The St. Charles herald. [volume], August 30, 1919, Image 4

About The St. Charles herald. [volume] (Hahnville, La.) 1873-1993

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I WORLD WAR I
1917-1918
AUGUST de Y GREEN 01
CAPTAIN U.5.A.MRI
REGISTERED
AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION
V WASHINGTON, D.C. >
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By JOHN DICKINSON SHERMAN.
N EXT to well-equipped and thoroughly up-to
date railways, transportation means good
solid wagon roads. Even In normal times the
economic value of such roads Is well nigh;
Incalculable, but in a period of armed con
flict victory or defeat may depend upon the condition
of the common highways. All this is well known.
And yet, though far-Seeing men have for some years
been urging the good roads movement upon the people
and some progress has been achieved, our highways
in general still remain among the worst in the world.
•-Albert J. Beveridge.
I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as a tree—
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
! Against the world's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day
And lifts her leafy arms to tfray ;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
e * •
Poems are made by fools like Inc,
But only God can make a tree.
—Joyce Kilmer.
If you want to build a road, let the people plant
memorial trees aloag that road and your project is a
success.—Charles Lathrop Pack.
Thus come closer to the Great Tree-Maker, plant
memorial trees tat honor of the men who gave their
tires to their country—In honor of the men who offered
their Ihres. -Rev. Dr. Francis E. Clark.
Roads sod trees for remembrance I
Victory highways In honor of America's fight
ing men 1c the great war! -
Roadside planting of trees In memory of their
Individual deeds!
It is a truism that the economic and moral
fiber of any community la shown by the condition
of Its highways. Giro the community the right
kind of roads, schools, churches, factories and
hanks and the other signs of advancement will
soon be in evidence.
Memorial ro%ds! What more fitting monument
can we build In honor of our heroes? Permanent
roads dedicated to them! How can a community
better commemorate their achievements?
And all these memorial roads planned and built
as parts of a great system of victory highways—
victory highways that food may move from farm
to dty and manufactures back-to the farm! that
the way of the children to the school house may be
made easy; that the defense of America against
armed force may be certain.
Victory highways that not only serve the na
tion's needs but delight the people's eye—vic
tory highways beautified by roadside planting of
American trees and shrubs and flowers. No walls
and gates and arches with their suggestion of
something closed and set apart hut memorial
trees and groves Aid little paries and wayside
camps for the American traveler and food trees
for the birds.
To Abraham Lincoln have probably more me
morials been erected than to any other man.
Which of all these memorials Is most .-Impressive
—moot fitting? Consider now the Lincoln high
way as it Is and aa it is soon to be.
The Lincoln highway Is an object lesson of
what is and what Is to be in a memorial road.
More than 3,000 miles In length, it runs east and
west through the heart of America, with giant
north and south feeder highways. Joining the At
lantic and the Pacific. It traverses 11 states,
fifteen millions have been expended on it in the
last five yean. Already there are nearly 400
ill— of concrete and brick and paving and more
ta«* 1,000 miles of macadam. It la la operation
fnam end to end. It carries an endless procession
of Américain in their own automobiles. The
year round It to dotted with freight trucks.
At this very moment the federal government
hes under way on the Lincoln way across the
continent aa exhibition train. It started from
Washington, aad from Gettysburg, Pa., this route
la over the Lincoln way to Pittsburgh, Camden
tad Becyrua, O.; Port Wayne, tod.; Chicago
Heights, Dl.; Clinton. Cedar BapMs and Marshall
town. Is.; Omaha, Neb.; Cheyenne, Wyo.; gait
lake CMp. Utah; Canon City mid By, Not.,
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finally dropping down the Sierra Nevada to Sac
ramento, Cal., and then to San Francisco.
This train consists of 60 motor-vehicles of the
types employed by the motor transport corps in
the conduct of the winning of the war. In addition,
accompanying this train are several other
branches of the United States army service, in
cluding representatives of the engineer corps,
with antiaircraft defense trucks and searchlights,
and certain specially detailed observers who will,
make an intensive study and report to the war
department on road conditions.
The trip is being made for both military and
educational purposes, including: An extended
performance test of the several standardized
types of motorized army equipment used for
transportation of troops and cargo and for other
special military purposes; the war department's
contribution to good roads movement; demonstra
tion of the practicability of long-distance motor
post and commercial transportation and the need
for Judicious expenditure of federal governmental
appropriations in providing the necessary high
ways.
So much for the Lincoln highway as a means
of transportation—a transcontinental road link
ing the United States by states. Couslder now
the Lincoln way as a beauty spot—and a me
morial, not only to the Great Emancipator, but to
the heroes who followed his example and won
the freedom of the world in the great war.
Hie roadside planting of the Lincoln way is in
charge of the General Federation of Women's
Clubs. This organization has a membership of
2,500,000 members. It has a state federation In
every state in the Union. Mary K. Sherman,
chairman of the conservation department of the
general federation, has secured a comprehensive
planting plan for the way. This plan has been
worked out by Jens Jensen, a noted landscape
engineer of Chicago. In general it provides for
the planting of trees, shrubs and flowers indige
nous to the locality. For example, blue prints
have been made for the planting of she way
through the ISO miles of Illinois. These prints
give all necessary details—kinds of trees, shrubs
and flowers for each locality; suggestions for
grouping each. The clubs of the several states
through which the way passes will see to it that
the planting is done. Many clubs in other states
will plant memorial miles on the way and In
addition carry out the same plan In application
to Lincoln way feeders In their own states.
Features of this roadside planting of the Lin
coln way by the general federation are memorial
trees In honor of individual heroes; groves, foun
tains, camping places along the road; fruit and
nut trees for the birds and a bird sanctuary from
ocean to ocean.
For ten years America has been spending from
9200 , 000,000 to $300,000,000 a year for highway
construction and maintenance—without national
plan—without relation to the broad needs of the
country as a whole and with little co-ordination
of effort between state«. After spending over
$2,000,000000 In • decade, we are, broadly speak
ing, as far from a proper connecting system of
radiating highways In the United States,as ever.
The latest gover nm ent figures show a total
highway mileage In the United States of 2,407,•
834 and of this total, even after die tremendous
expenditures noted, hut 1? per cent, or some 290,*
000 miles, have received «ay attention whatever
and these Improvements are scattered In 48 states,
hi a loose and utterly ineffective way, over va
sections of our entire 2^00,000 miles.
?S6
Now the time for national action has arrived
Thus the time Is ripe for roads and trees foi
remembrance. The United States Is going to ex
pend $500,000,000 in the next few years on a na
tional highway system of Interstate arterial
routes. It only remains to be seen what agency
of the federal government Is to have charge of
the construction. If the department of agricul
ture and the state highway commissions do the
work, the government and the states will share
the expense, half and half. If a highway com
mission Is established by congress to have
charge of the work the share of the states will bo
apportioned In order that states like Nevada,
Wyoming and Arizona shall not he too heavily
burdened.
As to the feature of memorial trees, this Is also
the choaen time. Public sentiment turns toward
the idea. Events all over the country forecast à
general memorial planting.
The American Forestry association, of which
Charles Lathrop Pack Is president, has Issued a
call for memorial tree planting. It is registering
all memorial trees and giving certificates of reg
istration; also instructions for planting.
Rev. Dr. Francis E. Clark has called upon the
Christian Endeavor societies to plant memorial
trees.
Georgetown university remembered Its war
heroes at Its one hundred and thirtieth com
mencement by planting 54 memorial trees in
honor of its heroic dead. To each tree was af
fixed a bronza marker, of which a sample Is given
herewith. To the next of kin goes a duplicate of
the marker.
"My boys made a wonderful reputation for this
country on the battlefields of France," says Dan
iel Carter Beard. "I say my boys because I be
lieve that there were boy scouts In every Ameri
can division that participated in the war. The
boy scouts' slogan Is, 'Once a scout always a
acout.' A plan that we are taking up is the
planting # of trees as memorials for our heroes.
This la being done In some parts of Long Island
and shonld be done In all sections. After the
tree has been planted n small tablet Should be
placed on it bearing the name of the ipan who
made the supreme sacrifice, and when usd where
and how he was killed and his bran«A of the
service."
Many victory highways to be planted with me
morial trees are under way throughout the coun
try.
The National Defense highway, between
Blandensburg and Annapolis, Is Maryland's con
tribution. New York is planning a Roosevelt
Memorial highway from Montnuk Point to Buf
falo. In Ohio Col. Webb C. Hays has offered to
give memorial tablets on memorial highways In
Sandusky county, and William G. Sharpe, former
ambassador to France, will do the same for Lo
rain county.
The poem by Joyce Kilmer, who gave his life
for his country In France, Is most touching. What
la more Atting than a tree for a memorial? We
may attain the moat magnificent effects in stone
and bronze. Compare them with a permanent
road—enduring aa the Applan way, built 22 cen
turie« ago— and shaded by the Maryland tugp
poplar or the Engelmann spruce or any other of
our magnificent American trees. The glimpse of
an Estes Park road In the Rocky Mountain Na
tional peric shows nature's way of beautifying a
highway. Consider how the trees on guard add
the crowning touch to the Washington monu
ment
We Need a Chamber of Agriculture ,-s
Well As a Chamber of Commerce
B, H. A. WHEELER, Presiden t V. S. Ctambcr,ofCommerce
Unless we indulge in complete government pater,
naliem, wherein the government becomes the ongual
buvin? and selling agency of everything, we must con*
elude that the system of limited price fixing is as undo*
girable as it is un-American and should be now aba*.
doned with all possible speed.
A word of suggestion with regard to unified max*
keting of natural productions, whether they be products
of soil, mine or forest: Violent price fluctuations due
to overproduction or imperfect marketing facilities
____ canno t be in the public interest. Marketing associa
tions of producers should be developed and made as legal, for minerals or
timber as for live stock, cereals and fruit. #
Furthermore there should be a chamber of agriculture, even as there
is a chamber of commerce. It should be a federation of all of the agri
cultural associations and farm bureaus. It would constitute a great fac
tor in promoting efficiency and would enable industrial production and
agricultural production through their respective chambers to work
together, whereas we now often find these interests antagonistic because
of the absence of means through which to co-operate.
This brings us to the question of the measure of co-operation which
In the period of readjustment should be permitted under government
supervision to all producers of commodities calculated for domestic con
sumption as well as for export.
The war taught us many lessons of value, and one of these was that
the practical suspension of trust laws during the war, when manufao
turers of both war and nonwar commodities were brought into intimate
association with each other under government supervision, proved of great
value in producing economies in productive costs and in use of needed
materials, while under the supervision of governmental boards or agencies
prices were stabilized and the public interest served.
In the days of readjustment upon which we have entered there is
great necessity for a continuation of these rights of association if compe
tition is successfully met in foreign markets, or competition in the domes
tic market between home production and those that will presently coma
into this country from foreign producers.
The Insistent Demand of the People for a
National Budget System
By PAUL M. WARBURG, Federal Reserve Board
The change caused by the war in the chart of the world is probably
no more drastic than the transformation, bora of the same cause, that
has taken place in the human mind. Thoughts that were characterized
as "utopian dreams" only four years ago are now being formulated into
actual plans by highly practical men having both feet on the ground.
The national budget idea is a case in point. Sporadic efforts in its
behalf have been made for decades. Both parties stand committed to it.
But it could not take tangible form in the past because conditions and
minds were not ripe for it.
Now they are. The war has done away with stagnation ; it has given
so gigantic a scope to our political, economio and social problems that on
the one hand it has awakened from lethargy the people's mind that gen
erally bothers very little about the intricacies of government, and on the
other it has imbued our legislators with a realization of their grave
responsibilities.
The problems of government are now so staggering that they an
capable at least of overcoming the point of view of the local or personal
interest The angle of the bailiwick must now make room for the larger
national interest
It is the conscious and subconscious recognition of these facts that
in congress has brought about the crystallization of the thought that we
must modernize our government's fissnsifl methods, and which on the
part of the people hm brought about an insistent demand for a national
budget system.
George Bernard Shaw—Poverty is the greatest of evils and the worst
of crimes. Our first duty—a duty to which every other consideration
should be sacrificed—is not to be poor. "Poor but honest," "the respect
able poor," and such phrases are as intolerable and as immoral as "drunken
but amiable," "fraudulent but a good after-dinner speaker," "splendid
criminal," or the like.
If Lessons of War Are Not Forgotten
We Shall Soon Have Good Roads
By O. F. BERKEY, Chicago Automobile Distributor
If the stem lessons we learned in months of war are not soon for
gotten a national system of good and permanent roads will be enjoyed by
the present generation of Americans.
It is nothing less than a twentieth-century wonder that the automo
bile has attained its present popularity when we consider the average type
of road on which our 5,000,000 passenger cars must run.
To date the automobile has received no stimulus from roads, as in
France and England, unless you except such private projects as the Lin
coln and Dixie highways and the progressive work of a few states. The
passenger car and the motor truck have developed iu spite of roads.
Like many other automobile dealers, however, I am optimistic en ough
to believe a new era of permanent road building is upon us.
Not only did the government learn the economic value of permanent
roads during the eighteen months we were at war, but there are indica
tions that it is now cognizant of its obligation to build a system of inter
state trunk lines that will serve aa military highways.
France demonstrated the importance of good roads. For none but
good roads, permanently built and systematically wslsisifi^ could bava
withstood the travel of the allied armies with their trains of heavy artil
1*7 and motor lorries. The American soldier knows this, and when ha
returns to civilian life he will demand aimilav highwaya in this country,
no matter how apathetic he may have been on such issues before ha put
ou the khaki of the Yankee doughboy.