million dollars which we gratuitously 

 donate to the sugar trust every year and applied it on our public high- 

 ways we would not need to wallow in the mud much longer — not to men- 

 tion all the other trusts we are paying tribute to. 



But these things are not to be. We are paying out millions upon mil- 

 lions every year absolutely without any value received and I presume we 

 will continue to do so as long as we live. I even have a suspicion that we 

 have been paying out lots of good money to have our public highways im- 

 proved without getting adequate returns. And here we have no one but 

 ourselves to blame. We have been doing too much patchwork without 

 any system to it — scraping in a fev/ yards of dirt here and hauling a few 

 loads there temporarily to bridge over bad places. 



We might take it for granted that v/e have both funds and labor in 

 plenty to build all the good roads that we need. But in order to do that, 

 we must have the material. And we also have that, and, in abundance, if 

 we only go to work and use it. I don't think there is a township in the 

 county, but where some good gravel beds are found, where the material 

 can be got for little or no cost. In my township there is a piece of high- 



