FOURTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART I. 55 



time and energy and money of our people has been largely concentrated 

 on railroad building. 



Now that railroads have been builded into* almost every nook and 

 corner of our land, the pendulum has begun to swing back and the long 

 neglected country road is beginning to receive the attention it deserves. 

 No single statement can more clearly illustrate how well deserved is this 

 attention than that 95 per cent of all the freight carried by railroads 

 and steamships is first carted over a primary road. 



It has been a great mystery to me that our Yankee and American 

 business intellect has not taken a lesson from the builders of railroads 

 and applied it to our dirt road improvement. 



Pray, what is a railroad but a road over which to haul something? 

 So is the country road. 



What steps do builders of railways take in going about the work 

 of construction? 



First, they provide for ample cash — two millions, ten or twenty 

 millions of dollars. Then the most competent engineers and most re- 

 sponsible contractors are secured, and everything is systematized, with 

 a view to perfect, enduring and uniform construction. 



Why should not the improvement of our principal highways be con- 

 ducted along similar lines? They will be when the people awaken to 

 the truth, and especially when they learn that the tax they are paying 

 for bad roads is ten times more than they would need to pay to build 

 good ones. 



It is a positive fact that a load of 6,270 pounds can be hauled by- 

 one horse on a macadem road. That it requires two horses to draw 

 the same load on the best gravel road, and five horses on the best dirt 

 road. I insist, therefore, that the man who is using five horses to 

 draw what only one might haul, is contributing the value and use of 

 four horses, constantly, for the privilege of having bad roads. This is 

 his bad roads tax. 



Whenever, as often happens, a farmer is compelled to accept ten 

 per cent less for a product while roads are passable, than he could 

 have secured during a muddy season, if only he could have delivered 

 the product to market, he is paying 10 per cent of the value of that 

 product as an outright tax on bad roads. 



The merchant suffers proportionately, as the farmer buys less goods 

 ^nd less of luxuries when he is receiving less for his products. 



In short, good roads are an absolute commercial and social necessity 

 to every citizen and should be paid for by everybody. 



The New York law has proven exceedingly popular and is a demon- 

 strated solution of the good roads problem for Iowa. 



Property abutting on a permanently improved highway is specially 

 benefited by increase in value. Townships and counties are benefited 

 directly, in contrast with those where no such highways exist. 



Iowa is ready to act. She is rich enough to proceed without wait- 

 ing for Government aid. It may be many years; it may be never that 

 Uncle Sam will help us. Let us, then, help ourselves. Let the State 

 pay 50 per cent, the county 25, the township 15, and the owners of 



