And why has it been possible for France to carry on for four years a successful war against the greatest military power that the world has ever seen? Because France had the benefit of the engineering skill and of the foresight of two men who are 1,800 years apart--Napoleon and Caesar. Those men built the roads of France. Without those roads, conceived and built originally by Caesar for the conquest of the Gauls and for the conquest of the Teutons, without the roads built by Napoleon to stand off the enemies of France and to make aggressions to the eastward, Paris would have fallen at least two years ago. So that you gentlemen who are engaged in the business of developing the highways of the country and putting them to greater use may properly conceive of yourselves as engaged in a very farsighted, important bit of statemanship, work that does not have its only concern as to the farmer of this country or the helping of freight movement during this winter alone, but may have consequences that will extend throughout the centuries. Take the instance of Verdun. Verdun would have fallen unquestionably if it had not been for the roads that Napoleon constructed and that France has maintained; for all the credit is not to go to the man who conceived and the man who constructed. This is one thing where we have been short always. One thing that the people of the United States do not realize. It is not sufficient to pay $25,000 a mile for a concrete foundation, but you must put aside 10 cents out of every dollar for the maintenance of these roads or your money has gone to waste and your conception is idle. And you gentlemen know, if you continue, as I hope you will, after the war, you will have not merely a function in the securing of the building of good roads, but will have a very great function in the maintaining of these roads as actual arteries in the system of transportation of the country. You remember that at Verdun the railroad was cut off, and Verdun was supported by the fact that she had trucks which could go 40 feet apart all night long over the great highway that had been built from Paris to the east.