34 Presidential Addresses 



lines that go out into the country are doing a great 

 deal to render it more possible to live in the country 

 and yet not to lose wholly the advantages of the 

 town. The telephone is not to be minimized as an 

 instrument with a tendency in the same direction; 

 and rural free delivery is playing its part along the 

 same lines. But no one thing can do more to offset 

 the tendency toward an unhealthy growth from the 

 country into the city than the making and keeping 

 of good roads. They are needed for the sake of 

 their effect upon the industrial conditions of the 

 country districts; and I am almost tempted to say 

 they are needed for the sake of social conditions in 

 the country districts. If winter means to the aver 

 age farmer the existence of a long line of liquid mo 

 rasses through which he is to move his goods if bent 

 on business, or to wade and swim if bent on pleasure ; 

 if winter means that after an ordinary rain the 

 farmer boy or girl can not use his or her bicycle; if 

 a little heavy weather means a stoppage of all com 

 munication not only with industrial centres but with 

 the neighbors, you must expect that there will be a 

 great many young people of both sexes who will not 

 find farm life attractive. It is for this reason that 

 I feel the work you are doing is so pre-eminently one 

 in the interest of the Nation as a whole. I congratu 

 late you upon the fact that you are doing it. In our 

 American life it would be hard to overestimate the 

 amount of good that has been accomplished by as 

 sociations of individuals who have gathered together 

 to work for a common object which was to be of 



