266 Twenty-First Biennial Repoet 



We will receive some aid from the Federal Grovernment, 

 but the Federal Grovemment and the State Government 

 alike tax the people for the money, so at last every dollar 

 that is put in good roads must come directly or indirectly 

 out of the pockets of the people who enjoy them. Then 

 the question to which an intelligent citizenship should 

 first address itself is not shall we donate, but should 

 we invest the money toward this good work? If you 

 go out to get money to build good roads on the same 

 principle that you go to get money to educate the Chinese 

 ^r save the heathen you will not build many miles of road. 

 To get this money, you must, in a way, take it from the 

 people, with their consent, by taxation. But the people 

 are not going to tax themselves to build the roads unless 

 they are convinced that it is a good investment. And 

 whenever the people find that they are making money 

 by expending money upon the roads, you will get the 

 money just as quickly as you would secure it from a 

 farmer you have convinced that he would make money by 

 buying an addition of 1,000 acres to his farm that is for 

 sale nearby. There is no trouble to induce men to spend 

 money when they are certain or reasonably certain of a 

 safe return. N6w, is the expenditure of many thousands 

 of dollars for good roads a safe investment? 



Monet and Results. 



I am separating it from its moral and aesthetic, its 

 sentimental side. I am talking to you about the propriety 

 of expending money for roads as I would talk to a farmer 

 about the spending of money for land, as I would talk to 

 the manufacturer of the propriety of spending money 

 for machinery, as I would talk to the mine owner of 

 spending money for a tipple, or an option upon so many 

 acres of coal land. 



A great mistake that farmers have made is in not 

 making a businesslike calculation as to the cost of pro- 

 duction, which bears a direct relation to the advisability 

 of constructing good roads. A short time ago, Charles 

 L. Schwab, former president of the United States Steel 

 Corporation, and now president of the Bethelehem Steel 

 Company, the most gifted of all the great industrial mas- 

 ters of finance, made this startling statement: "One-third 



