Jasper County Democrat, Volume 18, Number 65, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 November 1915 — INDIANA'S BEAUTIFUL ROADS. [ARTICLE]

INDIANA'S BEAUTIFUL ROADS.

IT you ride in an- auto across the state line into many parts of (Took and Will counties, puffed-up shires of the beautiful Sucker state you can readily imagine that you are somewhere between CzenstGchowo and Mallvowi schi m Poland in the ISth century. The’ roads jolt, the .very teeth out of you. They break your springs. After a few miles your machine rattles like a lot of holts in a tin paib Illinois road ; are

a disgrace to civilization. There are. 20,83 | miles of surr.ic-! i ed roads m Indiana, only 9,0 0 0 milch ! •in Illinois. Indiana •purities, townships and districts last ye.: r spent | $ 1 3,258*76 i, : : for road - work—the | largest local . expenditure, in t! e un- 1 ion—-whereas Illinois only spent $7,-! 1 02.977. Indiana’s 20,8.111 miles of surfaced roads, loom up 'afge when compared with Mb miles in Wyoming, 9,388 miles in California, 1,482 miles in the okl state of Virginia, and. 9,790 in the empire-sized com-

monwealth of Texas, r.ven Kansa,s with all her boasted can only show a surfaced milage of ! ,170. One would think that the great state of New York has more good roads than Indiana, but it hasn’t; and the Hoosier state has six times the surfaced mileage of its much older sister commonwealth, Pennsylvania. West Virginia with its 825 miles, North Dakota with 200 miles, and the ancient commonwealth of Maryland with 2,706 miles are dwarfs when compared with Indiana.

Though Ohio slightly leads Indiana numerically in road inileage Indiana outdistances all . it's sisters, Ohio included, in the percentage of surfaced highways. You who wish to appreciate the excellence of Indiana roads ride over ( into Illinois anywhere south of Chicago, and you will feel like sounding the timbrel and the hewgag that you live in good old Indiana until you meet the supercillious Chicago road-hog who thinks he owns the earth and the fullness thereof.— Lake County Times.

As each week passes, the remnant of the stand-pat Republican partj in Indiana is just a little worse off for some subject which it tries to dignify into an "issue. - , Their managers have been most completely pu s t out of the running by the showing of the Democratic administration in state affairs. As Auditor of State Dale J. Crittenberger puts it, 'Democrats speak by the books and these same books, all of them, are wide open to any of the Republicans who want to prove a single democratic claim untrue” These books prove that the Republican debt-mak-ers left over a million dollars of pastdue debts for the Democrats to pay. That in the last five years every penny of these debts has been paid by the Democratic debt-paying a A ministration there is not a penny of any sort of state debt or current bill due and unpaid. There 1 is not an unpaid bill on the desk of he state auditor or treasurer, and not a bill can be presented that is i not paid instantly. This is the first time since 1532 that the state has been able to make such a showing.

The cxporis in the expensively maintained Republican state head quarters have , been doing some .mighty; work -since .election day to bn d so me hope in the results in Ind inn a. And here is what ig said l, their oiticial : telement, hlished in the Republican newspapers. “After • uking an analysis ,ol the results of the elections held in towns throughout the state, the Republican state headquarter- has given out the following." That makes it official, and hero' is the one. specification from wbieli../ h%pm is proclaimed: “The lines were drawn'Tightly in many to wn-. .T •ke ( oiydoi:, the old state capital, ior ; nstanco. Then we are ■eld that Corydoii went Republican i • here are no further specifications |in file whole state, but my,, oh my, j how muon comfort they got, and there is nearly a column to tell how Corydon went Republican. Thereoxo, we arc to conclude, that in | 1 9 1 6-Fairbanks will he .elected presiI dent, ('.oodrich governor and dim W atson United States senator.

lh-re is what Congressman Adair asked the people of Jasonville the other day : “Do you want to turn your state government. back to the same set of Republicans who made more than a million dollars of debts which the Democrats have paid, or do you want to retain the men who have paid that debt? What man of judgment would return from these prosperous times, under the new Democratic banking laws that make panics impassible, and go back to the Republican times when the great banking interests of Wall street could declare a panic when they pleased, and make it. impossible for you in Jasonville to get your own money from your bank, because these same Vail street millionaires were using your money with which to gamble and add to their personal wealth?” Confronting the facts what will all the voters of Indiana say to the same questions?

Frank Gwin, of the New Albany Press, was a3ked by letter to state

w'hat were the business conditions in his community. In part he wrote this; "Business in general is at least fifty per cent better than two months ago and still improving. All manufactories running, some on double time, and prospects for Congruous prosperity were never brighter New orders are coming rapidly and genferal tone of business appears to be fetter than it has been since the' Republican panic of 1907. All of our people who are able to work and want to work are busy.’’ The same general tone runs through the reports of no less than fifty letters ’rom as many editors of Indiana newspapers. " Wilson and the fall dinner pai 1 was the sentiment at the Jasonville Democratic rally last week. It was a Clreen county rally and to accommodate the people so that all might hear the speakers they met aiternoon and night. ’—or the men there are -all employed. Those on early morning or night shifts heard Congressman John A. M. Adair and Auditor of State Dale J. Crittenberger in the afternoon, anl Senator Kern talked at night to those who were off duty. Congressman Cullop talked at both meetings.