Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1897-05-01
Senator Cameron on a Live Question

senator Cameron on n Live Question
1t was the late United States Senator
Angus Cameron of Wisconsin, SAYS Otto
Dorner, who, In talkin0g with a newspa-
per friend a few months before his
death, made the remark that 1.-THE most
unaccountable thing to me is the ten
acity with which the public sticks to
old methods in SO important a matter as
highway improvements. They make
n prepare roads precisely as they did
when l was a boy, back in New York,
over sixty years ago. When l thin Of
the advance made In all directions dur
ing that time l am lost in wonder as I
see a body Of men killing time under
a shade tree and call it paying their
road tax. Such sights We're familiar to
me over sixty years ago. l saw pre-
cisely the same thing not ten miles from
my home, last summer"
The veteran statesman during the
conversation. spoke hopefully of the flu
much talked about loss from bad roads
Tor betterment was not far off. THE
much-talked about loss form bad roads
will reach the parties most interested,
in time, and then look out for Il road
revolution. / would like to live to see
it"
There is food for reflection in what
Senator Cameron said. Think of the
railroads and their trains as they We're
In this country sixty years ago. Poor
rails, worse grading, rickety cars, slow
going engines. Then think of the ad-
vances a by the railroad people.
The contrast provokes a smile but adds
to our pride in n love for America.
Look at the class Of road vehicles they
had when Senator Cameron was a boy;
and then at those of the present day.
There has been no standing still with
them. Compare the household adorn-
ments and furnishings of the present
with those of sixty years ago. That
brings another smile. Compare the tin
bake-oven with the convenient modern
range. 1t was a long step from the
former to the latter. Except here and
there the tin bake-oven road has not
given place TO the modern range road.
Compare their methods of making cloth
with present methods. Recall the dis
NAL blows OF the fail and imagine its
looks n work as you see a steam
thresher doing more in half an hour
than 1t could do in a week. Yet road
work Is done, today, mainly, except in
six states, as il was when threshing was
done with the fail; but a better day is
dawning. Business methods, schools,
churches, factories, gardening, printing,
sowing, planting, cultivating, moving,
reaping, threshing, milling, d%airying,
marketing all of these and much more,
nave moved along, kept pace with the
times.
Road making and repairing are sure
to change for the better. Public senti-
ment is all powerful in our republic.
When ripe for an undertaking 1t is
checked by no obstacle. We are see
ing the upbuilding of public sentiment
on the road question that before long
Will be irresistible. Interest in good
roads is confined to no one class, but all
classes are taking deep interest in their
discussion, methods by which to get
them, their cost, how they sha be
built, of what material, what legislation
Is needed to push along the work, etc,
etc.
If Senator Cameron had lived ten
years longer his eyes would have beheld
the road revolution.