The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1903-05-28

IT is high time that the farmers of
Kenosha county tackled.the road i'm
provement question in earnest. The
good roads movement is spreading all
over the country and gaining strength
every day and Kenosha county might
just as well be among the first to take
it up as among the last and now is
good favorable time, for if we are to
have as wet summer this year as we
did last every one who is gobliged to
travel over the roads of the county will
be impressed with the necessity of i'm
proving them. Our great transporta-
| ton systems are far ahead of those of
any other nation and after the pro-
Queer once gets his products to the
shipping point they are sent to the
central markets at cost one third or
one fourth of what it would cost to
ship them in any other country. The
home producer, however, has to con-
tend with such bad local conditions
that it costs him five times as much as
it should to get his produce tothesship-
ping point. This is true not only in
| Wisconsin but all over the union and
the farmers in every state are waking
up to the fact that time is money for
them as much as it is for anybody else
and that good roads are the great time
and money savers. It is not that there
is not enough money spent on the
roads, but that it is not intelligently
expended. It is sfrittered away here,
there and everywhere, and no perma-
nent improvements result. If the
roads of the county are to be put in
first class condition the farmers will
have to put aside sectional preiudices
and get together on the common
ground that road which benefits one
section will benefit all eventually. If
we wait unt;l all the roads can be i'm
proved at the same time the time will
never come, but it ought to be possible
towns to get together on a proposition
to build mile or two of first class
roadway somewhere in the county
every year, the expense of construction
to be paid out of general fund to be
raised by all the towns. The great
difficulty would be to decide where the
| improvements were to be built first,
but as general proposition it would
seem that a straight east and west
road through the county from Keno
sha to the western limits would be of
greatest benefit to the greatest num-
Der, for there is hardly a man in the
county but would have occasion to use
it many times year. With this great
east and west highway completed the
building of the north and south
latera1s would be compare lively easy
matter. Wisconsin now stands third
in the number of rural mail routes now
in operation and Kenosha has some of
them and wants more. The demand
for them is SO great, however, that
those counties with the best roads will
be served first and if Wisconsin wants
to win out in the sharp competition for
new routes it behooves her to be up and
doing in the matter of road Improve
ment.
| Moreover, the Kenosha merchants
realize that much trade that rightfully
belongs to this city gets away from
them every year on account of the
condition of the roads. They, by no
means, enjoy being shut off from a
good percentage of their customers
about half the time, and if the good
roads movement was takens up and
pushed by men in whom they have
confidence they might be induced to
help out little in the expense. The
automobile owners and manufacturers
can also be depended upon to second
any good roads Improvement move
ment and it does seem that here is a
project which would be of almost in
calculab1e benefit to theI county, that
only wants the right men to take it up
and push it.
1