Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 September 1916 — HUGHES IN LAFAYETTE [ARTICLE]

HUGHES IN LAFAYETTE

Mr. Charles Evang Hughes came —and has gone. He was advertised to speak from 9:35 a. m. until Ila. m., but he spoke twenty minutes. There- was a large audience to greet him. Farmers in their new automobiles, their pockets filled with money from $11.35 hogs and $1.51 wheat, with all their other products proportionately high Jn price, came in large numbers. The laboring men were not so well represented—there was so much demand for them at their tasks that they could not get away, even for the few minutes that the candidate was here.

Mr. Hughes hit the beaten path of standpatism in his speech. He gave no encouragement to the Progressives; no word of cheer to the big army of voters who look forward instead of backward; he gave no explanation of how he would have acted in the places where he claimed Wilson made mistakes' The burden of his talk was that he was a protectionist and that he had a patent on Americanism. The nearest that he came to making a point was when he stated that if he was elected he would take steps to protect this country from the invasion of foreign made goods and foreign laborers at the close of the world’s war, claiming that the Democratic free trade would open the gates to each. Of course Mr. 'Hughes did not tell how dismantled factories must be put in operatioß by the onearmed, one-legged, one-eyed remnants of the war, if it ever comes to an end and how all the stores and supplies of Europe must again be replenished before there will be anything to sell here. To the laboring man he gave assurance of friendship, but did not speak of the eight-hour law. Probably some good friend of the candidate warned him that union labor would stand no such assault on the Adamson law as he made elsewhere. In summarizing, Mr. Hughes’ speech appealed to no one in this locality. It excitement; it elicited slight even forced applause. Unbiased ones who heard it felt that a Hughes victory would be a victory for reaction, a victory for the trusts, a victory for high tariffs, a victory for all the graft financial interests that have lost their control over the United States government since Woodrow Wilson became President. As the campaign progresses it becomes more and more apparent that the Hughes candidacy is the candidacy of organized property and organized wealth. Mr. Hughes’ speeches are a continuous appeal to dollars, to dollars invested in railroads; to dollars invested in Mexico, to dollarg invested jn the former beneficiaries of monopoly tariffs, to corporations that are insatiably greedy for more and more dividends at whatever cost to the general welfare. While he was here he was surrounded by wealth and class. No laboring man rode with the candidate or even in his parade. Ao he" passed it was asked in whose machine . he rode—it was wealth and aristocracy.

When Mr. Hughes spoke he spoke in terms of property and money and material things. It is their support to which he appealed, it was their support which he solicited. Mr. Hughes has thrown himself into the arms of reactionary Republicanism and reactionary Republicanism is a government of the cash register by the cash register and for the cash register. No Progressive who heard him received any encouragement. It may be possible that the American people are weary of political progress and favor a return to plutocracy; that they are ready to make a new experiment with corporation government and special privilege on the theory that a plutocracy is a better order of things than Democracy, and that the rich should rule by virtue of being rich. We do not think so but we may be mistaken. Right or wrong Mr. Hughes has staked his political future on the certainty of the pendulum’s swinging back and those who heard his brief remarks of yesterday in Lafayette are so convinced.-—Tippe-canoe County Democrat. The people of the United States are asked to contribute a million dollars a month toward feeding the destitute and starving Belgians. If needed it will be done, of course. But contributions in large chunks should be extracted from those who are piling up millions in wealth from war orders. The poor man has his own mouths to fekd.

Why all of this hue and cry over the latest brand of blackmailers? Millionaires who dance should not yelp when they have to pay the fiddler. Whenever you hear a town spoken well of you may»know that its citi-

zens are on the same plane as ftp reputation. Government authorities are talking of prosecuting the food boosting combine. And that, we presume, will result in the usual manner—another boost. It pays to keep your eyes on two spots—the advertising pages of this paper and the stores of the merchants who advertise. When a dog hollers it makes a big noise. And that is about all you can say of some people when they open their mouths. Clean back yards indicate healthy minds in the house. How is yours?

ROAD BUILDING IN INDIANA Road building and road maintenance are subjects of the utmost concern to every resident of Indiana, and;- the following extracts from an article by E. I. Lewis in the Indianapolis News will be of interest to everyone: The state of Indiana —and, the nation—is now at the threshold of a new, unprecedented, expenditure of money on public works. The federal government stands ready to hand over to the state, installments covering a period of five years, $2,109,000 for highways. The “gift” or “aid’’ is contingent on the state appropriating a like sum and on cer tain other conditions. Thus, at the outset, $4,218,000 of federal and state money is to be available for the first five-year period of" the new' road era. From the first, however, the fact must be faced that this four millions is just a beginning—-a mere “drop in the bucket.” The federal appropriation for the five-year period is $75,000,000 for all the states. Already it is predicted that in the five years in which this stimulant is to be applied, at least $1.000,000,000 jand possibly $1,500,000,000 will be spent on the highways of the country. In Indiana not less than $50,000,000 instead of $4,218,000 will be spent—it may, far exceed that amount. This prediction is predicated on the fact that in the last five years, without stimulation, almost $25,000,000 of money has been raised and put into Indiana road construction by bond issues alone. Bert Winter of the state board of accountants recently compiled figures which showed that in .1914 the state through its different divisions spent more than $13,000,000 on highways and that was only the beginning of real spending—this year it may be almost double that Sum. When the legislature convenes it will have to decide whether it desires to accept the federal aid. If it does so, it will have to create a central state control of highways as well as appropriate its first $2,109,000. This central state control will have to prepare and offer to the federal government three plans of action. Kindred to all this are questions of whether the automobile license revenues, which this year amount to SBOO,OOO, and beginning next year will run $1,000,000 a year, are to be directed into the same channel and control, and whether they should be increased. Also, equally kindred, is the question of whether convicts jn prisons and workhouses should be put on this great internal improvement work, as they are being, or have been, placed in other Northern states. Then, too there are questions of whether or not there should be changes in the present road and tax laws to fit in with a new order of thoroughness and efficiency in road matters. Already there is being started a propaganda that would, as far as Indiana is concerned, scatter the money broadcast, each county—even each township— “getting its share.” Already there is being organized forces to get hold of the state commission and pull it this way and that way, to serve the purposes of speculation, exploitation and political purposes, and to yield large orders for certain road materials. All of this means personal gain or preferment, but' death to any broad state-wide concept w’hich would lav, in the five-year period, the whole backbone and skeleton for a state highway system that would last for decades. Carl G. Fisher, the father of the nation wide concept of permanent I highways, out of which already Is developing in substantial form the Lincoln. Dixie and other great highways, has been called to Washington for conference, and he was also delegated by Governor Ralston to represent Indiana in the conference, of the highway engineers and commissioners of the forty-eight states whch was recently held. He is home with definite ideas of how the new flood of money that is to be ‘• ur " e d loose for the roads should j be hailed. .

VVe are now.” he said, “in a carnival of criminal waste of money in this state. Millions are being poured into the rat holes of roads not permanent. Other millions are going through the failure to keep up the costly roads that are built but that can not stand up under the new traffic. Still other millions are being squandered by building roads that mean nothing—that begjjl nowhere and end nowhere. In-efficiency-ignorance —in road building accounts for more millions being lost. If * he state of Indiana accepts this aid which the federal government offers it should start out with two fundamentals. They are: 1. Create a non-partisan commission, whose members shall be competent men, interested in highways, who will serve without pay, and who shall be free of political and other pull. “2. Lay out and get final state, as well as federal ap-

proval, of a definite state-wide-plan, and then do not permit pressure to cause a deviation from that plan.\ Fisher then turned to a piece of paper, and. with a pencil, blocked out an outline map of the state. ’ Here,” he said, “ is my idea of a five-year constructive program.” He ran a black line the length of the, state north and south. It started at Jeffersonville—Louisville—and?ran north through Indianapolis to South Bend. Then he ran a similar black line across the state from Terrfe Haute to Richmond, crossing the tiorth and south line at Indianapolis. Next he drew a second line across the state, from Cincinnati to Vincennes, and still a |hird across the state from Ft. Wayne, through Goshen, South Bend and Laporte. The four black lines laid on the map showed a backbone and three ribs on each side. ' "There,” said Fisher, “put in those' 700 miles in permanent concrete that will last for decades if it is correctly done, and you have—in five years—the foundation laid.” The next step would be to swing in some more roads, also in permanent concrete. “If we map out a through statewide concept and stick to it for five years,” said Fisher, “and build with cement, or material designed for future ages, we will have, in 1921, a permanent asset.’ Fisher thinks that eighteen or twenty-foot wide concrete pavements would be sufficiently wide for these main highways. An average cost for the entire 700 miles of the back bone and ribs which he blocks out roughly, would be $15,000 a mile —this including bridges, cuts and grading. The total cost at $15,000 a mile for these four roads would be $10,000,000. That is more than twice the amount of money that would be available by the federal appropriation and a similar appropriation by the state. “That is true,” said Fisher, “but the beauty is that a great deal or the building already is done. Already the Lincoln highway from Ft. Wayne to Illinois is half in concrete and the remainder is in good condition and will be completed without this aid—or with very little of it. We are driving that through in a hurry now. So that road, which 1 include in a comprehensive state skeleton, can be dismissed. Now, take the National road—the central east and west line. Take out of it the paved streets and concrete highways between the Ohio and Illinois lines—take out most of 'Wayne, Marion and Vigo counties and other town and city pavements, pnd you have less than 100 miles to build there. The southern rib, from Cincinnati to Vincennes or Evansville, and the north and south backbone would be the real work, and still there would be material reductions in their mileage. So, on the one hand, we might find a contraction of the mileage to 5000 miles to be constructed.

“On the other hand, there can | possibly be found means of increasing the revenues. Local aid might be obtained. It is possible that the automobile revenues could be converted for five years to this work, |or an extra tax placed on automobiles for this permanent highway construction. The automobilists ; you’'’ rebel against taxation for a con tn nation of the waste and inefi ficiency that we have now, but most of them would let loose of another $5 a year, or $lO for larger cars, for something like this. They know they are the ones, not the farmers, who wear out the roads, and they are willing to pay, if we only give them assurances that we will spend their money right.”

A fight may be expected between the element that looks forwjard for permanent results and to a constructive system, and contractors who have inferior temporary construction and materials to offer, land speculators and politicians. Those who are proposing that each county “get its share” of the money are face to face with the fact that if the $4,218,000 of state and federal aid is spread out over ninety-two counties in appropriations covering a five-year period, each county will get so little that it will accomplish nothing, or next to nothing. Perhaps it might prove to be much worse than nothing. The “divvy” would be only SIO,OOO a year to the county. This would build less than one mile of permanent highway, a mile of heavy oil-bound macadam, two miles of temporary stone roads, or it would be scattered out in gravel or impermanent uses which might only entail heavy upkeep. “The thing,” said Fisher, "that 1 can not get away from is the spectacle of six little cars keeping up air of the concrete roads of Wayne county, Michigan. They only have to keep going six or eight mdnths a year. The upkeep a mile is practically nothing, while Marion county is putting out $225,000 this year. The roads have been down already several years are now built so they don’t even pin-crack in that severe climate which offers changes of 130 degrees of temperature a year. The same is the case over in Milwaukee county, Wisconsin. "Here we put down roads that cost $4,000, $5,000 or SIO,OOO a mile and they wear out. The upkeep is terrible and then in a year or two or three they have to be rebuilt. The state and the counties and the farmers can’t stand the load that is coming on them.” The trouble has been in the method of spending road money. Taking the state over, and Marion county is most conspicuous, the expenditure of the vast amount of road money has bee n in the hands of county commissioners, road supervisors and road superintendents and others who have not been x abreast of what changes were going on, who have been woefully ignorant and inefficient and positively criminally wasteful. A good illustration is offered by

Marion county which is now building wide concrete roads that lead nowhere and mean nothing in a general scheme, and that, more-over—-in some instances—are -not well constructed. The county commissioners are building thirty-foot concrete pavements where a twentyfour foot pavement would, it seems, be amply wide enough. Such an orgie of heedless expenditure is enough to chill the taxpayers. The above article advocates those principals in road building whiclr The Democrat has been trying to’ further for many months; A twentyfoot concrete road is really wider than ordinary occasions would demand, and a sixteen-foot roadway would serve the purpose just as well and could be constructed much more cheaply. It is twelve miles from Rensselaer to Remington, and we believe this highway to be one of the most heavily traveled roads in the state of Indiana. Thousands upon thousands of dollars have been spent on this road in building and repairing, and the drain upon the taxpayers will never cease so long as the road is not made of a more permanent material. This road, because of the great amount of travel thefeon, would be an ideal place to commence permanent road building in this section. Upon recent occasions we have traveled this road, continuing on through Monticello, Delphi and Lafayette, and again going west at Remington and to Kentland and Watseka, near which latter place is a five-mile stretch of permanent concrete road. During these trips we have made note of the cars passed, and always find about three times as many travelers on the road between Rensselaer and Remington as on any other of the roads mentioned, and all of which are trunk roads. When permanent road building commences in Jasper county, it should be started on the heaviest traveled roads, and in this respect the road mentioned above heads the list. Upon any day the cars one meets in driving over this road will average about two to The mile.