vast network
of railways--at least ten miles from a railroad station. Now railway
building has about reached its limit so far as mileage is concerned in
this country; in the words of Stuyvesant Fish, president of the Illinois
Central Railroad Company, we have "in the United States generally, a
sufficiency of railroads." Thus the average farm is left a dozen miles
from a railway, and in all probability will be that far away a century
from now. And note: seventy-five per cent of the commerce of the world
starts for its destination on wagon roads, and we pay annually in the
United States six hundred million dollars freightage to get our produce
over our highways from the farms to the railways.

Let me restate these important facts: the average American farm is ten
miles from a railway; the railways have about reached their limit of
growth territorially; and we pay six hundred million dollars every year
to get the seventy-five per cent of our raw material and produce from
our farms to our railways.

This is the main proposition of the good roads problem, and the reason
why the road question is to be one of the great questions of the next
half century. The question is, How much can we save of this half a
billion dollars, at the least expenditure of money and in the most
beneficial way?

In this problem, as in many, the most important phase is the one most
difficult to study and most difficult to solve. It is as complex as
human life itself. It is the question of good roads as they affect the
social and moral life of our rural communities. It is easy to talk of
bad roads costing a half billion dollars a year--the answer should be
that of Hood's--"O God! that bread should be so dear, and flesh and
blood so cheap." You cannot count in terms of the stock exchange the
cost to this land of poor roads; for poor roads mean the decay of
country living, the abandonment of farms and farm-life, poor schools,
poor churches, and homes stricken with a social poverty that drives the
young men and girls into the cities. You cannot estimate the cost to
this country, in blood, brain, and muscle, of the hideous system of
public roads we have possessed in the decade passed. Look at any of our
cities to the men who guide the swift rush of commercial, social, and
religious affairs and you will find men whose birthplaces are not
preparing another such generation of men for the work of the future.

For instance, bad roads and good schools are in