42 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



TOWNSHIP. STATK AND XATIOXAI> COOPERATION IN 

 HIGHWAY BUILDING. 



BY HON, HORATIO S. EARLE, DETROIT. STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSIONER, 



It is my purpose to prove to you that it is necessary, wise and equi- 

 table and constitutional for the National i>'overnment to aid in im- 

 provino- the public waj]con roads, and that it is necessary, wise and equi- 

 table for the State to do the same, and that our constitution should 

 he <lijiiii2,e(l so as to permit it. 



I advocaie uational. State and local co-operation in buildin<i' better 

 roads. 



It is necessary because, if you do not have national and State aid, 

 the road must 'be poor in a poor township, while it may be good in 

 a rich one; but continuous cjood roads are so valuable that it is wise 

 TO aid in order to make them possible. 



We have the best waterway and railway systems of any civilized 

 country on earth. Why? Because we have expended 1451,000,000 

 in improvement of the waterways, and in capital and interest .fl38,- 

 000,000 in aid of the railways, and in addition have given to encour- 

 age railroad building 196,000.000 acres of the public lands, or a grand 

 total of 1^,450,000,000. This has been wise legislation, too, for it 

 has made it possible to put wheat from Chicago into Liverpool for 

 six and oiie-half cents per bushel where it cost fifty years ago fifty 

 cents per bushel to ship it from Chicago to Boston; further, wise be- 

 cause by building or aiding in the building of the railways the great 

 states of the Northwest have been made tributary to all the world, so 

 low is the cost of transportation. 



To our shame, however, we have the poorest common wagon roads of 

 any civilized country on earth; but every country that has better roads 

 than we have got them by national aid, and we cannot get them in 

 any other way, for the}^ cost too much to build for localities with a 

 small assessed valuation to raise the money. No need for us to sit 

 around and wish that good roads would grow, for they won't, you 

 have got to plant the seed,- — brains and money — in order to get a crop 

 of good roads in this country the same as thej^ have in the other civil- 

 ized countries. 



We are stockholders in three corporations, (1) in some township, 

 village or city corporation, (2) in the Michigan Co-operative Company, 

 (3) in the United States Federal Company. 



In the first kind, the township board, or the village or city council 

 are our directors; in the second, the State senators and representatives 

 are our directors; in the third the U. S. senators and representatives 

 are our directors. They are elected by us to carry out our will and to 

 draw a salary for doing that, and they are perfectly willing to do it, 

 but we must arouse a sentiment universal before they will act. 



We have given to the ITnited States Federal Compan}^ the right 

 to put a tax on the manufacture and sale of tobacco, cigars, cigarettei 

 and intoxicating liquors. 



