Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1903-01-21
eooD ROADS NEEDED.
An Extfac. from Governor aosweensys Mes.
ase-He Fasors Better Highways.

~ WouAo 10 % WaeGc VI WOEuS 10
attempt to argue before any assem-
blage of South Carolinians the i'm
portance of good roads and the
necessity for road improvement.
Neither would it be profitable to
attempt to argue before you the
advantages of good roads, for all are
agreed upon that subject. The ques-
tion which concerns ns is how best
to secure them, to devise some plan
by which we can at least begin the
building of good roads. 1t is bust.
ness proposition and should be taken
hold of in business way.
With the extension of the rural
delivery of mail the necessity is upon
us for road Improvement, for already
the department at Washington is
discussing the impractioability of ex-
tending, or even of carrying on, this
service of mail delivery unless there
is road improvement. 1t has been
stated that the Postmaster General
is to be asked to consider plan for
the betterment of our public roads,
and the request is based on the fact
that only one serious obstacle stands
in the way of extending and develop
ing our free rural delivery service,
and that is the condition of the pub
lic highways. Mr.. Martin Dodge,
director of the bureau of public road
inquiries of the department of agri-
culture, in his recent report said
"The circumstance that over $6,000,-
600 was appropriated by our last
Congress, largely to be buried in
muddy roads in the delivery of our
rural mails, while only the small sum
of $4,000. was last year devoted to
meeting the road problem, indicates
the great need of education regard
ing the present necessity and demand
for vigorous and intelligent road
work.
GAS much of these large appropri-
ations for rural mail delivery could
be saved if we had good roads it is
obvious that an amount equal to a
considerable portion of these sums
could be spent to good advantage
in educating the people in the work
of improving our country roads, and
thus forever close large drain on
our national cash box"
1t is not 80 much a question of
education, at least with us, as it. is a
question of the means wherewith to
build good roads. And yet in a
sense it is matter of education, be-
cause if our people could he taught
to realize the value and Importance
of good roads there would not be 81
much trouble to secure the means.
If we could have some practical illus
trations of the value and the saving
to our people of good roads they
would not hesitate to put up the
money to secure them, for, though
we are not rich, they would then
realize that they could not make
a better paying investment than
money put in good and permanent
road Improvement. If the general
government could follow the sugges-
tion of Mr.. Dodge and spend some
money in demonstrating the value
and the service to the people of good
roads and the advantages to accrue
we would have little trouble in con-
tinuing the work. And, as he sug-
gests, it would be a saving 20 the
government at Washington in ex-
tending the rural mail delivery SER
vice, and would be as legitimate
expenditure Of government funds as
the building of dykes and the drain
age and irrigation of lands, for
which the government is now spend
ing large sums of money.
But, after all, we must depend
upon our own resources for this great
advance movement. To accomplish
results will take money, and the way
to raise this money is by property
tax. Under the present system of
road working our public roads are
almost impossible at certain seasons
of the year. With the one dollar
commutation tax we are going back
ward, because the money from this is
inadequate even to work the roads.
Besides, it is not right to make the
people who live in the rural districts
keep up the roads any more than it
is to make any other class of our
citizens keep up anI build any other
public institution. The public road
is as much the property of the county
as the court house or the Jail. A
property tax for road building would
reach the Incorporated towns and
cities and the railroads and other
corporations, and make them con-