Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 62, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 November 1916 — SCORES JASPER COUNTY ROADS [ARTICLE]

SCORES JASPER COUNTY ROADS

Republican Editor Hints at Inefficient. County Management. Wheeler McMillan, editor of the Covington Republican, who recently made a speaking tour of Jasper county, gave a write-up of his impressions of the county after returning home. While very favorably impressed with Rensselaer, *of which he makes special mention, he has this to say of the Jasper county roads; “Fountain county can puff herself up and blow on the road question in comparison to Jasper. We are far ahead on gravel roads, and the gravel roads now built in Jasper are in much worse shape, far rougher and more bumpy than our roads here, although their gravel road repair levy is 15 cents and ours only 13. Fountain county’s efficient corps of road men are keeping our highways in a condition to compare favorably with any county in the state.” This is cruel. Local Republican orators have been going about over Jasper county telling the people what an efficient set of Republican county officers we have had and laying it all to the state administration for the increase in taxes, when as a matter of fact the net increase in all the various state levies in the past seven years has been but 7 cents on the SIOO valuation, while the county levy has been increased 22 cents! McMillan spoke for the Republicans here, but he did not, of course, criticise the Republican county administration in his speeches here—be waited until he got hack home and then printed the above in his paper.