ROADS AND BRIDGES 2/7 



building their own roads, the streets, and their task in 

 that line is only well begun. The government and 

 states, as well as counties and towns, have devoted large 

 subsidies to railways, but, as a rule, the county has until 

 recently been the largest unit to appropriate money for 

 wagon roads. In many cases the whole burden has been 

 left with the township or with the sub-district within the 

 township. Railways have been pushed forward by im- 

 mense capital aggregated in the hands of corporations 

 or individuals, while the construction of wagon roads 

 has been left to the votes of the people not well organ- 

 ized into co-operative bodies. Capital invested in rail- 

 ways has been profitable to the capitalists, and to the 

 people as well. Money and labor invested in country 

 roads have been valuable to the people, but in a way 

 which has not been fully recognized by the persons 

 doing the work or paying the taxes. The self-interest 

 of the individual farmer has not been sufficient to induce 

 him to do more than his minimum share toward making 

 good roads. The wisdom and the leadership of our 

 largest co-operative units, the state and national gov- 

 ernments, have been called for by those directing the 

 movement to secure much more attention to a large and 

 systematic movement in highway improvement. 



Investment in good roads pays. Cases where money 

 has been invested in properly built country roads with- 

 out the people feeling that the investment has paid, are 

 rare. Our expenditure in country road building has been 

 very much underdone. AYe could afford to expend an- 

 nually two to four times as much in bettering our roads, 

 and we can expend it in a far better manner if we will. 



Good roads help the farmer. They increase the farm 

 value of his marketable products. They enable him to 

 market bulky products which he could not market with 

 roads over which he could not easily transport them. They 

 help him by reducing the cost at the farm of purchased 



