Golden Age, September 14, 1921
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Volume II Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, September 14, 1921 Number 52 ■
Building Roads to Stay
THE best five years in railroad building in the United States were 1879 to 1883, when 40,000 miles of railway were constructed for $20,000 a * mile, or a total of $800,000,000. ■
. In the current five years from 1920 to 1924*the ;• . highways which are planned amount to 100,000
- miles, at $30,000 a mile, totaling three billion ’ . ‘dollars. The road-building program, as an en-• gineering and contracting achievement, is nearly four times as great as the memorable period of railway building. .
-z * '
: Thousands of Miles Being Built
AT THE present time some 22,000 miles of . highway are either under construction or ,r have been completed. The work is conducted
, under the federal plan of combined national
’ and state cooperation, and has cost over $360,; ‘ 000.000. Great as is this achievement, it is only
a fraction of the giant project to care for the needs of seven million motor vehicles and over 20,000,000 horses and 5,000,000 mules, to say nothing of miscellaneous agencies of highway transportation.
Under the federal-state plan, the road projects are first planned by the states. No federal aid, however, is granted until the situation has ’ been gone over thoroughly by a federal highway engineer and approved by hhn.
The federal engineer makes these demands: There has to be a good bottom in the shape of g- a good earth road, with proper bridges, culverts, ' embankments and as few railroad crossings as possible. After the approval, the earth-road bed may be in use some time before it becomes possible to get the surfacing materials and the modern road-building equipment on the spot, but the project once approved, it is only a . question of time before the finishing touches will be made through federal assistance.
Magnitude of Need for Roads
T^HE roads built or worked on total nearly ten times the distance from New York to San Francisco.
How small a task this is compared with the total ultimate needs of the country appears when it is seen that these roads are long enough to provide a good highway east and west across the country about every hundred miles’ apart between Canada and the Gulf of Mexico. The country cannot be said to have a complete road system until there is a good east-and-west r< .<! at least every five miles, totaling a distance fully twenty times as much as the recent roads. To this should be added north-and-sourh roads every five miles, making an addition <>; half a million more miles of first-class highways. This would ultimately place every person in the United States within two miles'or so of a modern road. Even then it would be a question whether more good roads would not be needed, until every home was located on the kind .>f road best calculated to provide a thoroughly efficient and money-saving system for transportation by truck or automobile from the farm n the market.
The- United States is not an old country, having had a national existence of about a century and a half. In that time the population has increased from 4 million to 105 million, or 2,500 percent. Increase of population is going on at the rate of a little over one percent a year. This rate in a century doubles the populatic making the probable population a century b 210 million, two centuries 420 million, centuries 840 million, and so on. Roa have to be provided. ' :
The area of the country is such that 1 person there are nearly twenty aores of a hundred acres per family of five. I
_ ©ver three centuries there should be the limit of . . . population, or about, a hillion people in the , territory of the United States, who will have an - average of about two acres per person, or ten per . family. Doubtless, with the many Burbanks and . Dieners in the meantime increasing the yield of , vegetables and fruits, it will be easy for .a family j to subsist on ten acres.
r What the needs of this host will be in high; ways can only be imagined, but the rule will be . better roads and more permanent ones than are ■ seen now. If road building is to keep up with population increase, the beginning made now is none too soon or too much to provide the ■ hundred million of today and the myriads of -tomorrow with adequate transportation facilities. .
Roads for Automobiles *
THE future of roads will run parallel with , the development of the automobile. Now -. there is one automobile to thirteen persons, or one to three families.
When the future is considered is is necessary to speak in terms of the Golden Age; for ealcu-■ : ’ ‘ lations of things coming run .quickly into that ‘ period. When the entire produce of labor is j enjoyed by the people that produce things by " i direct or indirect labor, and none is given away ; for interest and rent or for war taxes, the aver. age prosperity will he much increased. It is not , difficult to see, at a comparatively early date, the ' time when every family will have its own car. I With seven million cars today the good roads [ are badly congested, and a pleasure drive in : the touring season is a procession. The tripling
■ of the number of cars would be the opposite
of a blessing, without a tripling of the mileage ■ i of the highways. Indeed, the mileage of good . roads should be six times what it is, if car • owners are to travel with comfort and freedom ’ ; of movement An immense increase in the road system is imminent within the next quarter or half century, to take care of the traffic needs of the people. As far as co£t is concerned it H not be felt when the enhanced per-capita oeri.ty of the Golden Age is taken into leration. .
e and more the roads are being given 0 the automobile, and need to he huilt uilt to meet the needs of this modern of transportation.
The importance of motor transportation is -seen when its cost is known.
The investment in automobiles is six billion . dollars. There are 7,904,271 automobiles, mak- ' ing the average present worth $760 per car. ; .
To operate these cars in 1920 cost $6,019,-
822,966, or $762 per car or truck. The investment is a third of that in the steam railways,». -Q
and is about the same as that in the electric - a railways of the country. So much of the invest- _* . : ment in automobiles represents personal and family travel, and is of so high educational, >■ '
social and civilizing value, that the creation and ;
maintenance of adequate highways appear in their true aspect as second to none in social importance for the welfare of the people. <
Good-Roads Organizations
TO PROMOTE the building of highways % ’ there are good-roads organizations, local, city, state and national. At the head of them alias the International Road Congress, which maintains -an organization and holds annual meetings where papers are read and discussed and the advanced methods of any part of the world are * made known through the engineering press to . road builders everywhere. This makes it easy . for men interested in road construction and maintenance to keep well abreast of the times.
Among the nations participating in .the. Con- ■ gress are Belgium, Cuba, France, Great Britain, ’ Italy, Japan. Mexico, Norway, Portugal, Spain, • Sweden and Switzerland. Up to a recent time the United States had not joined the organiza- . tion, and was not represented officially, though highway engineers from this country attended the sessions.
Membership in the Congress follows this rule: For each 1,000 francs-$”6.30— paid by a government into the fund for inaintaiirng the crgan- .. ization, that government is entitled to a representative, the number not to exceed fifteen. For ■ the sum of $1,144.50 the United States could have full representation—the price of a couple r of shots by one of the main guns of a battleship. < One big gun would pay for this road service fifty to a hundred times over. Which is worth the more to the common people!
. Great were the expectations of the people when the gigantic national-road project was adopted, and Congress agreed to spend money by the billion. In states which had no highway .
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organization, had done no preliminary work aqd had scarcely a mile of modern highway, the people expected the officials* to create the organization overnight, and with a wave, of the engineering wand to build roads costing billions. In the better equipped states several times the possible output of roads was looked for in-stanter. , ‘
The many hindrances appeared. At the top of the federal road system, when it came to . the fixing of the salaries of the men to have . ' charge, Congress took steps that bade fair to insure failure. The states pay their highway commissioners as follows:
20 states pay $3,000 or less
.- 32 states pay under $5,000 '
8 states pay $5,000 •
2 states pay $6,000
• 2 states pay $7,000
1 state pays $8,000
. 2.states pay $10,000
1 state pays $20,000
Congress was finally induced to pay the fed-> eral road commissioners $6,000 each. Certain Congressmen said that they would never stand for such big salaries. These men have to handle some $200,000,000 or more. What would private enterprise pay for the efficiency that could best handle such enormous expenditures!
The public has been willing to act through their legislative bodies. Stupendous sums have been appropriated for good roads, and great promises have been found impossible of fulfillment. A psychological obstacle might appear at any moment and quickly spread: for the public might easily change from their generous spirit to one of reaction, and the program for proper highway transportation be blocked for an indefinite period. It is much harder to resurrect zeal than to inspire it the first time.
For!y-Four Thousand Dollars a Mile
THE people are restive under unprecedented taxation, and do not relish the paying up.
Much of the financing of the roads has been through the sale of state-road bonds. Trouble was experienced in getting in the money for the bonds. Bids for the road contracts ran around $44,000 a mile, the price of a good railroad,
and bidders for the bonds offered 95 percent to begin with, which they afterward reduced to 93. This meant art additional $2,500 to $4,000 a mile by the time the bonds were paid up by the state. ’
Another difficulty was inf the impermanence of the roads. No bond is considered very good, no matter who is back of it, if the security or assets back of the bond wear out much before the bond is liquidated. A good road may not last more than five to ten years, without substantial additional investment for replacement, while the bonds are often payable in ten, fifteen or even twenty years. Investors dislike bonds on dead horses, and they are showing an increasing wariness about road bonds.
The financiers did not fancy tire money going out of their hands and into government-owned highways. Before the Federal-Reserve hard times hit the country, there were financial magnates—interested in private railroads chiefly— who advocated the stoppage of all highway construction because of “the shortage of labor”. They did not mention the growing shortage of railway freights as the people become more independent of the Wall Street railroads by following the advice to “ship by truck”. So eminent a railroad man as Daniel Willard, who was" chief executive of the railroads -during much of the war, did not seem to know that governmental arrangements, had been made and hundreds of millions of dollars were already being expended on a system of transportation of equal importance with the railroads. In Texas, where the farmers were entirely dependent on the railroads, a considerable proportion of the 1920 grain crop rotted on the ground for lack of railroad cars. In 'Kansas, where there are good roads, three million bushels were hauled to market by motor trucks. Of course the new highways took some men from the farms, but so did the railroads, the steel industry, the copper business, and so on; yet no financier suggested shutting down the str mills in order to get the workers back p»-farms. Since then the men of the Str?
is called “Wall” have shut down a grr industries to make working men wil' back to farms or anywhere else, in'clr-ing out of our hands”. The end of tl in American industrial history is nol
Although recent road-building ha
acterized by large contracting organizations • and the use of labor-saving machinery, making .for a very high mileage of finished road, the ' production of completed highway in 1920 was । only *46 percent of the amount contracted for, % which totaled ove¥ $300,000,000 for theiyear, ■ . with two-thirds of a billion dollars’ worth more > waiting for the contractors.
' Several factors have made fer a limited output of finished roads. It was found difficult to - - jfexpend the appropriations because to start t pearly enough in the season was not always Z feasible, and there was a chronic shortage of materials, besides the aversion of labor for road work. The best results in 1920 ctu'ne in connection with large-milage contracts, because of the efficient equipment possible: but the requisite plants were slow in being assembled from manufacturers overburdened with orders.
Woes ot the Contractors
"MT ANYcontractors who were efficient in other
Unes of engineering, but who were inexperienced in highway construction, lost time in experimenting with new methods. An acute shortage of sand, gravel and broken stone was responsible for much unfinished work. Lack of railroad cars, and for a time the ranking of road-material shipments in preference on the railroads, the crowding of producers of materials in certain localities, and the congested grouping of road-building operation? too closely on certain lines, each contributed its share toward delay in turning out the nation’s roads. Men dislike the work; and the workmen obtainable for highway labor are of an unstable class, with frequent changes in personnel and general inefficiency in their methods.
The necessities for successful highway construction and maintenance are stated by A. R. Hirst, of the American Association of State Highway Officials, to be eighteen in number:
1. Trained engineering help.
Materials of construction.
Cement in the right quantity in, the right quate car service by the railroads, lent construction organization at fair
ble labor supply.
ved location and alignment, r records.
9. Proper, local and national publicity.
10. Care of traffic duriug construction.
11. Good touring maps for the public.
12. Effective marking of the roads.
•13. Traveling accommodations such as.garages, hotels, parking places and comfort stations.
14. Labor-saving equipment.
•15. Proper layout and equipment for varying conditions.
16. Improved grade-crossing arrangements. r
17. Road schools and short courses for local' supervisors and repairers of roads,
18. Adequate highway legislation.
Another hindrance is the fact that, with a scarcity of contractors and an over-supply of road projects, it becomes difficult for some counties to secure bids at all for their roads. In not a few instances the indifference of contractors was plainly due to improper presentation of the facts about the proposed road, in a manner to give the contractors a clear idea of the work to be done. In Rockwall County, Texas, County .Engineer Julian Montgomery obviated this difficulty and obtained seven bids for the, county's road work. .This was by elasticity in certain requirements in the material line, and by painstaking scale maps illustrating every possible feature of the project, so that the contractors were able at a glance to visualize the road as well as or better than by going over the ground. County engineers as a class have shown much incompetence in the presentation of their propositions. But what can anyone expect of a political engineer?
In connection with the life of a modern road, according to the E nginee ri ng-Xeirt;-Record, the outside limit of the actual life, of the best concrete roads is ten years under very heavy traffic, and fifteen to twenty years under the lighter traffic. When concrete roads go,' they do so all at once, with extensive and deep holes, apparently due to a disintegration of the surface, attributed by the highway engineers to fatigue of materials. The disintegration appears, not merely at the surface, but simultaneously throughout the entire depth of the road.'Such roads can be saved for a while by resurfacing with hot mixed bituminous pavement, but as concrete roads they are gone. This and like facts ' have an important bearing on the growing indisposition of investors to buy road, bonds.
Roads Smashed to Pieces > . .
I ' TN New York State it took but a single cold * season to destroy some of the best highways • , of a state famed for its roads. The roads had v ~ been somewhat worn, but the winter and spring ■r'i traffic by overloaded trucks smashed through J ’ tops and foundations on entire sections in the : vicinity of New York City, from which radiate
’ scores of truck lines. The estimated cost of the repairs was $15,000,000, but a parsimonious st,ate legislature made only half that amount available for the purpose. Meanwhile the trucks kept pounding what was left to pieces. The de. " struction of the highways is an important part of the community expense of shipping by truck.
Damage to roads from heavy traffic has re-■, suited in much road building being done with-steel reinforcement imbedded in the material of the road. Steel-reinforced roads stand up well under traffic which batters and destroys ordinary roads of any other type. The additional cost of the reinforcement is a small item in comparison with the complete rebuilding of roads smashed to pieces under the ever-increasing weight and* impact of swiftly moving trucktraffic.
Much of the deterioration of the roads comes in the spring when traffic, which at other seasons is easily borne by the roads, becomes too heavy, and breaks the roads to pieces. Engineers and road officials consider it desirable for the preservation of the investment in the high-• ways, to have legislation to enable state highway departments to keep too-heavy vehicles off the highways during the period when the frost is coming out of the ground. Only so, they claim, can lie avoided the destruction of a substantial part of the best highways of the country.
In Connecticut the experiment has been made f of strengthening the road structure by laying steel channel tracks for heavy trucks to run in, two such tracks being provided for. traffic in opposite directions. The use of such tracks is expected to enable trucks to travel with a speed and safety unattainable on ordinary roads of even the best type. The steel channels are made with a corrugated surface, which gives the wheels a good grip and prevents the ever-pres-1 - ent danger of skidding in passing curves. The weight of the heaviest traffic is taken off the road proper, which'is preserved for a much longer period for the use of the lighter trucks and pleasure cars. A simple trait of human nature eliminates the “road hog”; for he must keep to his track or lose the benefit of the best part of the road for his purposes.
Another kind of durable road is being built in the Rocky Mountains. Not every locality has . the backing of the federal government in building roads to last like the ancient Roman roads, * but the state of Colorado is cooperating with the national government in building a highway of solid granite at a cost of $25,000 a mile. Rome had durable roads, but no motor trucks. If the cement trust can furnish as good a binder as the Romans made use of, there is no reason why this stretch of road should not be in use five hundred years hence, provided the route is such as will commend itself to the standards of grade and efficiency that will prevail in the Golden Age. ' ■ x
Pennsylvania has a unique stretch of road between Scranton and the New York state border. When the Lackawanna Railroad built its $1’2,000.000 cut-off, it had ten or twenty miles of double-track roadbed through a mountainous ' section, which it sold to the state for a song. On this grade a concrete road has been built, and the tourist enjoys the novelty of riding through a rough territory on a modern highway of the evenness of ascent or descent of a first-class railway. It is more than possible that *in the Golden Age the highways generally will be relocated and planned to grade like a railroad, making possible the utmost efficiency of transportation ever known on highways.
A class of roads which was highly developed in Europe prior to the World War, but is receiving less attention, and has never had much attention in the United States, is the military or strategic road. War is still a possibility for almost any country—otherwise armies might be -disbanded; and the efficient' conduct of war in the age of the motor vehicle depends not a little on a system of roads adapted to the uses of war. Roads paralleling the boundary of a country at intervals of a few miles, and connected by frequent cross-roads, constitute lines, of transportation behind trenches or artillery, and make it possible for defensive armies to advance or retreat, and always be provided with arteries for the transportation of supplies and munitions of war. Governments usually plan such roads and construct them in thembst modern way, re-
gardless of any economic value, and consider the expense well worth while, because of the . sense of security they afford .against invasion.
In China the cost of good roads together with . the difficulty of creating a modern road system has-encountered an unexpected hindrance. The - - Chinese are sincere believers in a multitude of devils of superhuman wisdom who, however, . may be readily fooled and run off the roads, if ' .proper precautions are taken. The Chinese high. ways are built in a zigzag fashion. The devil who might take it into his mind to interfere with . a Chinaman’s welfare in the desperate chance of - an oriental journey, runs off the road at every sharp turn, and the man goes on his way rejoicing until the fiend again, finds the scent. Some 400,000,000 Chinamen testify, by the universality of zigzag roads, that the scheme works; but , to the foreigner of modern spirit, and to the educated Chinaman, the zigzags seem adapted also to getting trucks and automobiles off the road. We think that Chinamen are funny peo-pie. But Americans still build steeples to their churches. .
Earth Roods '
OF COURSE, for a long time the bulk of the roads will remain of earth, clay and sand. Highway construction is not to be lessened, but rather increased," but nevertheless there are about ten miles of earth roads to one of the modern type. •
The intelligent and efficient construction and maintenance of. such roads is of paramount importance. The earth road is still the nation’s . road.
Good practice has demonstrated that earth roads should not have a level surface like modem roads, but should be well crowned, suitably to the materials at hand, in order to rid them’ selves readily of that foe of highways — water.
Earth roads need scientific attention. Trouble-points, where traffic gets stuck, amount to a small fraction of the mileage, but especial attention needs to be given to them; in order to keep the ropds as a whole in such shape that traffic can be kept moving. One mudhole can destroy the efficiency of two miles of otherwise good road. -
Surface modifiers are essential—clay or clay gravel for sand roads, and sand or sandy gravel for clay roads. Earth roads are kept in the best shape by maintaining a road patrol composed of a man and a team or motor truck on each section of the road, to devote the entire time to seeing that the road does not fail at any point. The equipment should never be the well-known split log, which merely accentuates defects, but should comprise a blade grader or a road planer. ft is a slow process, at best, modifying the" cross-section of a road; but perseverance on the part of a patrol in time works wonders.
England is an example of a country where the roads have gotten into bad shape. During the war the roads had but little maintenance; and experience teaches that unless untried methods are employed for speedy repair it means the early destruction of the road system and the rebuilding of a new one—a too heavy burden for a war-torn country.
The main arteries of important and heavy traffic were repaired in substantial form; but suburban roads carrying light traffic usually had good foundations left, and for immediate, purposes required only the restoration of the surface. Tn addition to the usual roughing down of the surface and its temporary ^resurfacing, when the tarred-macadam mixture was applied for the new surface, clinker ash, boiler ash and ' old building material were employed. Good results were obtained from the covering of a concrete foundation, which had been leveled along the surface, built up at the crown, and scarified to hold the surface material, with one to one and a half inches of tarred material.. Among the miscellaneous materials used were broken bricks; old concrete, gravel, broken pebbles, and other clean, hard substances. In England, as elsewhere, necessity is the mother of invention.
Recent Advances in Road Building '
THE principal recent advances in the art of road building have not been in hew devices, but in the extension of the use of a few of the older machines and in the development of com-, plete road-building plants. The chief new machine to find extensive use is the power-tamping machine, which tamps the soft concrete mixture • with a speed and efficiency unobtainable otherwise.
In the road plants the factory idea was elaborated, large central, units, were employed, the use of the narrow-gauge railway for carrying materials from a central material plant t<5 points of use, was developed, and the number of workman was reduced and their functions systematized. Men gave way to machinery. It was found that much of the machinery on the market was too light for the service required,, and that a heavier type of mechanism was necessary.
Labor-Saving Methods
AS AN example of modern efficiency, Walter . G. Leininger, superintendent for the Commonwealth Improvement Company, on a concrete-road job in Illinois—according to Succe&s-/uZ Methods—reduced the labor cost sixty-two percent by releasing all but seventeen of the forty-five men for service on other portions of the concern s work. .
It was the old story of the proper application of labor-saving machinery. Originally there was but one machine — a mixer — and a too-large wheelbarrow, brigade. A tamping and finishing, machine freed five meh, the change from wooden to steel forms saved ode man, two bucket loaders and two small three-wheeled tractors with dump bodies released twenty men’ from the unwelcome wheelbarrow task, and two men were saved in between the operations—total twentyeight. ■
The seventeen men that were left laid an average of 350 square feet a day, with a record day of 475, or twenty-eight square feet each. The systematic handling of road construction was exemplified in the distribution of the men at work, each having specified duties, as follows:
2 men ahead grading.
2 men operating two small tractors.
2 men operating two bucket loaders.
2 men bringing cement, xo mixer.
2 men setting forms.
' 1 man operating mixer. e
’ 1 foreman.
I man distributing concrete discharged from • mixer.
1 1 man operating finishing machine.
3 men spreading soil for protective covering on finished road.
17 Total.
Most of the heavier work was taken from human muscles and given to gasoline power to
do—a suggestion of the direction progress will take in the Golden Age, when, however, labor- ’ saving machinery will not throw men into the idle column, but will make less and lighter work , for everybody. -
Old Methods Out of Vogue . .
IT IS evident that highway contractors cannot • get along with the old-style equipment of a few’ hoes, spades, shovels and a,plow and road scraper. Road construction calls for costly machinery,, and the equipment should be obtained for jobs of sufficient magnitude to pay for the plant and leave a profit. According to some authorities small plants pay better than .large ones, because capable superintendents are hard to find for the large ones, railway facilities are often inadequate to keep such plants going, and frequent breakdowns in machinery under practical’operating conditions hold up an entire project if the plant is too large. The saving in the costs of delay more than makes up for the added hand work of the small plant. There is a limit to the application of the factory method.
In some of the engineering»arts the work has been reduced to a science, and the scientific end is recorded in engineering handbooks; but highway engineering still requires much research to bring it up to the level of mechanical or electrical engineering. Highway engineers state that they are interested in the extension of knowledge on such subjects as the relations between cost of truck operation and the amount of measured work done by the truck; the relation between the rate of wear of road surface and the number of wheels passing over it; the relation between maintenance cost and curvature of road; and many like topics, which mean little to the average-person, but which to the engineer make the difference between guess work and scientific knowledge.
In the large plants a hew labor-saving method of constructing concrete roads consists of the making of the concrete slabs in a central plant in forms of the proper size. The finished slab, half or full width of the road, is hauled by motor truck or trailer to the place where it is to be used, and set exactly in place. The chief difficulty is found to be the preparation of a subgrade of precisely the right level and consistency, so that the pre-cast slabs may match and afford a smooth riding surface after the
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•ft
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seasonal settling has taken place. From the f m^Tinfanhiring viewpoint it is much easier to
make the slabs at a gravel or 'sand bank, than ...; to cart the raw, materials, perhaps for miles, . especially because the slab plant can be kept • , going night and day, rain and shine. The first ! cost may be a little higher, but the greater construction speed may readily make up this cost 9 ■ in the lessening to the community of the time i for costly and vehicle-racking detours called for : under the ordinary plan. *
j The shortage of railroad cars which prevailed , a year ago has vanished and is replaced by a : heavy surplus; but during much of the current road-building movement the railroads were un
I able to furnish enough cars to carry the road 1 materials, a condition which is liable to recur.
It was suggested that large trucks for roadie building materials might cure the rail situation, j ■ Trials showed that the heavy truck loads destroyed about as much road as they built, and . that many of the roads already constructed ’ were not able to support the heavy added traffic.
Economy in Road Finance
CONOMY in road 'construction ought to start at the financial end of the work. It
has been shown that the usual plan of building with money raised by.the sale, of bonds, and paying interest on the bonds, costs $190 for .every $100 of first cost of the road, or nearly । double, to say nothing of maintenance and re-। pair. But the Golden Age is coming soon, and then it is safe to say that roads will cost what the estimate calls for; for with the passing of ■ the present age of Big Business, interest on
• money will be a memory of what will be re
garded as an undesirable past.
i Money-saving on the road program has been 1 made the business of the state. With contractors bidding one against another, prices naturally rise, and to prevent this some states have provided that the state alone shall buy all the ‘ road materials for all the contractors on stateroad projects. There being but one buyer, a fair price can be paid on whatever goes into « the road. Millions of dollars are to be saved the public in the first cost of their roads.
The person who is most interested in economy , in connection with the roads is the taxpayer. Taxe to provide the money with which to build .and maintain, highways and pay off the bonds
are levied first upon the people who receive the direct benefit from the roads, and second on those receiving indirect benefit. Direct benefits are enjoyed by the owners of automobiles, and they are generally willing at heart to pay a fair price, if good road service is rendered. If they can have better roads they arg content—in spite of objections presented—to pay an. even higher tax than for the present often unsatisfactory roads. The tax on automobile owners is levied in the form of a license fee. It conforms to the principles, of taxation that taxes should be paid (1) according to the benefits received, (2) by the people that have the money, and (3) with their approval. The motorist, however, likes fair play, and objects to such practices as have prevailed in one eastern state where it was commonly reported that out of funds ostensibly applicable for road purposes, an amount was always diverted to other uses equal to the amount paid in on licenses, thus depriving the automobile tax-payer of the benefits from the tax which he paid. Within reasofiable limits the automobile owner feels that good roads save him no insignificant sum in repairs, operating costs, and depreciation, and he is not unwilling to pay taxes accordingly. ■ .
Economy of Good Roads
THE dollars-and-cents economy of good roads was illustrated in figures compiled by the state engineer of Nebraska. To pull a ton over different types of roads' took the following pounds of pulling power:
PERCENT ROAD POUNDS EFFICIENCY
Earth road-_________218 12%
. Graveled road 80 34% Paved road--:_______ 27----:----100%
As a result of these figures—this was before the farmers were* driven bankrupt by the 1920 Big-Business drive on prices of farm products —the farmers went down into their own pockets for $500 to $1,000 apiece to help build the good roads.
It is an economy for the state or the county 'to condemn and purchase land for the relocation of roads along lines affording easier grades and less distance. If road travel costs the low average of ten cents a mile, the relocation of arteries of traffic, saving for example only a mile of distance, permits an aggregate yearly saving
• for the community of from $3,650 where the ve-. hides number 100 a day, up to $36,500 for 1,000 vehicles, and $365,000 for 10,000 vehicles. The saving in time and operating cost of wagons, trucks and automobiles amounts to a huge sum per year.
The people are becoming educated to the fact that it costs less to build and maintain good roads than to pay for the invisible, but none the less real, expense of the annual mud embargo -< throughout the country.
' Danger to the nation lies in the darkness of the rural communities where modern highways are unknown. If the people are to be free they must be educated. With the remote interiors ‘ shut off by bad roads, the people there will not get into touch with other people. Open up the interior with good roads; and these districts will , be visited by people from everywhere, and education and Enlightenment will follow from the contact with the big outside world. Then the native people will begin to buy cars and get out of the darkness themselves. "The real binder of a* great country," says Vice-President Baackes 41 ©f the American Steel and Wire Company, .“is the system of reinforced-concrete highways, that brings the enlightenment of the whole world to doorsteps in the remotest corners of a township. It makes the greatest single element in-upbuilding a state, and creates a united nation.” Mr. Baackes is out to sell the steel for the reinforcement, but what he says is true.
• The railroads have been shortsighted , in the whole matter of transportation. Management by - . :
the absent-treatment jnethod has been a failure, f |
. Presidents of railroads cannot sit in offices in far-away Wall Street, and properly take care . of their properties. There might have been in existence an adequate system of fully equipped railways, if the executive heads had lived on * the roads and sought to make them fit the needs -of the communities served. Wall-Street and banker administration of railroads has both ruined the railroads and by continued neglect ( made possible the development of the fast-growing system of transportation of goods, and passengers by truck over the solid concrete high- n ways which pierce the communities that the
• railway bankers were too busy to pay attention to. Efficient resident management of railways would also have developed highways for trucks as feeders. Under existing conditions the average man wonders, what use it is to bother about feeding traffic to railroads unable to handle what they get' in normal times, and then at an exorbitant charge for the service rendered.
Certain it is that when the Golden Age has come, and both railroads and highways are owned and operated by the common people, the transportation systems will be conducted, not for profit, but for service. There will be better railways and better roads and enough of them to supply every need of the teeming-populace of the better time coming.
Why This Action?
THE law-abiding element of New York and vicinity has been perplexed at the following action of the New York County Committee of the American Legion. At a recent meeting, the Committee by a vote of two to one, representing - 15,000 members, refused to pass the following ' resolution. Perhaps other considerations prevented favorable action at that meeting; but if the refusal represents by negation the position of the Legion, thoughtful citizens are shaking their heads, saying that they had expected better things of this body of fine young men, who profess to be supporters of real law and order. The resolution which was defeated read:
"Whereas the American Legion has lately been publicly attacked upon the charge of having shown an alleged spirit of lawlessness, and upon liaving been further charged with failure to take any steps to curtail such lawless action,
“Now, therefore, be it resolved:
“That the American Legion of New York County indignantly repudiates the charge of lawlessness, standing adamant for law and order, and believing that men are free to think or write or speak as they will, provided that they do not trespass on the like privilege of or do injury to others, and wishes to record itself as condemning any activity in the direction of suppressing the rights inherited from our fathers, the. most cherished of all rights guaranteed by the Constitution, the lawful exercise of freedom of speech, fpedom of press, and freedom of public speaking." '
The Disarmament Love Feast By Newton r. Hartshorn
AT WASHINGTON, on July 14th, President
•Harding is alleged to have said: “Tolerance, patience, good will and the desire to help some one else are the greatest needs of the world today. If I can make America represent good feeling throughout the world, my services will not have been in vain.”
President Harding’s motive is highly laudable; but under the prevailing conditions the result will be lamentable. Before the war good might have resulted from such a move, if repentance and reformation had accompanied it.
• But now it will merely put men to sleep, and add to the momentum of the current of the social and economic Niagara, just before it takes its final plunge at the falls.
The President’s policy wds what gave him his nomination and election. He was all things to everybody, even to the radicals like Johnson and Borah. In choosing his cabinet, however, he left out the radicals. This forecasts his policy in a still clearer light—unity of old elements, old, discredited world-forces—no reform.
From the standpoint of saving old conditions, the old evil world-, even though it be merely bundles of corruption, imperial greed, stand-patism, bossism, profiteerism, special and class interests, Mr. Harding is taking the only logical course—to dope the patient, put it temporarily to sleep. He rejected the League of Nations,' not because in his estimation its principle was not sound, but because its means of accomplishing its object (conservation of old conditions) were defective. And now, calling at Washington the conference of the Great Powers, he aims to construct a substitute for the League. But it is merely an attempt to lock the door after the horse has been stolen.
The economic mechanism of the world has been thrown out of gear and irretrievably . wrecked. No amount of patching will restore it. A new machine must be constructed on an entirely new principle, with new motive power. Constructive action is imperative; a love-feast will not be constructive, but merely sedative. The old machine was constructed to run by concrete selfishness as its motive power. It wobbled a great deal before the war wrecked it. We • have its motive power explained.in an article
by C. B. Evans, a financial writer in the daily press. He says: .
“Nat everybody appreciates the intensity of the feeling among the heavy men [Big Business] in business with respect to such enterprises as characterized this country before .the war. There is no such enterprise now, no creation, no entry into new lines, no outlook. The reason is that men commonly go into such things for gain. But the more gain now, the greater the per- f centage of tax on the capitalist. His avarice and his ambition are extinguished.” .
Just so; the sole motive power back of the machine was selfish gain, in large amounts. The machine can no longer be run by the motive power for which it was constructed. The war, through the frightful debt which it created, scrapped the machine; and Big Business with its confederates, the politicians and the ecclesiastics, is literally between the devil and the. deep sea, through their insane lust for- world empire. The German and the English imperialists, backed by their state churches and by American imperialists (political and ecclesiasti- -cal), deluged the world with blood, loaded it with debts, and destroyed faith in government.
Under the old governmental systems, based on this motive power of selfishness, public debts were a stabilizing influence because the bonds were held by the mass of its most prosperous and influential citizens. Always, when there has been a threat to overthrow government, one of the contingencies (as in Russia) has been the risk of repud’ation of the bonds issued by the old regime, and then they would lie worthless. Under this policy of carrying a heavy bonded debt, many a corrupt and tyrannical government has lasted when otherwise it would have been overthrown. This is the main influence. 011 which the governments of today depend to pull . through successfully; but it has been overdone to the breaking point, as in Russia.
Heretofore the payment of taxes and public -> debts has, through slick legislative acts and dodges, been shifted down and down onto the backs of the working people" and.of future generations. But never in the history of the world has the per capita of debt and taxes been so great as now. Not only capital is discouraged, but the working classes as well. The interest alone is a colossal tax. -
We new see a powerful move to have the excess profit and income tax removed from the people of wealth and placed on sales; and in the fierce competition pending, all of a working man’s wages must go in purchase of the bare current necessities. With no surplus he would pay the tax and the debt. If capital no longer has any incentive, neither has the working man. Some of the largest bond issues are-tax-exempt These gravitate into the hands of the capitalists, and by escaping the income tax they escape the bulk of taxation.
Here now is an insolvable problem, caused by the debauch of lust for world empire, led by British and German imperialists. Any one who knows history knows that England has been as guilty as Germany in this respect ; and England is now residuary legatee of this infamous doctrine, the fruit of which is now fully ripe.' The vine of the world has borne its fruit. Economic law is inexorable. It is the executive force of divine law; and the Court is now in session, pronouncing judgment.
Babson states that the law of averages is as invariable as the law of gravitation. Einstein states it in terms of relativity. It seems to me that Einstein’s theory applies to economics as well as to physics. During 1919 the index pointed 200 degrees above average. The index now stands about 50 degrees above average and, according to the law of averages,- must go many p'.ints lower. Even now the average maAet value of railroad stock is the lowest in twenty-two years.
Presiilent Harding, in his address to the Senate, pr?sented the cold facts. He frankly expressed the opinion, in substance, that a further expenditure of three billion dollars by this country now would be .the last straw that would break the camel’s back and throw the world into bankruptcy. In fact, if'we read between the lines, it seems that he thinks the camel’s back it already broken and requires heroic remedies to restore. The usual program is a prayer-meeting followed by a love-feast. This time Harding’s love-feast of the world’s great leaders will be followed by a prayer-meeting. The feast of Belshazzar, on the night of the fall of Babylon, accurately types it.
As before stated, constructive action is imperative, if economic life is to go on. But .we know with absolute certainty that no construc
tive action by the recognized leaders will follow, . because the problem is beyond them. They are ;. mere babes. They do not recognize the impelling fact that the end of the old order of things has come; that the false philosophy which has dominated human affairs has,, by its inherent defects, destroyed itself and the order that de- * veloped under it; that the inevitable working of ; the law of cause and effect has prevailed; that the condition falsely called civilization is dead, never to live again. .
The Mutual Life InsurancejCo., of New York, between 1916 and 1921 lost more than $2,754,000 by depreciation of 35,640 shares of the New-Haven R. R., for which it paid over $100 a share. It has already sold 28,000 shares at between $18 and $35 a share. Estimated at an average of $25 a share, the above loss has resulted.. It holds yet 7,640 shares which at the present market value of $18 a share would entail a still further loss. The fact that it has sold them at such a frightful loss proves conclusively that the opinions of the best experts in estimating stock values, present and future, that are consulted by these great financial institutions, do not indicate faith that New Haven stock will “come back”. The New Haven is a fair representative of all the other-roads.
Not unlikely under the stimulus of a large bonus most of the financial press writers put the best construction possible on the" condition. These writers periodically announce that the bottom has been reached and that the time has come to load up. Then in a day or two after the “slippery” process of those “in the know’ has overloaded the market, the bottom falls out again. The trouble is that most of the ’'lambs'’ have either been shorn or become wary, the suckers have all been salted, and from now on dog must eat dog, and bear claw bear. .
As dividends disappear and bankrupts multiply, even the bears are afraid to hug the Wall Street buzz-saw.
Of all the profiteers the leather hogs were the most greedy. They were not satisfied to get merely their front feet into the trough, but they had to get all four feet in. The Leather Trust lost $40,000,000 by the strike of the people en masse against the high price of shoes, etc. By common consent the people, without collusion, wore old shoes and old clothes, any old thincr, rather than feed the profiteering hogs. The
Leather Trust is now $10,000,000 in debt, and • the end is not yet. This is merely one case in hundreds where economic law has applied the rod to the fool’s back.
* • The railroad unions have taken a vote on the 1 question of acceptance of the reduction of wages . proposed by the railroad officials. The decision has been announced in the negative.
’ ‘ Union men report that the sentiment among
1 the employes is strongly against accepting the
reduction. They have been angered by the state-| ment of the Employers Association that the men j would yet be glad to eat out of their hand; and the men propose to test the accuracy of that । assertion. The proposed national and interna-j tional love-feast may unexpectedly be turned into a prayer-meeting in view of the tumbling value of railroad stocks and bonds and ajrail-f road strike.
I . The host at the feast may have the letter “G” prefixed to it. The World Peace Congress asf semhled in Germany the day before the Kaiser j declared war, and the delegates all fled in a panic. Will this history repeat itself? ’ .
J Those who recognize the cold facts and refuse to cry. ‘•'All is well”, may be scorned as hopeless pessimists and calamity howlers. We shall see what we shall see; and those who ake a dope, f shut their eyes and sleep, must not complain if
i they are awakened by the shriek of the cyclone
and the crash of flying timbers, while they might ’ be safe in the cyclone cellar.
, “Seek meekness, seek righteousness; perad-
' venture the Lord will hide thee in the’day of . his wrath.” .
' Those'who think that a communist or a social- ' ist machine will do the work are in also for disillusionment. Those who think that the so-called Christian church we have known will do the work by merging into the kingdom of heaven are in for disillusionment. It has joined in the unholy debacle of war and slaughter. The blood of millions of innocent people is on its head. It is responsible for the present c condition; for if it had stood like a rock against war (legalized murder) there would have been no war.
While this Is going on, the railroads are. loading themselves up to the muzzle with vice presidents and other nondescripts at fabulous salaries, in every possible way to squander the outrageous freight charges which have been wrung' from the American people, so that they may seem to be justified in their efforts to drive down the wages of the real workers. Henry Ford, paying a minimum of $6 i>er day to his meu, takes the little Detroit, Toledo and Ironton . Railroad, which be owns, runs it at a profit and reduces th<» rates twenty percent Strange thing that the greater systems, with infinitely greater possibilities, are unable to make both ends meet Tears ago they were content to try for years to get a. two percent raise in rates past the Inter- ., state Commerce Commission. Now they ask for the earth, and after they have gotten it yell “Bloody murder!" that they are being ruined because they do not have the whole solar system. Make the acquaintance of any honest railroad auditor and ascertain for yourself whether the railroads nre honestly trying to do the fair thing by the public or by their employes: or whether they are not.ln a directly opposite sense, Luafting in the most shameless manner, .accumu- । lat^ig private fortunes and enricldng relatives and friends in every direction—all as a result of opportunities opened up to them by the World War.
Cataracts and Chiropractic
FROM time to time I have observed articles in The Golden Age for and-against chiropractic. The last one I read was from an M. D. from Canada, and it moves me to narrate a personal experience. •
One year ago an eminent doctor of medicine, also an oculist, gave me six months or, at the furthest, oue year, to go entirely blind with cataract in both eyes. I came home from the examination broken-hearted at the thought of going blind; for with nothing but my own labor to depend upon, the outlook was appalling.
Some of my friends interested a doctor of chiropractic in my case. This lady has treated me for over a year against great difficulties, for
By Alice Fidler
the reason that in order to maintain a livelihood I have been compelled to do such hard work that I have used up most of my vitality and there was not much of a margin to go on.
Still, even with such a handicap, wonders have been done for me. I can now see a great deal better than I could a year ago. I-can read and thread a needle better than I could then, instead of being stone-blind, as the specialist said I would be. I believe chiropractic is a blessing, and I thank God for drugless healing. •
I admire those two chiropractors who went to prison rather than pay fines to the doctors. I am a subscriber, and wish you would publish this with my name.
Why the Gold Standard
QUESTION: I wi.<h to know why we are on ' the Gold Standard and a contracted system.
Answer: A careful analysis of our present social and commercial status and its cause will - expose the animus of Capitalism in foisting upon the world what is known as the Gold Standard.- Under our laws any unit of gold nine-tenths fine gold by weight and one-tenth alloy of other metal is our Gold Standard, and it defines all standard gold units. Prior to 1792 the Pillar silver dollar of Brazil and the Spanish milled silver dollar were the only dollars known to our country. Our Monetary Commission of 1792 adopted the Silver Dollar of our daddies,, weighing 412.5 grains of silver nine-tenths fine as our standard monetary unit. Our halves, quarters, and dimes are standard silver but light in weight, weighing only 380 grains to the dollar. Our monetary system is purely a standard of weight units and has no specific relation to value units. “An Act to Strengthen the Public Credit” in 1869 placed us on a bi-metallic base, and the “Crime of 73” put us on a gold basis and reduced the dollar in weight to 25.8 grains.
Our Gold Standard is a standard of gold quality regardless of size of units: and our monetary system, a standard of weight values, has no fixed relation to commercial values. Dimes, quarters, halves, dollars, eagles, ete., are terms defining weight units; and those units are absolutely stable and never vary in volume, structure, and weight value, and we can readily reduce those units to their equivalents in other units of weight. It is utterly impossible to define the meaning of commercial or trade values in terms that define or express nothing but gravity . or weight values. Our monetary system defines nothing but weight units; and those units are absolutely stable,- never vary in volume, structure, and function, never define anything but weights. If the world possessed a trillion- of gold dollars, that number would not affect the volume, structure, or function of a single dollar by one iota. .
The meaning or definition of a unit of any kind, once defined and demonstrated to public understanding, is settled for ever. The dollar, ' once correctly defined as a unit of value to popular understanding,-will not admit of inflation or deflation any more than you can inflate or
By H. E. Branch, Rogersville, Mo. .
deflate or change the meaning of bushel, acre, watt, or pound. Honest public sentiment will t ■ not permit a perversion of accepted facts. A^ < defined unit or standard cannot be inflated or “deflated by either courts or nations. Ohms, horse-powe'rs, yards, leagues, fathoms, degrees, years, cubic inches, pounds, candle-power, calories, ete., though undefined, always existed and never varied in volume, structure, or function, and the number under consideration will not affect the service or meaning of a single unit.
This law of units is immutable. As we use terms, dollar, supply, demand, and price have no specific meaning and cannot affect the service of a single social unit. The Gold Standard reduced our debt-paying media by half, inaugurated the panics of ’73 and 78, and confiscated from Industry a vast volume of social products and gave birth to tramps and trusts.
We have the tragic story of a lost and wandering calf that made *a crooked trail. Another calf saw the trail and followed itand then another, and another, and, finally, human calves discovered the trail and converted it into a popular highway. Thousands of years ago business men discovered a crooked fiscal trail and foi-‘ lowed it when they weighed out shekels of silver, in payment for goods. Society saw that trail and without reason or intelligence has followed it for thousands of years, to its fiscal undoing. The scarcity of the precious metals as a monetary base makes cumulative debt inevitable. Debt is a needless burden that adds nothing to labor and natural resources, and is a 1 rank violation of natural law and a crime against social'order. Society should have collective intelligence enough to employ its labor and material resources for social uplift without paying unearned tribute to relatively a very few of its lecherous and grafting members.'
With our domination, of light, heat, steam, gas, electricity, and other natural agents combined with improved tools and machinery intelligently employed by industry, society will always have a surplus that will make fa.ni inp • and physical want utterly impossible on any part of mother Earth. We should guard and protect every member of our social body from social injuries, just as we guard and protect the members of our own physical bodies from
physical harm. “An injury to one is the concern of all.” ' ,
Francis A. March? Ph. D., in “History of the World War”, puts its monetary cost at $249,-000,000,000. The same author quotes the Federal * Reserve Board as stating that the world’s entire gold and silver product from the beginning of time to the present is only about $30,000,000,000. The editor of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat places the world’s entire gold product at less than $8,000,000,000, and the Literary Digest quoted the London Statist to the same effect. Take out the gold used in arts, science, and manufacture, and it will reduce our available monetary gold to less than $4,000,000,000. Yet gold is the only means of final payment of debt recognized by civilization!
Thus, we see that the World-War cost is nothing but a debt that added not a single necessary thing to our resources. People Constitute governments, and • what the people owe the governments owe, and vice versa. Our national debt is the sum total of government and citizenship debts. Our railroads owe $20,000,000,(XX). John Skelton Williams reported the resources (debts) of our banks and trusts doing a banking business at over $59,000,000,000. Our national ' debt is at least $350,000,000,000, and the world indebtedness is more than $1,500,000,000,000. Our gold will not pay a quarter of a cent on the dollar of that debt; and scarcity of debt-paying media makes all interest many times compounded and explains the high cost of living and the social unrest complained of. No human agency can bring order out of the fiscal chaos caused by the crooked trailso long as the Gold Standard is employed. The only question is, Have we sufficient intelligence to clean up the wreckage and reorganize things on a safe and sane basis!
Why is it we are not allowed to earn our circulating medium instead of having to borrow it through banks!
Earning our circulating medium is the logic of practical common sense, and that currency would exchange products between points remote from each other on a basis of labor cost of production and exchange. It would eliminate debt, interest, dividends, profits, and speculation, and will b£ strongly opposed by the ruling class. _ The average labor cost or value, the only possible cost or value of any product, will practically never vary throughout the world. A failure
in one quarter will be overcome by bumper pro- ' duction in another quarter. Our railway corpor- ' j ations (members) had many units of non- * interest-bearing circulating debts (sometimes called money), and they wanted interest. They issued debts, stocks, and bonds, capitalization, for about $20,000,000,000 and exchanged them - .
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