This is undoubtedly the correct principle, and it ought to forever put at rest schemes and subterfuges for appropriating the national revenues to matters of local and State concern only.

President Jackson said further, in speaking of Mr. Clay's road: "It has no connection with any established system of improvements; it is exclusively within the limits of a State, starting at a point on the Ohio River and running out 60 miles to an interior town, and, even as far as the State is interested, conferring partial instead of general advantages. * * *

"Although many of the States with laudable zeal and under the influence of an enlightened policy, are successfully applying their separate efforts to work of this character, the desire to enlist the aid of the General Government in the construction of such as, from their nature, ought to devolve upon it, and to which the individual States are inadequate, is both rational and patriotic; and if that desire is not gratified now, it doesn't follow that it never will be. The general intelligence and public spirit of the American people furnish a sure guaranty that at the proper time this policy will be made to prevail under circumstances more auspicious to this successful prosecution than those which now exist."

He stood for a system of national highways, and states in his veto message that if the local Maysville and Lexington Pike had been a link or part of such a system he would have approved it.

On March 3, 1837, the very last day of his last administration, he approved an appropriation to continue the construction of the Old Cumberland (national) Road, a national highway, built and maintained by the Government, and supported by every administration from Jefferson's in 1806, to 1837.

But shall those live States and communities which have already awakened to the importance of good roads and have issued road bonds be permitted to participate in this "aid, or shall it be given as a free bounty or reward only to those backward and slothful communities where there are neither products to market nor people to transport?

If the former are treated at least equally with the latter. then they have already issued $410,000,000 in road bonds and are ready to wipe up any appropriation Congress may make. New York alone is ready to take up $100,000,000 of this

"aid."

Besides. is it not illogical and impracticable to give, or try to give, joint authority and supervision to the States over a national highway or over any highway? The Supreme Court has repeatedly said that there is no difference between a highway on the land and on the water. What would be the result if every State through which a navigable stream may run had jurisdiction and control over it? There would be no uniformity in its upkeep nor in the navigation laws governing its use.

Joint control and supervision is impracticable and unworkable. Either the state or the General Government must be supreme. If each is supreme over its own system, and only over its own system, there will be no friction, no departure from the uniform practice of the Government, no questions of State rights nor of paternal nor concentrated Federl power, no conflict of authority, no dodging of responsibility.

And, after all is said, why tax the State, or the people of the State, before permitting them to have any benefit from taxes already paid? For, twist the whole matter as we may, it all comes back to the ultimate fact that "the people pay the freight," whether it comes out of the National treasury or a part of it out of the State treasury.

CHAPTER XV.

The Amended Federal Aid Act.

THE CHICAGO COMPROMISE-HAS IT BEEN KEPT? Speech of the President National Old Trails Road Association, Before the Highway Industries Road Congress, in

Chicago, December 12, 1918.

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Convention :

We meet under most favorable conditions. The nightmare of war is over, and the Dove of Peace is hovering over all the land.

Wisely, or otherwise, the Federal Government ignored the economic value of highway construction in its plans for winning the war, but with the coming of peace, all restrictions were removed, and we were urged to go forward with our work. We are losing millions because of the inability to market the products of the country. There is high authority for the statement that fifty per cent of our perishable products are wasted through inability to get them to market. One of the great causes for this condition of affairs has been brought about because official Washington has had both eyes and ears closed to its importance, and all our energies have been buried in one of the branches of our government, from which I have always believed it must be rescued, if our country is to retain its place among the civilized nations. Indicating that this is in no sense a late or a captious conclusion, you will pardon me if I quote from a letter written to the Kansas City Star in August, 1911. I was then making an automobile tour across the country, studying the road situation, and wrote a letter from Decatur, Illinois, in part as follows: "The department of roads under the direction of Logan Waller Page, has done much valuable work, but there should be a department of highways, just as there is a department of agriculture, of the interior, etc."

We have all looked toward this department to lead the way, but the work is so vast, and the duties of the Department so comprehensive, it is evident that if we are to have a vast system of National Highways, we should have a commission, divorced from all other departments, whose supreme business it will be to have charge of the construction and maintenance of such system.

Those only who have been engaged in this work the longest can realize the slow, but at the same time the vast, progress we have made.

Congress has found no difficulty in appropriating billions of dollars to the railroads. A like appropriation will build, if the average cost be thirty thousand dollars per mile, several thousand miles of National or Interstate Highways. Moreover, the billions of dollars appropriated to the railroads, however necessary it may have been, did not add one dollar to the National wealth, while every dollar invested in roads increases the wealth of the Nation. Any way you may think of it, we shall never accomplish the great work that we should, until we have a large, instead of a small, system of National Highways, built and maintained out of the National revenues; supplemented by systems of State roads, built and maintained by the State Governments, and supplemented again by systems of county and township roads. These systems to be under the supervision and control of these different departments; but if, in addition, a more inefficient idea shall prevail, and the General Government shall furnish a part of the cost of a State system as well, leaving the balance of such cost to be raised by the States, then by all means, if the money is to be mixed, the construction and supervision of such State roads ought also to be mixed. This, in my judgment, is unwise, and will lead to conflicts and delays among the various departments; as it has already. Nothing is quite so helpful in material affairs as fixed responsibility. Of course, there are patriots for "Federal Aid", provided Uncle Sam will let them have full supervision in spending it, and this fits the "pork barrell politician," who wants it applied where it will do the most good-to him.

I desire to congratulate you most heartily upon the organization of the Highway Industries Association, under the direction of my good friend, Mr. S. M. Williams; I have known him long and well. This is no aftersight or scheme of his, to inake himself a place in this great work. I will state, that as far back as 1914, he and I had repeated conversations on this subject. The thought was then incubating in his mind as to the value of such an organization. He has thrown his whole heart into this work, and you will pardon me for saying, that it is high time the various industries, who shall reap great profits from this enterprise, were taking a more pronounced and effectual stand on this question. Let me emphasize the fact that the farmers and the people of the small towns have gone far ahead of you in this work.

Illustrating again, by mentioning the National Old Trails Road Association, let me say that at the time of its organization in 1912, not one mile of it was in good, usable condition. We organized the people all along this line, never received one dollar from any manufacturing or material industry, but de

rived all of our support from the people along its line, and we have built and rebuilt the road, or have its building fully fi nanced, from Washington and Baltimore, to the Mississippi river. And within the next sixty days we shall have it completely financed from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mouuntains. If we could do that, under most adverse circumstances, what may we expect when two such great organizations as those assembled here today, shall put their shoulders to the wheel and concentrate their mighty energies to this great purpose? I congratulate you further, that so many of the National Associations have united behind your Association for a national plan, each forgetting for the moment our individual projects, because we now realize, as perhaps never before, that the success of a National plan will necessarily include, sooner or later, any road to which our hearts are devoted, provided it has merit; if it has not, it ought not to be included. If this war has taught us anything, it is the value of co-operation.

In conclusion, I congratulate you above all things that this cruel and unnatural war is over; and that the American Army, under the gallant John J. Pershing, so gloriously turned the tide of battle at Chateau Thierry, and won a victory to rank in history far above Waterloo or Gettysburg. Discredit our country all you can-call it but "two per cent of achievement,' if you will, and it still remains the greatest victory in the annals of war.

The three most marvelous months in the history of the human race were those from July 15 to October 15, 1918. Of the earlier date, even the stout-hearted British warrior, General Haig, cried out, "Our backs are to the wall," and shells were falling daily in Paris. More than a million inhabitants had fled from Paris; men sat down and looked at each other in sullen gloom and despair. Teutonic dreams of World Empire were well nigh realized. Thus it was in July; but in October came the American Army, and three million of the picked veterans of Germany were in full retreat, and suing for Peace.

as

I congratulate you further that the American President has today arrived in Paris, and will take his place as the presiding genius over the greatest convention that has ever sembled in the history of all the ages a convention, assembled, in part, for the purpose of translating into practical reality, the inspired vision of Tennyson, when he exclaimed: "For I dipped into the future, far as human eye could see, saw a vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be; till the war drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furled in the parliament of man, the federation of the world."

We are living in a brand new world-the most gloriously inspiring epoch of all time. Let's stop talking of military roads, built by military despots, for military conquests. Any road good enough for Peace is good enough for War. No road