84 CONFERENCE OF OOVERNORS. 



development of the country. It has not always been a imiform 

 growth, and, as needs for improved lines of communication have 

 developed, such lines have made at times more advanced steps 

 toward perfection than at others. This may be shown briefly by 

 the fact that in the United States, where vast areas of territory 

 were taken up by pioneers, the roads connecting settlements one 

 with another were neglected because the more immediate neces- 

 sities appeared to absorb all the attention of the people. It was 

 found, in the progress of time, that the means of communication 

 must be improved, or that the settlers would be left behind in the 

 race; and so a century ago we find the United States government 

 taking up the problem of building great thoroughfares for im- 

 proved lines of communication between the east and the west, the 

 remains of which are now plainly to be traced through Maryland, 

 West Virginia and Ohio, connecting the Mississippi Eiver with the 

 Atlantic Ocean. It was soon found that the building of these 

 great thoroughfares by the central government was not feasible; 

 their continuation was abandoned, and the roads reverted to the 

 States in which they were located. 



Various attempts at different times, more or less abortive, were 

 made by the State governments and by the communities to evolve 

 systems of highways, none of which were ever rounded out into a 

 whole. We have found the toll-road system tried and abandoned. 

 Then the canal and river navigation was developed, in order to 

 bring the producing districts into communication with the mar- 

 kets; but no active steps were taken toward securing successful 

 means of transportation until the introduction of the steam engine. 



Since that time the United States have devoted their energies, 

 so far as interconomunication is concerned, to the building up and 

 development of the railroad systems, until to-day more than half 

 of all the railroads in the world are within the limits of the United 

 States, and their carrying capacity and the rapidity at which they 

 operate are among the most extraordinary accomplishments of our 

 day. Col. P. V. Greene truly said, a decade or more ago : • — 



The United States have the longest and best roads in the world, but 

 they are in the form of railroads; and the construction of these rail- 

 roads has absorbed so much energy and capital that there has not 

 until now been time to construct good common roads, nor has the 

 necessity for them been evident. 



After the practical completion of. the railroad systems of the 

 United States, the intelligence of the people directed their energies 



