Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 June 1900 — COMMUNICATED. [ARTICLE]

COMMUNICATED.

What Benefit Will It Be? Thq Gifford railroad—this is no personal matter, but a real live public question to be settled at the ballot box. Will this proposed road be of any lasting material benefit to the four townships interested? is the burning question of the hour. For one I cannot see where this road is going to give us any better railroad accommodations than we now already have. One end of this route, it is said, is at Chicago the other, perhaps, at Danville, 111. It can riot possibly give us any shorter or quicker route to Chicago than we now have, and as for Danville, there can never be any common . interests between us and the people of that city, that will cause the need of a special railroad line between here and there. If Mr. Gifford’s road was “straight goods,’’a connecting link, a short route between two important points, it would surely strike our people much more favorably than it does. It is our humble opinion that half the money asked for by this railroad, if spent on gravel roads, would be of far more benefit to us than the railroad would ever be. Gravel or macadamized road building has but merely commenced in this country. The period of horseless vehicles is just beginning to dawn and for the next decade or two it is going to be country roads that will demand the people’s money and time, not railroads. Then let’s save our means for the improvement of the common, public highway. Let’s spend our money for home comforts and conveniences and let railroads go where traffic and trade are sufficient to induce capital to build them, Marion Tp. Rensselaer, June 26, 1900.