Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-04-07
DIRT ROAD QUESTION.
Much Interest Being Manifested in the
Coming convention at Dallas.
How TO Secure Better Roads the One Great
Problem-Wbat the Farmer Wants
and VIII Fight For.
Special Correspondence of the Gazette.

Special Correspondence of the Gazette.
DALLAS, TEX. April 6.-Much inter-
est, in advance of its meeting, is being
manifested throughout the state in the
convention of county judges and county
commissioners which will be held in this
city next Tuesday, April 8, to discuss the
dirt road question. It is conceded as a
fact, requiring only to be stated, that
the farmers of Texas need, and that
badly, better highway roads from their
farms to the cities, towns and villages
where they sell their farm products and
do their trading. The need for these
determined, the problem to be solved, is
how to secure them. With this question
the convention will grapple. Whether
or not il will, after full and free dis
cussion, agree upon a plan that will give
the counties of Texas better roads with
out at the same time laying upon the
taxpayers a heavy burden OF indebted
ness remains TO be seen.
1t is safer, however, to predict in adj
vance that no scheme of dirt road con-
struction involving the issuing of in
terest- bearing bonds will receive the
approval of the farmers of the state.
They need and they want good roads,
but they are not prepared, nor will they
consent to 60 in debt for them. The
issuing of bonds means the laying upon
their already too heavily burdened
shoulders an additional tax load. Their
burdens are now crushing them to the
p0rfh Qnd fhnU sfrnnnnnSlU nhinaf
to having them added to and made
heavier.
This being true, and that it is true is
only too apparent, there remains but one
thing for the convention to do, and that
is to fix upon some other means Of ao-
complishing the end desired. 1t is to be
hoped that IN its wisdom and as the out
come of its deliberations, it will be able
to do this, and that after it shall have
dispersed it will not be said of it that it
was called in vain.
There is no doubt, however, but that a
number of schemes, plans and PROPOSE
tons will come before the convention.
If full, free and fair discussion is per-
mitted, something practicable will
doubtless result. If, however, some
particular or pet scheme, the outgrowth
of local desires, the hobby of certain
delegates, is TO be railroaded through,
without either its merits or dement's
being debated, discussed and made
known to the convention, the meeting
Will be failure, full of consequences for
those responsible for such failure.
Whatever the convention may or may
not do, it will, If it accomplishes nothing
more, place the dirt road question fairly
before the people. Once brought face to
face with the necessity existing for better
roads, there will be no abandoning of
the idea of securing them. Discussion
will follow, and out of the multitude of
suggestions that will be made active and
intelligent brains will evolve a plan or
scheme that will solve the problem and
give the people of the state good roads
without expressing them with heavy tax
burdens as the price Of their construc-
ton.
This is the,Yiew taken of the question
by those who claim to be in accord with
the farmers, and it may be predicted
now that it -embOdies, in the main, the
view that will be taken OF it by the
farm ers meeting, which will be held at
Oak Cliff Saturday, April -. That
meeting will decide the dirt road ques-
ton, and if it is as representative of the
farmers of the state as it is expected to
be, 1t will give emphatic expression, not
only to its views on the dirt road ques-
ton, out on the various other questions
now engaging the attention Of the fran
chise exercising citizens OF Texas.
It has been stated that this farmers
meeting is but the precursor of 8 general
and thoroughly representative convention
of the agriculturalists of Texas, and one
who IS in a position to know, says that
when this general convention does meet,
it will have something to say to politi- |
clans and officeseekers that they will do
well to heed, for they will learn that the
farmer has taken it into his head to OBJ |
tain that recognition to which |
be believes himself entitled, if in |
order to do SO, every politician and |
statesman in Texas is shelved. |
The farmer does not propose to accom- |
plish this by organizing third or separ- |
ate party. In Texas the farmer, as a |
rule, is Democrat, and this year he |
to try and see what he can ac- |
3omplish by working in their party lines.
He proposes to begin with the primary |
meeting, where the influence that counts |
n the convention has to be exerted and |
made potent in the accomplishment of |
results. By carrying the pri- |
Once in control OF the |
he proposes TO nominate and
elect state officers who will have regard |
or his rights and his interests. Just now
10 wants railroad commission, and he
5 determined that he will have it. While
lie wants such commission, he does not
want one that will prove merely tool of
he railroads. He wants a commission
of able and inoorruptible men,
With the courage to call corporations to
ime whenever they attempt to override
n set at naught the laws Of the state.
This year, therefore, he is not going to
lsk for what he wants. He Is simply
.oing to take it, His determination to
10 this is born OF the disappointment of
lot getting, heretofore, that for which
lie asked. The question now is, then,
will he be able to take what he wants,
n spite of the opposition with which he
sure to have to contend?
Perhaps the answers to these questions
an be better made after the road con-
entiou and the farmers meeting. Let
hose who are interested in having them
answered wait and watch those meetings.
Call at GAZETTE business Office and examine