Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 August 1917 — WORK THE ROADS [ARTICLE]

WORK THE ROADS

One of the most pressing questions in the country- districts at this season |s the working of the neighborhood roads. Usually the main thoroughfares are taken care of by the county or township authorities, but there are many crosscountry and neighborhood roads that never see the road Overseer and his crew. These are up to the people themselves to keep in passable condition. In years past our people were possessed with a notion that the care of the public thoroughfares was a matter for the state or county entirely, and that -personally we need not concern ourselves further than to pay our taxes or intribute our assessed quota of labor. Of late, however, we are awaking to the fact that the roads are in fact our roads, and that neglect of them is neglect of dur own erty. They are one of our greatest assets, more especially if they be good roads. They are doubly important just at this time, when the item of transportation is one of the greatest questions confronting the country. The urge has gone out from Washington that the American people use their best endeavors that their every effort be made to count to the full, th at no effort be wasted. From one end of the land to the other the crops wilj soon be moving over the country roads. If these roads A are what they should be, motive power will be expended to the best advantage; if these crops are dragged through mud. gullies and over rocks and stumps, much of the motive power will be

wasted- —and ‘waste” is the one word we are urged to eliminate from our vocabulary.