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The basis of a commonwealth life among the people of a State is found in the vital common interests, in the active disposition among their leaders to promote these and in their ability collectively to achieve these ends of common welfare. The prime requisites for a rapid and full realization of their public interests, through which ever higher levels of living are attained, are unity of effort in developing their policies, the use of the best tactics of deliberation upon them so that the matured common sense of all is brought to bear upon the issue in hand, and lastly the focusing of the best light available from every source.

It was to get just this unity of effort in Oregon toward maturing a policy regarding such a major commonwealth interest as road improvement and to insure, as the first phase of this unified effort, thorough deliberation with the best expert aid at command to guide to right practical conclusions, that the University of Oregon arranged a conference for the study of a highway code for the State. This was held in Portland on January third and fourth. The papers presented before the sessions of that conference comprise the body of this issue of the Commonwealth Review.

A keen awareness of the need of an up-to-date highway code for Oregon was increasingly manifesting itself during the year 1916 among all those who appreciated the stake the people of the State have in realizing an adequate system of roads. A combination of causes was sensitizing their minds to this growing need: (1) Unmistakable evidence at every hand showed a very low measure of results from the

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comparatively large annual expenditures on Oregon roads. (2) It was realized that the possibilities of substantial aid from the Federal treasury were contingent on Oregon's getting her highway improvement activities systematized. (3) The rapidly extending use of motor vehicles for recreational, tourist, as well as every-day traffic purposes, was greatly increasing the value of the good road as a factor in Oregon's development. (4) It was becoming clearer day by day that the only way to get full returns for every dollar expended in highway improvement was to require that all road work be under the direction of an engineer or a past-master at road building. And (5) the same principles of business administration and accounting that insure efficiency and economy in private enterprise must obtain in this public enterprise. However, the confusing and conflicting provisions of the road laws that had been enacted from session to session had not been devised to meet such conditions as exist today, nor had there been available for the framers of them the insight into the art of highway building that study and experience the country over have yielded for us to-day.

There was thus by the close of 1916 a strong disposition among discerning public spirits to attempt a long stride in advance with this most difficult public undertaking for the people of a State. Unity of effort taking as its initial form such thorough investigation and deliberation as would bring all contributions into a harmoniously organized project of road legislation must be arranged. The aid of the leading national road experts must be secured as far as possible to give best conditions of success in developing a road code adapted to Oregon's conditions. The duty of marshalling such factors of achievement in commonwealth service must, it would seem, most fittingly fall to the State University. The challenge was accepted.

It is necessary to say only that the appeal made to the different agencies throughout the State manifesting an active interest in highway improvement met in each case with hearty response. Among the agencies that gave the conference such strength as it had were the following: The State Highway

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