CONFERENCE OF GOVERNORS. HI 



association of co-operative creameries of western Massachusetts. 

 There is one thing that has not been brought out in these meetings. 

 In gathering the cream for the creameries, it comes to us very 

 largely over crossways and byways which are in very poor condition ; 

 and, while we do not expect that things will be changed at once, in 

 time we hope there will be a great improvement, because there is 

 need of it, and a better chance for improvement here than in any 

 other line I know of in the development of our rural communities 

 in the western part of the Commonwealth. We hope the Governors 

 of our States will use their influence that we may have better roads 

 in our towns. If you will pardon the expression, most of our 

 roads seem only to have been whitewashed over. That is all it 

 amounts to on these cross roads I have spoken about. 



Mr. Lewis K. Speare of Boston, First Vice-President Ameri- 

 can Automobile Association. 



I esteem it a great honor to be called upon to respond for the 

 American Automobile Association, which is our national body. 

 The New England States as automobilists are certainly interested 

 in having some kind of uniformity in the law. Some of our mem- 

 bers have said that they did not care what the law was, if we could 

 only have a law that you could understand, and which would be 

 somewhat similar in its principles in the different States; and this 

 is particularly true of New England, where, under the modern form 

 of driving the automobile, we can cover three States easily in one 

 day. I myself had the pleasure of driving from the beautiful State 

 of Maine (Poland Springs) through the AATiite Mountains, landing 

 in the green hills of Vermont with my family for supper at Wood- 

 stock, all in one day. 



Now, it is absolutely impossible for any one, under the present 

 code, to know the laws of the different States. When we pass a 

 State line we ought to take a lawyer into the machine with us, 

 and pay his fare, and we need to be pretty well assured that he is 

 a lawyer conversant with the automobile laws of his own State, 

 at that. The State of New Hampshire, I am informed, requires 

 that the horn shall be blown at every cross road and blind curve. 

 We do not question but that it is a good law, but it is not the law 

 of Massachusetts, and I will guarantee that there are many auto- 

 mobilists of New Hampshire who are not aware that this is a 

 part of the law; and the result is, that there was a trap set at 

 Jaffrey last summer where many foreign automobiles were arrested 

 because they did not blow their horns going over the crossing of 



