Northwest labor press., May 20, 2016, Page 3, Image 3

NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS | May 20, 2016 | PAGE 3
Labor 100 Years Ago — May 20, 1916
A look back at the front page stories of the Oregon Labor Press, May 20, 1916. A digital version of the front page can be seen at www.nwlaborpress.org/100yearsago
*A SAFE AND SANE SYSTEM OF ROAD LAWS
Oregon’s real problem is her road problem. The sooner Ore-
gonians realize this, the better it will be for the state. Good-
road enthusiasts would have the people of Oregon believe
that it is a matter of laying our roads with hard-surface pave-
ments. But it will be decades before even one-tenth of the
roads in Oregon can be hard-surfaced, for there is at the pres-
ent time more than 37,000 miles of established road in this
state. Think of it, enough roads in Oregon alone to go from
*
ocean to ocean across the continent more than ten times.
Anyone can see that the greater part of these roads will be
earth roads for another hundred years. And everyone should
realize the stupendous problem that is before the state.
The building of good roads is an important problem in
the most thickly settled and most prosperous states of the
East. In the West with its magnificent distances, its thin pop-
ulation, and its low assessment valuations, the good-road
problem is a staggering one, for it takes money to build and
maintain good roads. Yet western states must have good
roads in order to deal with their distances efficiently and eco-
nomically. The automobile and the auto-truck have come as
a great help in coping with these distances. But in order to
use the automobile, and especially the auto-truck, economi-
cally, it is necessary to have good roads. The two go hand in
hand. Indeed, it is use of automobiles that is awakening city
dwellers to the importance of roads in the development of a
country.
Oregon’s Road Problem Not Merely
the Paving of a Few Trunk Roads.
In Oregon, we have at the present time more than
37,000 miles of established road serving an area of 95,607
square miles. To keep up these roads we have an assessed
valuation of $934,000,000, and in the whole state a pop-
ulation of only 672,675, or less than seven persons per
square mile of area. True, our assessed valuation will in-
crease rapidly with the years, for new people will come,
and with them money and energy. But the increase in as-
sessed valuation is dependent mainly upon increasing the
value of the land in the outlying districts, through opening
them up properly by an adequate system of good roads,
rather than through increasing the present values of our
inlying farm and orchard lands. For we all know that our
tillable land that is near railroads and rivers has already
been forced to such high valuation that it can be made to
pay interest upon the investment only by especially able
and wide-awake management. No doubt our city valua-
tions are destined to be increased greatly by the coming
of factories. Then again, our assessment valuations will
be increased considerably by the development of our
sources of water power, for these factories will have to
have cheap power supplied them so that they can pay the
higher wages that they must in the West. But the great in-
crease in the assessed valuation that is to supply the funds
with which to build and keep up our good roads must, as
has already been said, come from the increase valuation
given to tillable land in our more outlying districts
through the improvement of our roads. ...
... We are also blessed with numerous rivers, which we
will soon begin to appreciate, and use, in the way that we
should. For instance, serving the eastern part of the state
is the Columbia and its tributaries, upon which millions
have already been spent in order to make it possible to
utilize them in bringing our farm products cheaply to the
seaboard. As yet we are making only the most meager
use of this great river system. Similarly, we have failed
to use the Willamette as we should ... to utilize these rivers
fully, we must have good roads so as to haul our products
cheaply to them. ...
... It is a stupendous problem; yet one that is destined
to reward us abundantly for our sacrifices in overcoming
the difficulties that confront us. It is a problem that can
be solved only by organized and sustained effort. Hard-
surfacing a few hundred miles of trunk road is a small
part of the undertaking, even if the present leaders of the
good-road movement in this state would have Oregonians
think so. Moreover, it is a problem that must be attacked
from the engineering standpoint. Our road-building must
be taken once for all out of the hands of politicians, and
put into those of trained road engineers. We cannot go af-
ter the problem in a hip-hip-hoorah manner as the present
good-road enthusiasts would have us. We cannot solve
our problem simply by voting a few million dollars of
bonds to provide funds for building a few miles of hard-
surface roadway at ridiculously high prices. Instead, Ore-
gon taxpayers must, for many years to come, spend sev-
eral hundred thousands of dollars each year for good
roads if the state is to get any kind of a road system. The
sooner Oregonians awaken to the fact that the building of
a modern road is as much an engineering problem as is
the building of a railroad, the sooner will they get the cost
of their roads down to an equitable basis.