said is true, that those parts of this Nation are most backward, where
people live most alone, where they develop those diseases of the mind
which come from living alone, where they develop supreme discontent
with what is done at Washington or what is done in their own State
legislatures, where they are unhappy and discontented, and movements
that make against the welfare of our country arise, are those parts
where there are poor highways and consequently a lack of communication
between the people.

Our eyes are all turned at this time to the other side of the water. I
suppose that there has never been a month in the history of the United
States when so many people were so anxious to see the morning paper or
the evening paper as during the past month. There never has been a
time when we have been so thrilled to the very core of our beings.
Achievements that those boys over there have made are things that will
live in our memories.

And why has it been possible for France to carry on for four years a
successful war against the greatest military power that the world has
ever seen? Because France had the benefit of the engineering skill
and of the foresight of two men who are 1,800 years apart--Napoleon
and Caesar. Those men built the roads of France. Without those roads,
conceived and built originally by Caesar for the conquest of the Gauls
and for the conquest of the Teutons, without the roads built by
Napoleon to stand off the enemies of France and to make aggressions to
the eastward, Paris would have fallen at least two years ago. So that
you gentlemen who are engaged in the business of developing the
highways of the country and putting them to greater use may properly
conceive of yourselves as engaged in a very farsighted, important bit
of statemanship, work that does not have its only concern as to the
farmer of this country or the helping of freight movement during this
winter alone, but may have consequences that will extend throughout
the centuries. Take the instance of Verdun. Verdun would have fallen
unquestionably if it had not been for the roads that Napoleon
constructed and that France has maintained; for all the credit is not
to go to the man who conceived and the man who constructed. This is
one thing where we have been short always. One thing that the people
of the United States do not realize. It is not sufficient to pay
$25,000 a mile for a concrete foundation, but you must put aside 10
cents out of ev