The county record. [volume] (Kingstree, S.C.) 1885-1975, 1898-06-09
GOOD ROADS NOTES.
The Beauty of Working Road Taxes.

The Beauty of Working Road Taxes.
Al the Farmers Institute which re-
Gently met in Marshalltown, Iowa, a
paper was read by J. H. Jayne, on
Good Roads. Touching on the re-
suits OF working out road taxes, he
said:
Il believe the most important funds
in the county are the school and road
funds, because the schools and roads
are the most extensive and cost the
most money. But what a vast differ
enca i'll the management of these two
affairs.
Your schools are second to none in
the country, while your roads are be-
low the average. Suppose you levied
q three-mill school fund in every town.
ship, one mill to be paid in cash and
two mills to be worked out, and you
compelled every taxpayer in the dis
trict to teach the school in his turn
until his school tax was worked out,
and supply no other teachers. After
a lapse of fifteen years you find your
schoolhouses dilapidated, plastering
off, stoves down, seats and windows
broken, etc. Do. you think your
schools would be up to the standard
and your children properly educated?
Your roads are in like condition to-
day, being worked by men who do not
follow it as u business, and further
more have no time outside of other
duties to attend to it.
''Now, the principal point 1 wish to
bring before you is money for road
purposes, l do not mean by this that
we need more money, that the
comfy should he bonded, or heavy
county road-fund levy made, but that
the money now raised every year for
road purposes should be raised and
handled differently. The bulk of that
monev can be derived from that mir
ror, as it were-that. shadow which
skips here and there over the county
roads every summer and cuts off the
grass and makes the roads look level
and smooth lin places the district
road supervisor and his grader.
Now, do you think it pays for
John Smith to be road supervisor
this year and grade up the road-fll
up the hollows and round them up
nicely in the centre-and next year
put in William Jones, and allow him
to plow the roads clear across for
miles and harrow them down flat, and
the next year put in another man
who will round them up again; one
undoing the others work year after
year?
"Do you think it pays for the road
supervisor in No. l to go over in No.
4 and spend day dragging grader
over to his district? Do you think
it pays to have him put on John
Smiths team to-day, Bill Browns
team tomorrow, Tom Clark's team
the next day, and have them go
gehawing here and there, and make
your road look like worm fence
when finished? WHO'S to blame? The
horses? No; they were never on
grader before, and are not accus-
toned to climbing up banks and 60
ing down into bitches. The drivers
to blame? No; they did the best they
could with a green horse. The su-
pervisor to blame? No; he held the
blade when the machine was driven.
Where, then, is the blame? 1t is in
your system.
''Do you think it pays to compel
the poor road supervisor to try to fill
up hole, or round up road, or cut
down hill with slip scraper when
he could carry it almost in a dish
pan? Do you think it pays him to
work without tools? Does it pay
him to buy six or eight pieces of
tile, and pay four prices for. them,
when Marshall County could buy a
car load at the lowest rates and give
him the benefit? Does it pay for him
to buy lumber for culverts under the
same circumstances? Who is to
blame? The road supervisor? No;
it is your system. | regard this road
system a huge cancer, continually
eating, and the money you have ap-
piled, as prescribed by some physi
clan, and according to directions, has
apparently been of very little benefit
to the patient.