The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1897-02-22
BUILD BETTER ROADS.
Rev. w. G. Todd's Suggestion Con
corning Employment of Idle Labor.

Rev. W. C. Todd of Wichita, who pray
ed a the inauguration of Governor Leedy
thinixs the legislature has tile power TO
solve the question of unemployed TABOR
and provide a means for the return o.
prosperity. In letter to The journal
Rev Todd says:
First. we have reached point in IN
dustrfal development where, standing
upon our vast Accommodations of individ-
ual enterprises and inventions the method
of Individual initiative in business IS
falling US in providing employment for
labor. This indiViduaHSm IS no longer the
power for good in human soeletS; fllat II
has been in the past two centuries. II
has developed enterprise and invention
1t has developed manhood, more YaIua-
of development it has reached today, the
consolidation of capital in trusts and com
bines results in more economical adIIllh-
istration of the forces of production and
thereby absorbs profits formerly more
evenly distributed. 1t discharges labor
and limits the purchasing power of every
member of the community in which the
business limitation has instituted a sys-
peals ali the forces of social enterprise
and tends only downward, steadily and
surely gathering a destructive momentum
as If proceeds And the counter force
movement. without social violence. can
only be found in the constructive func-
I'm the present emergency, let the gov
eminent, whether national state, or mum
tive functions towards unemployed labor
This is the most impera tive duty now be-
strictly business standpoint the most
practical enterprise of the age.
The initiatory step in the exercise of
this governmental constructive function
is not a difficult to take in own
state. Kansas has poor roads. We have
been forcibly reminded of this in the past
few weeks. Water is what the state
needs and yet the state never presents a
more gloomy aspect than when it has a
sufficient supply. This week Wichita
demonstrated that she had practically no
fire department except on her paved
streets.
Wonder is not less true of towns of ball
mier breezeS
1.-The wheels now turning on our prairies
are moved by main strength and-sociaI
stupidity. Industry, thus stuck in the
mud, ought to suggest to us wiser
foundation. Here is work which would
benefit thousands. and there are thou
sands eager to do it.-thousandS more
whose families are suffering. The only
this work done in annual installments,
and so well done that it would be a stand
ter than marble SHAFT or granite column,
is the question of means to pay for it.
That is the one barrier, and in the black
shadow of that barrier the farmer stalls
his team, the Wheelman shoulders his hi
cycle and wades in anything but a Chris
tian spirit. and working men and women
huddle together and starve or accept the
degrading dole of charity.
The legislature has the power to re-
move this dense shadow of despair. In
It's Acknowledgement of the rights of the
people in the initiative and referendum
that consciousness of the character of a
true Democracy which our national dis
ease of Anglomania had lost to US. Let
its awakened consciousness result in the
passage of a bill authorizing counties and
cities to issue interest-bearing bonds linz
tied to a certain amount and to definite
annual issue. for building macadam-
lied or paved roads using the initiative
and referendum law to allow the people
to extend the constitutional limit of in
debtedness where necessary and safe. and
the financial pressure upon the business