33 8 Presidential Addresses 



westward in the course of a century and a quarter 

 until it has gone from the Atlantic to the Allegha- 

 nies, from the Alleghanies down into the valley of 

 the Mississippi, across the great plains, over the 

 Rockies to where the Golden Gate lets through the 

 long heaving waters of the Pacific, and finally to 

 Alaska, to the Arctic regions, to the tropic islands 

 of the sea we who take so little account of mere 

 space must see to it that the best means of nullifying 

 the existence of space are at our command. 



Of course, during the last century there has been 

 an altogether phenomenal growth of one kind of 

 road wholly unknown to the people of an earlier 

 period the iron road. The railroad is, of course, 

 something purely modern. A great many excellent 

 people have proceeded upon the assumption that 

 somehow or other having good railways should be 

 a substitute for having good highways, good ordi 

 nary roads. A more untenable position can not be 

 imagined. What the railway does is to develop the 

 country; and of course its development implies that 

 the developed country will need more and better roads. 



A few years ago it was a matter of humiliation 

 that there should be so little attention paid to our 

 roads; that there should be a willingness not mere 

 ly to refrain from making good roads, but to let the 

 roads that were in existence become worse. I can 

 not too heartily congratulate our people upon the 

 existence of a body such as this, ramifying into every 

 section of the country, having its connections in 

 every State of the country, and bent upon that emi- 



