270 TwENTY-FmsT BrENNiAi> Rbpokt 



known, a material that will cover your macadam roads 

 witli waterproofing a thousand times more indestructible 

 than oil; a substance hard, yet elastic, that is as endur- 

 ing as marble. And yet this vast and priceless deposit 

 today is reached only by dirt roads that are almost im- 

 passable. This is a disgrace to Kentucky, I would see, 

 and I hope to see, the labor of convicts, as well as others, 

 employed in the development of these great quarries, and 

 I hope to see this, the greatest road-making material 

 ever known, spread over 5,000 miles of boulevard all over 

 Kentucky from-mountains to Mills Point. 



I could talk to you for a week upon this subject. 

 Oh, it means so much to Kentucky as a State, and there 

 is much to expect from the development of good roads. 

 No other State in this Union has such a variety and 

 wealth of undeveloped resources ; more coal than Penn- 

 sylvania; more hardwood than any other Commonwealth 

 between the Mississippi and the Pacific, and more acres 

 of fertile soil than any other state of like area between the 

 two oceans. Our soil produces a greater variety of prod- 

 ucts than any other on this earth. Why is it that the 

 wealth of the mountains and the wealth of the plains are 

 not developed? It is because the people of the mountains 

 cannot reach the wealth of the plains, and the people of 

 the plains cannot avail themselves of the wealth of the 

 mountains, because of the cost of getting froin one to 

 the other. This is eliminated by connecting them by 

 great highways. It will increase the fertility of the soil 

 and the richness of the mines and the vast wealth of the 

 forest. 



Upon this movement rests the happiness and the 

 prosperity of the greatest people on earth, the people who 

 live and who expect to die in old Kentucky. God bless 

 her. 



For many years there has been a growth of senti- 

 ment against the prison contractor reaping large profits 

 from the convict whose liberty has been forfeited to the 

 State for his crime, and there has likewise grown up 

 the sentiment that the profit that may come from the 

 labor of the criminal should inure to the benefit of the 

 whole people rather than to the benefit of a few favored 

 contractors, and for that reason the General Assembly 



