Tales of a Pathfinder (eBook, PDF)

The ascent of man has been in direct ratio to the progress that has been made in the speed, safety, comfort and convenience of the movement of men and goods from one place to another. The wheel is the emblem of human progress. The supreme evolution of the wheel is the auto mobile. Already six and a half million automobiles are daily employed in speeding a third of the population of the United States along their way with the demand increasing so rapidly that the factories are unable to meet it. Every intelligent citizen in the United States knows that the next big job for America now that the war is over is to construct road beds as perfectly adapted to the economic operation thereon of motor vehicles as the road bed of the railway is adapted to the use thereon of its rolling stock. The two and a half million miles of roads in the United States will be made modern highways as rapidly asthe work can be financed and the men and material secured for the purpose. The strength of the States and the counties will be put forth in increas ing measure until this result is secured. The Federal Government has already placed the zero milestone in Washington to designate the point from which a system of National highways will extend clear to the surf-beat of the Pacific and from lands of snow to lands of sun. The Federal Government, the States and the Counties are working out a system of National, State and County highways, the most important of which will be the first improved. The creation of such a system of highways will do more for the welfare and advance ment of the people of the United States, more for the unity, security, development and glory of the Nation than could possibly be accomplished by a like expenditure of money and energy in any other line of endeavor.