Worcester morning daily spy., 1898-01-11
GOOD ROADS AGAIN.
An Annual Meeting Held With
out a Quorum of Members.
It is Decided to Keep Up the orgAniza-
tion and Make the Annual Dues
IS Cents.

and one reporter. 1nasmuch as the con-
stitution of the association requires the
presence of 25 members to do business,
there was some hestancy about begin
ming. Finally a desire was expressed to
hear the report of the secretary, and
Vice President e. X Tolman took the
chair. After that all came easy. The
meeting went ahead, regardless of the
lack of quorum; the presiding officer
blandly ruling that while it would be
necessary to have a quorum to spend
money, it was not so necessary to have
one to raise funds.
Treasurer G. w. Mackintire read his
annual report, which showed a balance
of $153S2 at the beginning of the year,
to which had been added $2,75 in mem
bership fees, making a total of $l56.57
The payments included $14.50 for print
ing, $105S for advertising, $29.06 for
postal cards and postage, $3.50 for dis
tributing tickets to the lantern slide eX-
hibition in Mechanics Hall, 5000 paid
A. w. Jefts for lantern slides and SER
vices on that OCCASION $4,000 for the rent
of Mechanics Hall, 81 to ]. H. Lawson
for lantern slide, 81 to ]. L. Paine for
a sign, and S5 for rent of rooms in which
the officers held their meetings, leaving
balance on hand of S16.53. The treas
urer said he did not know of any liabil-
ity except for the rent Of the hall for the
annual meeting.
THE ANNUAL REPORT.
Secretary w. L. Chase read his an
nual report extracts from which fol-
low:
The association was organized in
Board of Trade Hall, Oct II, 1885, at
meeting which was cut and partially
dried, as the result of several previous
meetings of a number of good roads en-
thus.asts, mostly members as all such
should be, of the League Of American
Wheelmen, who believed, among other
things, that Worcester is behind the
times in street improvements; that her
street department could be proved to be
lacking in business-like, scientific and
economic management, and that the
good people of Worcester needed only
to realize the true state of affairs be-
fore they would rise and nominate
change.
The first effort of the organization to
get public attention was directed to the
acquisition of members, thousand be-
ing secured in about two months. A
committee of the board of officers was
authorized to look up capable candidates
for street commissioner, with view to
letting the city council out of the an
nual dilemma of having no available
candidate to vote for except the incum-
bent.
At the annual meeting, Jan. II, 1887,
the association instructed the board of
officers to recommend candidate for
street commissioner to the city council.
Henry N. Francis of Providence was
named by the board, but, owing to
combination of circumstances the city
council could not "see" him, and that
body succumbed once more to the old
complaint.
BY virtue of meetings held in March,
1897, and by the signed approval OF
majority OF the board of officers, there
was organized a summer campaign COM
nittee, through which the association
offered prizes for photographs of Wor-
cester streets with the object Of giving
a lantern slide exhibition in proof of the
claims of the association concerning the
streets and the department. On Oct.
l, at the close of the competition, not
a single competitor appeared Not a
photograph was entered. One member
of the committee, however, made nay
by himself while the summer sun was
out, and it was decided to take his col
lection of about 40 photographs as
nucleus and go ahead with the show.
Slides were accordingly made, and In
connection with an illustrated talk on
state road construction by lor. Menden-
hall. chairman Of the commission, and
supplemented by a few slides of Euro
pean roads. the exhibition was given in
Mechanics Hall on the evening of Oct
q. 1897. A thousand or more people
appeared to appreciate what they saw
on the screen, and went away and
talked about it; few croakers who
had laughed at us for indulglng in boys
play with lantern slides, saw the effect
of the exhibition and We're glad they
had their laugh early and for the first
time. apparently, the serenity of the
commissioner was slightly disarrangedi
by the presence in town of the associa-
ton
4 city election campaign committee
was impanelled just before the political
bees began swarming, and all candi-
dates for the city government known to
the committee were asked to define their
position and belief with reference to the
management of the street department
and corporation in street work. Most
candidates complied with the request,
though very few answered positively
the question asked 1t was noticed af-
Ter the election that the one man who
declared positively and unequivocally
that he believed the time overdue for a
change in the chief of the department
ran considerably ahead of the winning
ticket.
Preparations were nearly completed
and Mechanics Hall engaged for sec
ond exhibition, when the action of the
common council caucus caused the COM
nittee to decide it to be unnecessary.
The comittee, however, still consider it
something of misfortune to have the
material collected go to waste, for with
regard both to its comprehensiveness
and its effectiveness, it would have
proved that the first exhibition was mot
in it,
II is evident that the association or
at least the board Of officers needs
some sort of tonic.
The best known stimulant for all
phases of the questions involved in the
Improvement OF roads, Is provided by
membership in the League of American
Wheelmen. There are in Worcester
about $50 members of that organiza-
ton There ought to be ten times that
number reading the educating literature
furnished by the league to its members
and rejoicing in good fellowship with a
hundred thousand other believers in the
road as one of the surest indices of the
Intelligence, thrift and civilization of a
community. We need the league, but
there is another side to that shield The
league needs the influence of solid bust
ness and professional men and women
in its ranks. 1t is in some danger OF
weakening and obscufing its high mis-
sion of the road in fussing with the race