Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1896-04-25
PLEA FOR BETTER RoADs.
Eloquent Appeal OF . Rissourian Who
Knows what He Writes About.


ways the present, 1 propose in this
article once more to stir the pool by
/ again bringing up the already much ag-
itated question of public highway inn
| provemept.
| 1t is not my province in this paper to
| tell how roads shall be built, or APP
preparations made for the purpose
| thereof, so much as to try and show
| the urgent necessity that something be
done, and that Immediately, for the bet
| terment of our present condition. 1t
| is a fact, and much to be deplored, that
too many of our country roads have.
more the appearance of dried-up water
courses than good, intelligently-con-
| structed highways, and this, in the
| face of all the taxable wealth that is
/ annually poured out for the purpose of
making them better.
Such condition of things is not, to
say the least, creditable to the intelli-
gence of the people in any community
where such evils exist.
| hold that the first two requisites for
a peoples welfare, and without which
good government is only name, are
good schools and good highways.
AS good schools lay the foundation in
mental discipline on which to build in
after years the higher, nobler life, so
| good highways are the first essentials
for the development of our agricult-
ural interests on which so much de-
pend the development and prosperity
| in all commercial affairs.
| To facilitate traffic in the worlds in
creasing products, the rock-ribbed bar
riers of the continents are subdued and
| daily respond to the whistle of the To-
| connective. For the diffusion of knowl-
edge in agricultural pursuits and to
solve the ever recurring mysteries per-
| tanning thereto, experiment stations
and agricultural colleges, equipped with
| the finest talent and all the later appli-
ances for investigation, at an enormous
outlay of capital, dot our land. Yet, at
the very root whence spring these adj
| vantages, there still remains one of the
worst evils with which the producer
| has to contend, and that is the Amer
lean road system, the management of
which remains practically the same
as in colonial times; roads that, through
the agencies of frost, food and foolish
ness, are annually rendered impossible
|
and at a season, too, when market prices
for much the producer has to sell rule
| the highest.
| Is it any wonder, then, that shippers
have at last discovered, and even in the
eastern states have long complained,
that it costs more to lay down their
products at tide water than to land
| them in Liverpool and Glasgow, 5000
miles away?
| If this be the result of poor roads
and expensive haulage, when applied to
the loose, porous soil of the East At
/ lantic states, what must be the condi-
| ton of that numerous class dwelling
along the vast stretches of undrained
country in the valley region of the Mis-
sissippi and the Missouri, and subject
alike to poorly managed roads, a chaos
of mud and merciless monopoly of
| the steam car?
Here is land. here is a state destined
through her mighty resources to some
day become great and leader; her vast
mineral deposits alone, once fairly de-
veloped, would constitute a nations
pride and nations glory. Her sunlit
and fiower-gemmed prairies, fertile and
fruitful as the Indian isles, wrought up
to their fullest capacity of productive
ness, would feed for an indefinite time
the hungry millions of an empire. A
| land, in short. literally flowing with
milk and honey, and blest of heaven
with overarching skies, mild and love-
| ly as Italy's.
This land of promise, this Eden in
bloom, once fairly in apparition, under
| state drainage law similar to that Sc
cured by the state of Illinois, with road
beds underlra;ned, properly graded
and crowned, would not only give us
| at once infinitely better highways,
without mourning the expense of
single rod of metalled surface, but
would also enhance the land value more
| than two fold.
Nor is this all. Intelligent labor
will then come to work these fields,
learning and the varied industries, less
acreage to ownership and greater pro-
duction, more ond better home markets
with ready and ever-increasing de-
mand for the soils products, more thor
oughness in detail with greater incen-
tives to effort-wil spring up along the
line of march of its teeming millions to
bless and to comfort all who live and
labor for the good time coming.
With all our boastfulness of what we
| have accomplished as nation, up to
near the close of this nineteenth CEN
fury, a closer acquaintance with the
history of the dead past would often
| bring to US the blush of shame. In the
grave of Pompeii and in Herculaneum,
relics of fine art, curios, painting,
sculpture in bronze and marble, and
from cravings in ivory by the immortal
Phidias to the golden grasshopper,
worn alike by maid and matron as en-
blem of the shortness of human life,
| reveal to us, after the sleep of ages,
| a dizziness of touch, of finish, a strength