Solaris Farm: A Story of the Twentieth Century

by Milan C. Edson

"We may now consider the ways and means, by which our co-operative system of good roads, can control railroad freights, and finally drive railroads to government ownership. Long before the close of the first half of the twentieth century, thousands of miles of these fine wagon roads, will be found in every State. Responding to the demands of legions of voters, who reside in the co-operative farm villages bordering these charming highways; a strong force of legislators, will everywhere rise up, as eloquent advocates of the good roads movement. Honest and faithful, inspired by a tenacity of purpose which will brook no opposition from railroad lobbies; encouraged and strengthened, by an ever increasing army of enthusiastic voters behind them, these tireless legislators will not halt, until the entire system of good roads, so well begun by the farm villages, shall be taken up, completed, and perfected by the State. Ten years of such forceful work, will surely accomplish the task.

"Then, to the champions of the system, shall come their reward. They shall behold, flowing in mighty streams, over the wide, petroleum treated, dustless surfaces, of these far-reaching, absolutely free highways, the traffic and travel of a mighty Republic!

"Then, will come the demonstration of what American genius can do, toward the evolution of a superior class of rubber tired, horseless vehicles, which shall prove the best, cheapest and most durable, for purposes of freight, traffic, and travel, on such a complete system of fine roads. The best of our present types, when compared with these twentieth century road flyers and freight rollers, will seem poor, crude affairs. The irresistible volume of this swift stream of the new travel, and the new transportation, eloquent with the progress of the century, will herald the coming of a well-merited doom for the monopolistic railroad combines.

"Then, local travel and traffic, will make haste to desert the iron rails. Railroad freights everywhere, will fall to zero. Short railroads—branches and feeders to main lines—will become useless and worthless. Many of them will be sold at auction, for less than the cost of the iron in the road-bed.

"Then, shorn of their ill-gotten gains, the mighty railroad kings of the land, will fall from their tall pedestals of pride, where for years, they have posed as owners of the earth. With financial ruin staring them in the face, they, and the whole brood of erstwhile railroad kings, will make urgent haste to sell to the government, at the bare cost of construction, such great through lines as may be necessary to maintain inter-state commerce, and across-the-continent traffic. Other roads, they may not sell at any price. A government for the people, and by the people, will have no further use for them.

"Then at last, the supreme folly of having a half-dozen competing lines, running side by side through the same territory, will be fully demonstrated. With this demonstration, will come the opportunity, to scores of paid press writers, pessimistic bigots, self-conceited, unprogressive wiseacres, who have so long and so loudly derided the government ownership of railroads, as the most suicidal and unbusiness like scheme ever hatched; to answer this pertinent question: Would it be possible, for government engineers building public railroads, to ever be guilty of such monumental stupidity?

"The social effect of these good roads, on the lives of all agricultural people, will prove even more important than the financial advantages gained. Hitherto, they have been so hampered by environments, by lack of means, and lack of leisure, that as a class they have been unable to enjoy or to appreciate the wonderful, the educational, the broadening and the refining effect of much travel, on the mind of the individual. From lack of experience, they do not realize that the sum of human life is the sum of its sensations, which are produced by change of environment, contact with a larger or lesser series of natural phenomena, and more especially with other lives.

"The more progressive lessons of life, are learned from example and not from precept. Men and women, are only children of a larger growth, they are imitative creatures with a natural instinct to choose other, higher, and better lives as models. Hence the great value of travel as an educator. The larger the area covered by the traveler, the wider the field of experience and choice. Through the law of action and reaction, social contact with a multitude of actors and thinkers, refines the individual. A healthy spirit of emulation is aroused, which leads on to progress.

"With the advent of a universal system of good roads, cheap travel, and a dominant combination of co-operative, industrial and agricultural enterprise, an extraordinary era of recreation and travel, will dawn for all rural people. Opportunity, leisure, and means will be abundant. All co-operative workers, can afford to take an annual vacation of at least one month. The ownership of a swift, roomy, durable, road machine, capable of making from twenty to thirty-five miles an hour, will be within the means of every family. In this private car, the family, or a select party, could easily and leisurely accomplish a five thousand mile tour in twenty days. Along the whole distance, farm villages, from fifteen to twenty minutes apart, would offer the travelers, machine supplies, repairs, and excellent hotel accommodations, for an expense not in excess of the same at home. Than this, no traveling excursion could be more delightful! For pure enjoyment, a select party of nineteenth century millionaires, could not equal it.

"The enjoyment of such delightful opportunities for even a single decade, would make the rank and file of the republic thoroughly acquainted, with the soil, scenery, forests, lakes and rivers; the mining and manufacturing possibilities; the peculiar characteristics of the people, their local ambitions, political wants and future demands, of every state and county in the union.