Amador ledger., 1900-01-19
Senator Has Sound Views on
the Subject.
10 RAISE MONEY is THE FIRST NECESSITY
Advocates the Issuance of Bonds to
Provide the Needed Where
withal for the Purpose.

l send you some lines upon what ap-
pears to me to be the direction in
which more immediate public action
should be concentrated for the advance
ment of mining interests, l would say
the two main problems that confront
us in the quartz-mining counties of the
Mother Lode are: l, that of obtaining
a cheap, continuous motive power, and
2, that of good roads.
Whether the improvement of local
conditions are to be attained by legis-
lative relief or through the median of
intelligent, concerted action of COM
mittees composed of public-spirited
citizens all permanent betterment will
be the result of organized effort.
Without some local organization to ad-
vocate any proposition, no result, how
ever will ever be attained. To the
end that no Interior object may creep
in, this organization should be abso-
lutely non-political. In all of the
smaller counties there is room but for
one such organization, and in Gala
veras county we have such an organic
alton made to our hand in the Gala
veras Branch of the State Miners As
sociation.
This association can be the nucleus of
all public effort concerning anything
even remotely connected with mining.
1t can, as part of the reason for its ex-
istence, take up the problem of con-
tinuous motive power, can affiliate
itself with the California Water and
Forest Association, or the California
Association for the Storage of Flood
Waters, or the San Joaquin Valley
Commercial Association, and accredit
delegates to those organizations, and
thus thoroughly inform the central or
ganizations of the local conditions in
Calaveras county. Tho road question
is equally germane to the purposes of
its organization 'If the Calaveras
County Miners Association, " says the
Mining and Scientific Press of Decem-
ber 16, 1899, ''can awaken local public
opinion, can induce the Supervisors to
realize that the annual gain to their
county would be many times what
system of good roads would cost, and
can keep at the idea till they get it in
practical shape, they will have done
great work. Without belittling ad-
vance in mining methods, it may be
said that no progress in mining, no
revolution in the science or art of
economically treating ore, is so impor-
tant an item in the cost and profit of
mining as cheap travel. Bad roads
keep out investors, kill enterprise
make costly all movement and keep
community behind the times"
If the best results are to be obtained
the constitution of the organization
will have to be popularized. 1t will ac-,
complish nothing simply to have al
skeleton organization-with more Off
GERS than privates-to meet once year,
of the California State Miners Associa-
ton and have few mining superin-
tendents collect enough money from
the men working for their corporations
to pay pro rata for the delegates pre-
scribed in the bylaws of the central
organization. What we require is a
continuously active, live local body:
not an annual resurrection of dead
one. Mem bership should be increased,
meetings should be frequent and in
different localities, and constant cor
respondence should keep the members
informed of what is going on in the as
sociation The impulse should come
from the members to the officers and
in that way the programme for public
improvement developed and spread
abroad. I will contend as strenuously
as any one that executive committees
must direct and, in a sense, control,
but they must have real, active and
even enthusiastic membership behind
them, if they would keep their organiz-
alton alive.
The Calaveras County Miners AS
sociation cannot bend its present ener-
gies to the agitation of any more
worthy proposition that that of good
roads. The plan in its beginning will
have to be county plan. 1t has never
been possible to commit the National
or State government to road construc-
ton or maintenance except in very
sparsely settled districts, and in dis
tricts that present almost insurmOunt-
able natural obstacles. In this State
we did by statute create State Bureau
of Highways in 1893, and great deal
has been accomplished in the way of
preliminary surveys and the collection
of necessary data of road construction.
The Commissioners even outlined
and incorporated into bill whole
system of State highways, covering all
the main thoroughfares throughout
the State, plan too comprehensive to
be adopted at a jump, but still a plan
which discloses fully the enormous
proportion of the problem of State
highway construction. To curtail ex=
peuses the Commission has been re-
duced to one Commissioner, and at the
last session of the Legislature COM
mencement IN a comprehensive plan of
State construction was made by an
annronriatiOn of S25. 900 to continue