The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1894-10-23
THE ROAD QUESTION.
A Correspondent Sounds Note of Warn
ing Something Behind all This
Good Road Clamor.

| Correspondence Of the Progressive Farmer.
STEDMAN, N. G.
In the last issue of your paper is a
glowing account of the great road con
ference recently held in Charlotte. It
is amusing 10 note the hypocritical pro-
fessions of interest for the farmer man
lies ed by these city gents; and if it
were not for the possibility of danger
ahead in this road question the farmers
and others of the State might afford to
keep silent and regard their utterances
as the bombastic vaporings of men
simply trying to make themselves con-
spicuous, but there are possibilities in
this question fraught with such tremen-
dous consequences to our people that
every person should open his eyes and
look we'll to the gigantic wrongs that
may be perpetrated against the people
in the near future.
In that conference the colonels, ma
jors, captains, professors, doctors,
mayors, etc., are quite conspicuous
and rendundant, while the has seeder
is noticeably absent or Oppressively
silent. The farmer has but little in
common in this movement, and all this
ado about the farmer and his getting
his produce to market is the veriest
rot At the season of getting crops to
market there are always a superabun-
dance of mules and horses among the
| for hor oO%o %I7oiv
Sometime in the winter of 1886 /
bought corn (having been drowned out
the previous summer) from one of the
largest farmers of this county, and he
delivered to me, distance of Is miles,
at so near what he would at his barn
that could not think of hauling it my
self, although I had stock standing
idle, and there has been about the same
relative amount of stock to labor all
the years since, and will be in the
| future.
No, Mr. Editor, the farmer or the
farmers interest is not at the bottom
of this road business, just as it is not
at the bottom of any of the thousand
and one humbugs with which the peo-
pie are always being deceived. Ger
tain classes fooled the masses and made
them believe that if the Sherman law
was rep aled and silver killed that the
country would enter upon career of
prosperity and glory such as past ages
had never known, and then the only
thing that would stand in the way of
the wheeling in of the millennium, full
and complete, would be the Mckinley
bill. Well, silver has been killed and
the tariff dsctored, and 10 the cries of
ten thousand families, reduced to pow
erty and suffering, are now ascending
to Heaven for justice, while millions of
tramps, together with an utterly pros
trate country, attest the great skill of
the doctors.
And now, to divert attention and
drown the walls of a suffering and
ruined people, the same old doctors or
a new set Il don't know which) have
diagnosed the case and discovered q
remedy, and that remedy they tell us
is better roads. The great need of the
farmer, Mr.. Editor, is to be let alone.
We are about to pray, Good Lord, de-
liver us from our friends. But aside
from anything like sarcasm, let the
people be assured that in this road
question there are schemes deeper and
darker than the preventing of a farmer
from sticking in the mud when he
starts to market. Let any one read
the speeches, resolutions, reports, ETC.,
of road conferences and he need not be
at loss to understand the power be-
hind the throne. These gents portray
to us the beauties and glories of good
roads and inform us how cheaply they
can be built. The conVicts can bnild
the roads and thus pay their expenses,
and not come in competition with hon
est labor, etc. So far so good. But as
reported in The PROGRESSIVE FARMER
there were a number of valuable(O pa
pers read before the Charlotte confer
ence. No of these papers was en-
titled: The Need of Engineering
Supervision in the Improvement of
Public Roads. All, Mr.. Editor, here
begins to ooze out little OF the milk
that is in the road cocoanut. There
are tens of thousands of men who have
not got relief yet, and Cleveland's fire
is, perhaps, about exhausted, hence
the discovery of the new remedy. An
other ingredient of this great remedy
will be bonds, but as wise physician
will conceal from his patients, if he