The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-03-28
ROAD BUILDING.
Remarks of the Late Bill Nyc Con-
corning Our Public Highways.
Otto Dorner.

Otto Dorner.
Our WACO roads throughout the coun-
try" says Bill Nye, in one of his witty
writings, ARE generally a disgrace to
civilization. and before we undertake to
supply Jaeger underwear and sealskin COW
cred Bibles with flexible backs to the
Africans, 1t might be we'll to put a few
dollars into the relief OF CALLED and broken
down horses that have lost their health on
our miserable highways. The country sys-
TEN, as / Know it, is about as poor and
inefficient as it could be. With a road over
seer in each road district, whose duty it is
to collect so many days work, or so many
dollars from each taxpayer in the district,
of course, no taxpayer would pay a dollar
when he can come and make mud pies on
the road all day. and visit and gossip with
the neighbors and save his dollar too. With
all due respect to the farmer, I will state
right here that he does not know how to
make roads. An all-wis Providence never
intended that he should know. The pro-
fessional road builders. with the money
used by our self-made road architects
would. in a few years. make roads in the
United States over which two or three
times the present sized load could easily
be drawn. and the dumb beasts of the Re-
DuDllC MOulu iic up duI Odll uS DlGSoCu
for doing it."
What Bill Nye says about the character
Of our average country roads and the
method of building them Is only too true.
We nave known little and thought less
about the building of our wagon roads,
and the millions that we spend upon them
every year are not used to advantage. For,
whether the road taxes be paid in cash or
paid in labor, they are certainly paid in
some form, and the amount of road taxes
paid every year is being spent by a sys-
tenn that ~squanders labor. wastes money
and brings no permanent results. IF We
look back and figure up the outlay of high
way tax that has been expended during the
past forty years" writes Mr.. George Nc
Kerrow, a prominent farmer and the SUI
perintendent of the Wisconsin farmers in
stitutes. land then ask ourselves where
has the money gone TO, We are at a loss
for an answer" With half a load on his
wagon. the farmer struggles through miles
of mud, and for weeks at a time a journey
TO town is more of an undertaking for a
farmer than is a run to Chicago for one OF
our prosperous country merchants in the
Northwest. With nearly a hundred years
OF national history our roads have re-
manned a simple mixture OF dirt and water,
worn deeper each year. as time goes on.
Road making is an art which can properly
be applied only by those who have studied
it in theory and practice. You can no more
way with a pillow and a shovel, than. you
can build a sewing machine in a black
smiths shop. And the beginning OF the
art of road building comes with the road
grader, the rock crusher and the road
roller. We have been using machinery TO
do our blowing. our sowing. our cultivat-
ing. our moving. our harvesting, our
threshing. but the use of machinery in
building roads seems still to be new. The
trouble do doubt is with a lot of conserva-
tive, slow-going farmers in most of the
towns. who oppose any proposition TO raise
money for the purchase OF machinery by
the payment of road taxes in cash. And
instead of purchasing a rock crusher and
putting crushed stone on the highways, we
nave patched and tinkered at them each
year in a useless and fruitless endeavor to
improve them. all with no good results.
Happily. we are beginning TO see the end
of these things.