The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1897-03-15

new industrial enterprises. We think
there are spots in California where the
company should be able to do some
business.
JUST so EVERYWHERE.
Biggs 1gus: Butte County has eX-
pended III patchwork upon the roads
within the past ten years considerable
more than a half million of dollars,
and yet the roads are but little better
than they We're before this money was
expended.
Only a few years ago the macadaan-
lied road was thought luxury and an
expensive and foolish luxury at that
Now in this country, as for many de-
cades in Europe, it is coming to be con-
sidered a necessity and great econ
omy. The lesson taught by our Scotch
friend, Macadam, had it been followed
! by the road makers of Butte County
ten or fifteen years ago instead of hav-
ing to worry through sticky adobe mud,
slush and mire, our citizens would be
travelling over stanch layers of stone,
pitch and gravel contrived by that
friend of mankind, Macadam, and the
same money that has been wasted all
these years would by this time have
Cancelled the debt incurred by the build
ing.
The annual waste of road money is
not the only drain and loss upon the
purse of the farmer and land owner 1t
has been computed that on an ordinary
dirt road q horse can draw three times
| the weight he can carry on his back,
but on q good macadamized road a
horse can draw three times as much as
on dirt road. If this is true the wear
and tear on road vehicles and the in
jury and waste of animal life suffered
by the man who hauls the produce of
his farm to market over such roads as
have retarded the development of Butte
County as compared with the saving
in all respects under a system of solid
road beds needs no further investiga-
ton. The Introduction of the rock
crusher in this county is a step in the
right direction as long breath at the
start puts the goal nearer; a clear look
ahead is worth many q rod.
READ UP.
Stockton independents New Journal
ism appears less new since the D. O..
Mccarthy case has been resurrected
y
ago. Mccarthy tried the same trick
in an effort to have the Specific con-
tract" law repealed That law is the
one under which a man who contracted
to pay a debt in gold could not cheat
his creditor by paying in deprecated
greenbacks. Mccarthy charged that
thousands of dollars had been used in
bribing legislators. He, like the pres
ent professed new journalists, had no
basis for his assertions, and was COM
| PEELED to retract or go to jail, and he
! retracted. Those who now argue that
the present slanderers cannot be pun
ished should read up on the Mccarthy
case
Salaries
| Oroville Register: We note an ex-
change from another county is crying
Justify to cut down salaries. The great
burden of taxation is not in the sala-
ries of county officers. Officers of this
/ county have lived economically, have
not been spendthrifts, have saved what
money they could and not a single one
! of them has accumulated riches It is
so in other counties. If taxpayers could
cut off salaries altogether they would
not save over 10 per cent. of the taxes.
BEET SUGAR SUBSIDY.
Colusa Sun: The Sun" is very much
in favor of a subsidy on beet sugar
believes that California ought to offer
at least a cent a pound bounty on sug-
ar from beets produced in the State for
which the factory, not interested in the
production of the beet, should give
81 90 per ton for beets, but it would
not consent, even if it would bring a
factory to Colusa, to have the burden
put almost entirely on the poor, or the
poor and the middle class, as it is when
it is collected on consumption. 1t
seems hard to believe that any one
can really think such a system of rails
ing revenue even approaches right.
A BAD MEASURE.
Fresno Republican: Among the bills
which should not have been passed by
the Legislature, but which We're passed
nevertheless, was one providing that
TT shall be unlawful for any person,
either individually or as an officer or
member of any committee or associa-
ton, to demand or solicit of any candi-
date for the Legislature, or of any can
didate for Supervisor, or of any candi-
date for School Director, or of any can
didate for any legislative body, that he
shall vote for any particular bill or
specific measure which may come be-
fore such legislative body to which he
may be elected; provided always that
this inhibition shall not in any case
apply to the pledges eXacted of a can
didate by the platform or resolutions of
any convention by which any such can
didate may be nominated" The law
provides further that such candidates
shall not pledge themselves, and it
makes the violation of it a INSIDE
meanor.
We say that this bill should not have
passed. It will in any event be prac-
tically a dead letter on the statute
Look, and it should be so if it must be
there at all. 1t strikes at one of the
very foremost rights of American citi-
zenship the right Of knowing exactly
the thing for which the citizen votes.
Brown is running for the Legislature,
and a county division scheme, for in
stance. is on taps. The community
| is deeply interested for or against the
/ scheme. According TO the terms of
this absurd measure, no citizen can go
to Brown and ask him, If elected, to
vote in q certain way on the PROPOSE
| ton Theoretically, at any rate, cleo
| tions are TO become a sort OF grab-bag
affair; you put your hand in the bag
/ and trust TO Providence for what you
may get.
! OF course the law will be violated
without limit. No man who takes ii
| good citizens interest in proposed leg
| islation is going 70 buy political pig
| in a poke In such manner as is sug-