744 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
known to the farmers of the country, and they realize that the establish- 
ment of a complete system of properly constructed public roads will have 
the direct effect of greatly increasing the value of their farms, they will 
be the foremost advocates of a broad, comprehensive policy of public-road 
improvement by the nation, states, counties, and townships. 
Mr. Chairman, the farsighted wisdom of Julius Csesar built from the 
imperial exchequer the magnificent roads that led in all directions to 
eternal Rome. The great Napoleon — Csesar like — built the roads of 
France that center in Paris from the general funds of the government; 
and these French roads have done more than any other single agency 
to encourage the thrift and increase the industry and insure the content- 
ment of the people of France. Caesar and Napoleon were the great road 
builders of ancient and modern times, and their foresight and their judg- 
ment and their work demonstrated the beneficent results that follow like 
the night the day the building of great governmental highways. 
The Chairman. The time of the gentleman from New York has ex- 
pired. 
Mr. Sulzer: Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to print in the 
Record as a part of my remarks an address by the Hon. N. J. Bachelder, 
master of the National Grange. 
The Chairman. Is there objection? [After a pause.] The Chair hears 
none, and the request is granted. 
The address referred to follows: 
THE DEMAND OF THE FARMERS FOR NATIONAL AID FOR HIGHWAY IMPROVEMENT, 
Address by the Hon. N. J. Bachelder, Master of the National Grange — 
National Carriage Builders' Association, Chicago, October 14, 1908. 
"The deplorable condition of the public roads in nearly all sections of 
the United States has for many years been the subject of careful con- 
sideration by the farmers, and they fully realize the great economic and 
social importance of substituting a scientific system of road construction 
and maintenance for the crude and old-fashioned methods that prevail to 
so large an extent at the present time. It may seem to outsiders that it 
has taken the farmers a long time to appreciate the benefits of improved 
roads, but in reality they have not been so backward as some of their 
critics suppose. As the chief sufferers from the rough dirt roads which 
constitute by far the greater mileage of the country's highways, the 
farmers have been foremost in favoring the general policy of road im- 
provement, and have been using their influence to bring about a change 
in methods of road construction. 
"Up to a comparatively recent period the question of better roads was 
regarded as one that concerned only the districts in which the highways 
are located, and it was believed that the expense of road construction 
and improvement should be borne by such districts. As the result, very 
largely, of the persistent agitation by the farmers for better roads, the 
road problem has come to be considered from the wider point of view 
that bad roads affect not only the communities through which they run, 
but also the interests of the towns, cities, states, and nation. There 
is now a general agreement that since the manufacturers, merchants, 
and workers of the country at large are all concerned with the prosperity 
