Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1898-02-25
WORKING ROAD TAXES.
l.. \. W. Bulletin Jan. 2llsqS.

''' a. w. b'iAittlll Jan. Il ISIS.
| ut the Farmers Institute, which
recently met in Marshall town, Iowa
paper was read by J. II. JAYNE, on
Good Roads. Touching on the re-
suits of working out road taxes, he
said
Il believe the most important funds
III the county are the school and road
funds, because the schools and roads
are the most extensive and cost the
most money. But what II vast
difference in the management OF these
two affairs.
Your schools are second to none in
the country, willie your roads are be-
low the average. Suppose you levied
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
lapse of fifteen years you find your
schoolhouse dilapidatcd, plastering
off, stoves down. seats and windows
broken, etc. DO you think your
schools would he up to the standard
and your children properly educated?
Your roads are in like condition to-
day, being by men who do not follow
it rs business, and furthermore have
no time outside OF other duties to at
tend to it.
Now, the principal point wish to
bring before you is, money for road
purposes. | do not mean by this that
we need more money, that the county
should be bonded, or q 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 money
can be derived from that mirror, as it
were, that shadow which skips here
and there over the country roads every
summer and cuts off the grass and
makes the roads look level and smooth
Tin places the district road supervisor
and its grader.
"Now, do you think it pays for John
Smith to be a road supervisor this year
and grade up the road, fill up the
hollows and round them up nicely in
center, and next year put in William
Jones, and allow him to pillow the
roads clear across for miles, and
harrow them down fiat, 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
supervisors in No. l to go over in No.
4 and spend a 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 to-
morrow, Tom Clark's team the next
day, and have them go gehawing here
and there, and make your road look
like a worm fence when finished?
Who is to blame? The horses? No;
they were never on a grader before,
and are not accustomed to climbing
up banks and going down into bitches.
The drivers to blame? No; they did
the best they conld with a green horse.
The supervisor to blame? No; he held
the blade where the machine WAS
driven. Where, then, is the blame?
1t is in your system.
ado you think it pays to compel the
poor road supervisor to try to fill up a
hole, or round up the road, or cut down
a hill with slip scraper when he could
carry it almost in dishpan? Do you
think it pays to work him without
tools? Does it pay to buy six or eight
pieces of tile, and pay four prices for
them, when Marshall county could
buy carload 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 as huge cancer, con-
tinually eating, and the money you
have applied, as prescribed by some
physician, and according to directions,
has apparently been of very little
benefit to the patient"