The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1893-08-19
AN OBJECT LESSON.

There has been shown to the RECORD
UNION a report of authentic statistics
from one of the Southern California
counties of this State, that is as full of
rich suggestions and lessons as any body
of statistics well could be. The figures
tell their own story and call for very
little comment.
The road tax in that county, one that
boasts of the wealth of its people and it's
production from 1876 to this date, has
averaged 2l.90 cents on the 500 of as
sessed values. No progress in production
or wealth, seems To have affected this
tax. 1t has held its own like a leech !;
nothing could reduce it, nothing make it
stale, nothing soften its rapacity.
This tax has in that county for the
last past ten years drawn from the pock-
cts of the taxpayers the enormous sum
of S475,975 Il. But this is not all. The
road poll tax, a sort of tender to the
original Jacobs, in the last ten years has
run up to $1S3,60O, including $500 of
tax worked out" Add the two totals and
we have the county certifying that in ten
years it has spent on its roads and bridges
the sum of $685., 575 Il.
Now the ordinary man would suppose
that for so much of expenditure the
county would have something fine to
show in the way of superb drives, of fine
macadam roads, shaded avenues, we'll
drained roadways, smooth-swept and
sprinkled highways, and all such, to
make rapid transit, easy haul and de-
lightful rural life, to say nothing of light
taxation due to permanent roads.
But what do the official words and
figures show as certified to by the proper
authority? 'Our roads are only dirt and
sand. There is absolutely not a good
road in the county to-day. The best road
we have is ten miles long. and contracts
can be had in plenty to duplicate it for
S75 mile. The value of all the roads we
have is high if put at S23, 79S.
Yet in this county we have the very
best of road stone in plenty, easy of ac-
cess and transport to all sections, and ly-
ing along all of the roads. We have
gravel of all the best grades. We have
granite, limestone, porphry, marble,
sandstone. and SO on"
What, then, has become of all the
money? Spent in bad administration;
wasted in patchwork by men incompe-
tent, however honest. to construct a good
road. For instance, in this same county
there are roads, bought for the purpose,
1926 feet in width, only the central
twenty feet of which is used for track
while all the rest of the wasteful width
grows up to thistles, weeds and cookie
burrs.
Suppose that ten years ago the people
of that county had borrowed $4,000 at 6
per cent. and had built themselves 81, 900
roads, or at that rate more than $50 miles
of splendid forty-foot roads, with a
twenty-foot track, or even a thirty-foot
track. The interest would have amouted
to $4,000 year, and the sinking fund to
redeem in twenty years would have re-
CURED $751; 900, or in all S55, 900 year.
But, as a matter of fact, for ten years
past the people of that county have done
without the roads they might have had,
and have paid each year for the miserable
substitutes they really have nearly S67 900.
Bridges are to be taken into account,
Let US suppose, as is fair. that they cost
$4,000 year. Then we have left still
So 900 that people pay for good no roads
worth the name, when for $4,000 they
could have the best possible roads known
to road building science, because the
material is so abundant, cheap and easy
of access in this particular county, that
$1,000 mile will build macadam there OF
the first order, where it would cost s, 00O
in other counties.
But maintenance would cost some
thing, we are told? True; but as against
that we set off the increase on assessed
values, prosperity. saving in haul, time,
comfort and a score OF other benefcences-
But to-day that uneconomic county can
do better still. It can get the $500, 900 at