THE OREGON SUNDAY JOURNAL, PORTLAND SUNDAY fllORNINC OCTOBER 201 1907
THE ALf fiBlffiira
V.OFAlILLIOAfAIRL
Jamuel Hilly Hobby the Duildind of Good Roads
Throughout the United Staiej. . "
ffrJll
Percfes
QAMUEL HILL, "of the United
: , States," is a millionaire with an altru
istic mission.
His home is in Seattle, Washington
.'. state, but his missionary activities and his
7 &crness to aid mankind, distribute his help
ful efforts over most of the states vf the
Union, so his friends call him "Samuel Hill,
, of the United States.'
Good roads form Mr. Hill's one great
absorbing hobby. No matter whether im
proved roads are needed in his own state, in
-, Pennsylvania, Ohio or Missouri, he is always
r ready to devote his time and his mians to
7 helping the beneficial work along.
He says. he would rather leave behind
him a monument of good roads than a prom
inent record in the United States Senate. He
is devoting his life and his fortune to im
proving the nation's highways.
It consists of one room, with a stenographer's pert
inent adjoining. Us appointments are simple. On tha
window facing tha atreet la tha plain sign, "Samuel Hill,
Lawyer," but It la very rarely that law ta discussed
within, unleai It pertaina to good roada or good road
legislation.
At ona aide of thla room la an extra desk, occupied
by Samuel C. Lancaster, formerly a consulting engineer
of Jackson. Tenn., and ona of tha beat good roada axperta
In the United Statea.
For yeara before locating In Seattle, Mr. Lancaater
was an authority on thla work who waa often conaulted
by the United States aecretary of agriculture. It waa
through this department of the national government that
Mr. Hill waa brought In touch with the expert and, once
determining hla qualifications, took him to Washington
state at his own expense.
A few months ago Congressman Richmond P. Hobson
undertook a campaign to teach tha farmers of Alabama,
among other things, the benefits of good roada. Me first
Journeyed to Washington, where he sought the advice of
Secretary of Agriculture Wllaon, aa to who waa tha best
man to be secured for demonstrating.
'j.lta UMfulnaaa.. But today Minneapolis points with prlda
rJo tha stretch of driveway and Mr. Hill haa received hla
--Uanka. i: . ,.:;.! -V;, .'
v ; Tha work In tha beginning, -or whan Mr.'HUl took It
. up, was not encouraging. Ha had traveled "extenalvely,
and knew of good roads contributing to tha upbuilding
of thickly settled portions of tha East. -
t ' Ha had figured out that between Washington, D., C.
. and New Tork city, a dlstanca of 238 mllea by PennsyU
. vania Railroad, there waa a population, of 8,600,000, or on
; ' tenth of tha whole Inhabitants of the United Statea.;
' Betweea New Tork and Boston, a distance of ta
mllea, there was a vast settlement, , '.
. TTa w tha rilA miifl mAm rf Ptnnvlvttnla ' whlfih
ha knew in boyhood, converted Into good roada and lined
Then he compared tha 470 miles across tha state of
Washington, with Its scattered farms, and said: "If tha
atat of Washington Is to oontlnua its prosperity, It must
bav good roada to Indue Its Increasing population to
direct its attention to tha cultivation of the soil."
la the movement In Washington b has had the sup
port of tb press, regardless of politics. Ho has pushed
hla work in Washington, yet at.no time haa ha felt too
busy to take a train to an adjacent or distant atat when
b thought bla presence waa needed. ,
; It Is hla life's work, and h expects to devote the re
mainder of. hla days to tha cause, In the same way h
baa begun.
... -i r
4 5
'ot W:': -- 'Jtri!" ' :Wft-aiM1aJaUw 4M A
Fighting the Chestnut's
Enemies
V
3- 4Qu&.fS&yf'!' Wort ?rer ffrrrr&sxtZj:
HILB Andrew Carnegie builds flbrarlea as
monumanta to his memory, while John D.
Rockefeller and others endow universities and
Mrs. Russell Sage Is giving away 870,000,000 for
- varloua purposes, Samuel Hill, the college-bred mil
lionaire, clubman and lawyer, haa dedicated his time and
- fortune to the construction of- good country roada
. throughout the United Statea, and especially In the state
of Washington, where he has eatabliahed hla home.
'Schooled In hla boyhood under Alexander J. Cassatt,
' the late president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and In
middle life becoming the son-in-law of James J. Hill,
builder and master mind of the Great Northern Railway,
Samuel Hill haa cast aside the mantle of buaineaa and
taken up tb cause of the people tho dwellers In the
rural districts.
- . For years kie has been an enthusiastic leader In the
good roads movement Today he Is Its leading exponent,
whoa aid and influence are sought and given In every
atat In the Union.
jHe gets out of his expenditure of thousands of dol
lars annually naught but the knowledge that be la con
; trlbutlng to the common good and aiding the country's
' prosperity by encouraging thousands of people to go back
- to the aoIL
APPLIES RAILWAY METHODS
Samuel Hill, like his famed father-in-law, James J.
Hill, has apent the best years gf bis life railroading. As
president of the Minnesota Eastern, one of the Hill lines,
ba demonstrated his ability, and that branch of the Great
1 Northern was never more prosperous than under hla
management.
- It la not astonishing, therefore, that In the building
: of country roada he appllea railroad methods.
Where Jamea J. Hill straightens curvea, bores tun-
nels and reduces grades that freight may be transported
at a more economical rate. Samuel Hill Is using his time,
money and will in paving the rura". districts with a net
work of solid highways, over which the farmer can haul
to market or shipping point, at less expense, many
; times the amount of grain or produce h piled on hla
wagon in the days when ruts and bogs occupied the line
of travel. ,
Although a member of twenty-seven clubs, located
from New Tork to Seattle, moat of which he finds time
to visit every year, Mr. Hill takes more pride In the fact
' that ha la an honorary member of the Farmers' Club
of New Tork than all the others combined.
' At present be Is about to begin the construction of a
81,000,000 residence located on one of the most sightly
viewpoints In Seattle. But his office. In one of the old
fashioned .buildings in the heart of Seattle's business dis
trict, would not attract attention.
r " c' win -"
tlon. Then Mr. Hill began demonatratlona tn different
parts of the state.
A mile of specimen road waa built at his own farm, 1
and stretches were constructed In various counties.
Mass meetings were held, at which Mr. Hill was tha
speaker.
He told the farmers that the average eost of hauling
over the wagon roads of the United States waa 80 cents a
ton, while the cost for this same load In the state of
Washington waa 81 a ton.
He gave them figures, gathered at hla own expense,
showing that In France It costs less to haul farm produce
and grain'" by motor cars over good French roads than
It does by railroads In that country
He showed that In King county, Washington, alone,
more than 11,600,000 had been spent on roads, and there
was but one mile of good road In the county.
The sentiment of the farmers was aroused, and tha
work In the state, through his Influence. Is further pro
gressed than In any other poorly roaded state in the
country.
"We want that man for United States senator," cam
a cry from an audience at a Washington meeting. Mr.
Hill raised his hand.
"I have an ambition, but It Is not to sit In the
United States Senate. I want good roads In every state
In the United Statea, and I want to tv remembered by
ISITORS to the Chestnut Qrov stock farm of
C. K. Sober, In Northumberland county, Penn
sylvania, recently bav witnessed a most In
terstlna spectacle four hundred acres of
- Paragon chestnuti with tha trea loaded down with
maturing fruit, .
About ten years ao thla same land was barren
mountain side. At that tlma Mr. Sober waa beginning
bla experiments to reclaim thla wast mountain land,
and was removing the worthlesa logs, brush and rub
blah, all that remained of a heavy growth of chestnut
and oak that had originally covered tho mountain.
A great change baa been wrought In ten yeara.
That mountain aide la now covered with more than
70,000 Paragon chestnut trees, grafted on nallv chest- '
nut sprouts, and the most of these trees are loaded
with bura
Soma young trees contain only three or four burs,
others will yield a quart of nuts, and f: m a few of
the largest and oldest trees Mr. Sober will gather thla
year one-half bushel of nuts each.
Mr. Sober has shown the possibility of turning larg
areas of land In thla commonwealth that are now
entirely unproductive to usefulness and largely In
creased value.
ORDERS EXCEED SUPPLY
Last year on carload of chestnuts was sent to ,
Washington state, and this year orders have been
received for over alx carloads, but tbU U more than
Mr. Sober can furnlah. It Is estimated that the crop
this year will amount to nearly 1500'bushela, and will
sell readily at from 85 to 87 a bushel
The chestnut Is not free from enemies, and Mr.
Sober says the success of Its culture in America will
largely depend upon whether or not the Insect pests
can be controlled. During the last Ave years Mr. Sober
and Professor N. E, Davis have made extensive ex
periments, which seem to prove that the Insects csn
be controlled. Cleanliness Is the method suggested.
Of the Insect enemies, there are two which cause
most of the trouble the chestnut weevil and the bur
worm. At harvest time all nuta are gathered, the
good and bad. Mr. Sober would rather have a good
nut left In the grove than a bad ona
The larvae of tho weevil remain In thi nuts until
Secretary Wilson's reply was Lancaster. But Lan
caster was engaged by Samuel Hill In work that could
not be delayed In Washington atate, bo to Hobaon's re
quest Mr. Hill replied that Instead of sending Lancaster,
he. Hill, would go to Alabama himaelf.
He did go, and for several weeks devoted his time
and means to the beginning of a movement which Mr.
Hobson declared will mean the revolutionising of roads
in his home state.
Mr. Hill does not favor a national good roads asso
ciation or government appropriation to carry on the
work. He has had his experience with a national asso
ciation, accused some of those in it of graft, dissolved it,
and then came to the conclusion that state associations
are the only proper means of carrying on the movement.
He doea not approve of government aid, .believing that
It would create a grabbag. But he does believe In state
aid by legislative enactment, and at the last session of
the Washington Legislature caused to be passed the first'
good roads bills to assist the movement.
Others will be forthcoming at the next session two
years hence, and on the Washington laws, when com
pleted, he expects to start movements In all other states
to secure similar laws.
He has gone further. A few weeks ago he secured
the promise of the board of directors Of the State Agri
cultural College at Pullman to establish a chair of good
roads at that institution. When the position is created
Mr. Lancaster will be its first occupant.
In the preliminary work that has been done by the
Good Roads Association of Washington state, every step
has been figured with a precise knowledge of the details.
One of the first things Mr. Hill did waa to apply rail
road methods to the work. He had blanks printed which
he sent to every farmer in the state, asking that the In
formation sought be filled In and tha blank returned.
This information related to the distance each farmer was
from market, the condition of roads hauled over, the
nuraW of tons or bushels hauled at one load, etc.
Much of this information was used to secure legisla-
it
a
-.4. ':f L. -..fi
.-N'r
3 It
ii t ' . ....
: wjJ ."yex
V
4 x
i & Av Ant ia,
7!w, ft' rV
irijXjT' .... U-'-t.jJ
jajyt
them when I am gone."
Probably the first actual roadbulldlng done under the
supervlejon of Mr. Hill was eighty-five miles, leading
from Minneapolis to and about Lake Mlnnetoka. Thla
was completed while he was engaged in railroading in
Minnesota.
In the beginning it was called "Sam Hill's Folly
for the expenditure. It was asserted, would far exceed
NoOneHajt Jeen the Herode Law.
Fjnr, yes, indeed; I have ears.
;-?'" I here, :1 nope that little ro
inance is relegated forever to the
' dark bag that: holds the things con
soled to eternal oblivion! '
"Just because everybody remembers seeing
me always with my hair dreeod la Botticelli they
irnngine I - must have, been : born withont those
cunninff little doors to the sot4 with which. Nature
traces cither side of the head, . . . .
I i www S
.. k kmkk H
M ' ' -; "Thi1 hope that little rc
VV mance is relegated forever to the I IsL f t IKZ1 I
s -a-: '-aia ' jjt swesssawuM, ...
back that, as I grew older, I confined it within
modest, unobtrusive bands. I did it just to get rid
of my hair without cutting it off. People said
the bands were becoming to me. So I have kept
to my girlish style in hairdressing. That is all
there is, or has ever been, to the mystery of Cleo
de Merode's ears."
"When I was a child I had such a regular
. cascade of hair falling all about my. oeck and
c
LEO DE MERODE beautiful, puzzling, mysterious.
thrilling Cleo driven to desperation and violet ink,
accompanied by excellent portraits of herself, with
herself studiously unaccompanied, by her- famous
ears, writes thus of the mystery which has made- more
talk In Paris during the last ten years than all the
brains the great Bernhardt has had back of her ears
during the same decade; and the great Bernhardt is no
kindergartner, either in high art or free advertising.
Cleo is now worth a million, and she is an artiste.
She used 'to be a danseuse. Before that she was a ballet
dancer.
It la no breach of either confidence or etiquette to
recall the choreographic pulchritude of FannyJEllsler,
whose most lauded beauties were those very members
which raised her feet to the heights of her profession
about six inches above her ears.
And the present pulsating generation rejoices to Its
inmost heart to gaze into the veiled deeps . of Anna
Held'a alluring eyes. Or fond memory may turn Its ap
preciative gaze upon Olga Nethersole'a lips, or upon
Mrs. Carter's Vesuvian hair, or even upon the Bern
hardt's and Terry's plain, unadorned human Intelligence.
But all of them had something worth talking about.
It took the unique, unadulterated genius of the alnu
oUs Cleo to focus popular attention upon something that
was nothing, to work up an International discussion
over a hirsute hiatus, to use a vacuum to mystify all
the dramatic critics. The million minnows of humanity
swept after her in guessing, admiring shoals. Even
Leopold, king of the Belgians, became entranced.
After that Cleo of the Bandeaux became a stock
holder in the Anglo-Belgian Rubber Company, the Kasal
Trading Company, the Congo Superior Railway, the
Stanley-Pool and Katanga-ltimbiii Construction Com
panyand most of the other companies which urge the
gathering of rubber in the Congo Free State by cutting
off the ears and other superfluities and utilities of such
free black citizens as prefer not to gather, rubber. '
Sometimes nowadays the Botticelli butterfly dances
the Jeweled dance of Senegambia; or she makes a tour
of Austria and Hungary; or-she inspects her real estate ,
investments in Ostend, Dinant and Hamur; or she re
tires to her chateau In the Belgian valley of the Meuse.
About her ears?- Well, she says she has them, quite
aa pink and pretty as the ears of anybody else.
But no one has ever seen them at least, they hav
never been exhibited in public.
And while the theatergoing public -has guessed and
speculated about the M'erode ears, their owner has gene
on -coining money. She is among the world's most cele- -b
rated and successful actresses, and haa made her for
tune largely by her unique method of hairdressing.
they are full grown, when they leave the nuta and
bury themselves in the ground. Fortunately, the
larvae are not full grown until after harvest time.
Thus if all nuts are gathered there are few weevil
that escape to reach maturity. Of couiee, not all the
nuts can be gathered, and so It will oe Impossible- to
exterminate them, but they can be controlled. This
was proved last year. N
The bur worm lives not so much in thj nuts as In
the bur of the chestnut, but they Injure the nuts by
eating; large Irregular shaped holes into them. This
does not so much injure the nut lf It Ik used at once."
out it maices the nut unnt lor marKei, ana sucn nuis
mould quickly, and so are a great loss. Professor
Nelson E. Da Vis, of Bucknell University, has worked
out the life history of this enemy, and norr Mr. Sober
lr confident that his two worst enemies are conquered.
Another enemy is the red spider. This Is one of
the mites, and lives on the leaves of the chestnut. It
thrives only In the warmer parts of the country, and
has caused but little damage to the grove. A dry hill
side situated on the south side of the mountain and
containing about ten acres has been seriously attacked;
but as practically the entire grove Is on the north side
of the mountain, little damage is expected from this
pest. When It occurs In abundance It can be combated
with any of the washes found useful in destroying
scale Insects.
Chestnut trees grow rapidly, and one can scarcely
conceive the changes that ten years more will bring
to the chestnut- grovtr.- Fire, wind, rain,-hall and
thieves are enemies which may be "controlled In part
or wholly, but the success of the cultivation of Para
gon chestnut depends upon whether or not the Insect
pests can be controlled. Mr. Sober believes that he
nuw has the upper hand of these pests. i
Squared All Around
IT IS tha busy sovereign that does the work, as this
story proves, says the London .Tit-Bits,
"Mr. Brown keeps a boarding house. Around hla
table sat his wife,' MVs. Brown; the village' milliner, Mrs.
Andrews; Mr. Black, the baker; Mr. Jordan, a carpenter, '
and Mr. Hadley, flour merchant.
"Mrs. Brown took 1 out of his pocket and handed It
to Mrs. Brown, with the remark-that there was 1 toward
the 2 he had promised her. Mrs. Brown handed the
sovereign to JiVs. Andrews -the milliner, saying, 'That
pays for my new bonnet.' Mrs. Andrews In turn passed
It to Mr Jordan, remarking that it would pay for the
carpenter work he had done for her. Mr. Jordan handed
it to Mr. Haaiey. requesting -his receipted Dill for flour.
Mr. uaaiey gave it oacK to Mr. Brown, saying,
A
That
ays 1 on. my board.' Mr. Brown again passed It to
iVs. Brown, remarking that he had now paid her the 1
he had . promised her. tine in turn paid Mr. Black to
settle her bread and naatry account. Mr. Black handed
it to Mr. -Hadley, asking credit for the amount on hla
flqua bill. Mr. Hadley again returned it to. Mr. Brown,
wun ui: remara -mat it semea lur iiuh wees s Doara,
whereupon Brown put it back In his pocket, observing
that he bad not supposed a sovereign would go so far."