"But after all this, there still remains a pressing need for better country roads. As long as mud placed an embargo upon city traffic, the farmer could bear his mud-made isolation with less complaint, but with the improvement of city streets and with the establishment of parks and boulevards, the farmer's just demands for better roads find increasing expression."
The late brilliant congressman, Hon. Thomas H. Tongue of Oregon, left on record a few paragraphs on the sociological effect of good roads that ought to be preserved:
"Good roads do not concern our pockets only. They may become the instrumentalities for improved health, increased happiness and pleasure, for refining tastes, strengthening, broadening, and elevating the character. The toiler in the great city must have rest and recreation. Old and young, and especially the young, with character unformed, must and will sweeten the daily labor with some pleasure. It is not the hours of industry, but the hours devoted to pleasure, that furnish the devil his opportunity. It is not while we are at work but while we are at play that temptations steal over the senses, put conscience to sleep, despoil manhood, and destroy character. Healthful and innocent recreations and pleasure are national needs and national blessings. They are among the most important instrumentalities of moral reform. They are as essential to purity of mind and soul as to healthfulness of body. Out beyond the confines of the city, with its dust and dirt and filth, morally and physically, these are to be found, and good roads help to find them. What peace and inspiration may come from flowers and music, brooks and waterfalls! How the mountains pointing heavenward, yesterday battling with storms, today bathed with sunshine, bid you stand firm, walk erect, look upward, cherish hope, and for light and guidance to call upon the Creator of all light and of all wisdom! How such scenes as these kindle the imagination of the poet, quicken and enlarge the conception of the artist, fire the soul of the orator, purify and elevate us all! But if love of action rather than contemplation and reflection tempts you, how the blood thrills and the spirits rise as one springs lightly into the saddle, caresses the slender neck of an equine beauty, grasps firmly the reins, bids farewell to the impurities of the city, and dashes into the hills and the valleys and the mountains to commune with nature and nature's God. Or what joy more exquisite than with pleasant companionship to dash along the smooth highway, drawn by a noble American trotter? What poor city scenes can so inspire poetic feeling, can so increase the love of the beautiful, can so elevate and broaden and strengthen the character, and so inspire us with reverence for the great Father of us all? But for the full enjoyment of such pleasures good roads are indispensable.