Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 157, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 July 1910 — GOOD ROADS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

GOOD ROADS

13,000 and a Skeptic. Down In Sumter County there is a farmer $3,000 richer because of a specific good roads movement he couldn’t see his way clear to aid. If that is not argument and conversion In one breath, one would not know where to turn for either. This particular farmer, as reported by our correspondent at Amerlcus, has always been skeptical concerning the value of good roads or the dividends from road Improvement. He has persistently been endeavoring to dispose of his 300 acres at S3O. But highway facilities were; lacking, and there were no purchasers. A short time ago, a roadway was projected which should pass by his pl&ce and link It to civilization. Fanners contiguous, realizing the Immense value of the improvement, gave freely of their land for a right of way. So Joined was this man to his that he refused to cede even a small atrip of that land he had tried to sell and couldn’t. The road-building proceeded regardless of his declination. A few days after It was completed he was offered S4O an acre for the entire tract, which, previously, he could not sell at S3O. So that, In the face es his lack of enterprise, the good roads irfovement brought $3,000 "velvet” to his door-step and also a clinching good roads argument which should leave the doubter everywhere not a leg to stand upon. What has happened In Sumter, so far as marvelous enhancement of values Is concerned, has been. Is being, and will be duplicated In every county in Georgia. To-day in Georgia are hundreds of farms lagging in valuation because of incomplete or absent road facilities. There are more hundreds of potential farms, waiting to be tickled Into abundant harvests by dividend-makers for Georgia as soon as enterprise has blazed a trafl to their boundaries. If, in every Georgia county, the initiative developed in Sumter should be commensurately duplicated, the Impetus, to Individual and collective wealth would not easily lend itself to estimate. —Atlanta Constitutionlll Good Country Roads. Nothing could confer so many substantial benefits on the United States as a comprehensive system of good country roads. It would be of greater value than the Improvement of the waterways. It would help both the farmers and the city people. Therefore any proposition which looks to endowing the country with good roads Is entitled, if not to acceptance, at all events to a respectful hearing. There is a bill before Congress to appropriate $500,000 to be expended—“by the secretary of agriculture in cooperation with the postmaster general In improving the condition of the roads over which rural delivery Is or hereafter may be established to be selected by them for the purpose of ascertaining. the possible increase in the territory which could be served by one carrier and the possible increase In the number of delivery days each year, the amount required for proper maintenance In excess of local expenditure for rural delivery routes and the relative saving to the government in the maintenance of rural delivery routes by reason of such improvements, and also the relative saving in the cost of the transportation of agricultural and other products from the farms or other points of production to the usual market place by reason of such improvements.” There is a proviso to the effect that the state or county shall spend as much money as the government does for the improvement of the rural route or routes selected. We know already that better roads would lessen the cost of transporting produce to market and the cost of the rural delivery service. An estimate of the respective gain to producers and the government can be made without spending half a million dollars, The bill is a move in the direction of putting half the cost of making good roads on the national government. How many millions it would spend from first to last if It. were to embark on thi3 policy Is beyond calculation. To give Instruction in the art of road building such as the department of agriculture has been giving is one thing. To share with road districts, townships, or counties the cost of construction of roads which would be local. not national, works is another thing. Doubtless there are many rural districts which could be coaxed into the building of better roads by federal grants in aid. An Alabama senator, forgetful of President Jackson’s veto of the bill extending federal aid to the Maysville turnpike road, is strongly in favor of the proposition that the national government shall assume in part a duty which has belonged exclusively to the states. StSte aid In the building of good country roads is legitimate. It should be resorted to Instead of calling upon the general government. Which has about all the burdens it can carry.— Chicago Tribune.