Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 55, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 March 1918 — ROAD SCHOOL A SUCCESS [ARTICLE]

ROAD SCHOOL A SUCCESS

EXCELLENT ADDRESSES HEARD BY LARGE INTERESTED AUDIENCES. The road school hefid in this county Wednesday of this week was a most interesting one and was well attended. County Road Superintendent Sylvester Gray and his assistants were here besides a large number of interested citizens. Prof. Ray C. Yeoman, a former Jasper county boy and one of whom we are all certainly proud, gave two most excellent addresses. Prof. Yeoman is with the highway department of Purdue University and besides his addresses he displayed a number of very instructive pictures. These pictures presented in a very forceful and concrete way many of the defects in our present roads and our manner of taking care of them. At noon the road superintendent and his assistants and a number of the members of the Rensselaer Merchants’ Association had as their guests, Prof. Yeoman and L. H. Wright, chairman of the Indiana’ state high commission.

This informal banquet was held at the Makeever house with Samuel Fendig, chairman of the merchants’ association presiding. Mr. Wright was called upon and made a‘ short but very interesting and instructive address. The other meetings were held in the circuit court room. Prof. Yeoman made two addresses, one in the forenoon and the other in the afternoon. He gave many valuable- suggestions along the line of road building and upkeep. Hon. L. H. Wright gave a most excellent address explaining the new Indiana highway commission law. Mr. Wright is the chairman of the Indiana highway commission and is also the master of the Indiana State Grange. The latter organization is one of the greatest farmer organizations in this county. He is a farmer and owns a farm in Bartholomew county about ten miles out from Columbus. At present he lives in Irvington, where he has two daughters in Butler University. The salary of the chairman of the

Indiana state highway Commission is very small, but Mr. Wright is giving his duties the most of his time and, is in the work heart and soul. Some of the points brought out by his address were as follows: “Our greatest expense in this state is the money invested in eduction. The next greatest amount of money derived from taxation is spent in building and maintaining roads.” Before the automobile and auto-trucks the roads were used mostly by the people locally who built them and paid for them. Now, sixty-five per cent of the travel on the main highways of the state is by those who under the present law do not contribute either to the building or the repairing of the roads they use. There are as many miles of road in those townships in the state that have a very low taxable valuation as those that have a very high valuation. The state highway law passed by the last legislature in a very imperfect form attempts to distribute the money over the roads of the state. In ten counties of the state the assesed valuation is about $518,000,000 while the ten of the counties having the' lowest assessed valuation

the property listed for taxes is about $1,139,000. Indiana has about 60,000 miles of public highways. Of this about 38,000 miles are improved. Many of the roads in counties having small valuation are used by automobiles and heavy truck from the large cities located in the ten counties having the large valuaticn as given above. Many of the public highways are no longer to be considered as county roads but they are better designated as state or national thoroughfares. If they are such then the money for their erection and maintainance should come from state and national taxes. The Indiana highway commission has planned the improvement of three highways. One passing through the state from noyth to south and tw'o passing through the state from east to west. These roads represent a total of about eight hundred miles and it will cost some $2,0Q0,01‘0 to improve them An attempt will be made to complete two hundred miles of this work this

year. Besides the money contributed by the government fur this work, their is a great advantage in securing material from the standpoint of price and also the ability to have same delivered as needed. The government is very anxious that the main line roads in the country be put ?n the very best condition possible as much of the war materials will be sent from inland to the sea board in large auto-trucks. Mr. Wright said th?.t with about 3,; 00 miles of improved roads every county seat in the *tate could be ,<• ch« . It wllbe 'a prove day in In i.ai.a when the;: roads can be im- ?<. with ce iv-’-.t brick or a ; halt The great economic value of improved road can be realized by the following: Where the traction cost on a cement road is SI.OO, the same traction cost on a brick or macadam road is $2.36, on a gravel road it is $2.75, on a dirt road it is $3.35 and on an oiled macadam road it is $2.83. If the educational interests of our state are our greatest concern and if by giving this important matter our first and foremost attention we have placed Indiana in the front ranks, should we not give due attention to this next most important thing, the building of improved highways.