Williston graphic. (Williston, Williams County, N.D.) 1895-1919, 1896-05-15
PLEA FOR BETTER ROADS.
SO!ueht Appeal of . NIlssOurian yYhs
knows What He Writes About. q.

1loquent Appeal Of Mlssourian WI.
Knows What He Writes About. =
relieving that the proper time to
r'ght wrong or seek redress for griev-
ahces long and patiently endured is al
ways the present. i propose in this
artlcle once more TO stir the pool by
again bringing up the already much az
ltated question of public highway i'm
provement.
1t is not my province in this paper to
tell how roads shall he built, or an.
preparations made for the purpos.
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. It
Is a fact, and much to be deplored, that
too many of our country roads savo
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
peoples welfare, and without which
good government is only a 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 ad-
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; flood and foolish
ness, are annually rendered impossible
for weeks-often months-at = time,
and at season, too, when marketprices
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, chaos
of mud and mcrciless monopoly of
the steam car?
Here is land. here is state destined
through her mighty resources to some
day become great and leader; her vast
mineral deposits alone. once fairly de-
veloped, would constitute q nations
pride and nations glory. Her sunlit
and fower-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 anil 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
a state drainage law similar to that Sc
cured by the state of Illinois, with road
beds underdra;ned, properly graded
and crowned, would not only give US
at once infinitely better highways,
without mourning the expense of a
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,
capital soon will follow, institutions OF
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--will 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, 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 Herculaneunn'