Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1904-03-31
SOLVES PR OBLE N
ELECTRIC INTERURBAN LINES
WILL SETTLE GOOD ROADS
PROPOSITION.
Charles BIuhm Opposes the Building
of Hard Roads Believes That Dirt
Road Properly Drained and Graded
is Ample for Farmers Needs.

OF nara HOauS- Believes NAT DIRT |
Road Properly Drained and Graded
is Ample for Farmers Needs.
Believing that the electric interur-
ban railway will at an early date solve
the good roads problem, Charles Bluhm,
a farmer residing on rural route No.
from this city has written letter to
the Courier strongly opposing the agi-
tation for the expenditure of large
sums of money for good roads.
In spirit of fairness and justice
the Courier is pleased to give this let
ter to its readers in it's entirety.
Mr.. Bluhm is believer in the good
roads proposition in so far only as it
can be secured by properly grading
and draining the ordinary dirt high
way. 1t is not the question of secur
ing ampler means for marketing a
greater amount of grain but of raising
the greater amount of grain, that is the
vital one for the farmer, according to
this view. Mr.. Bluhm believes that
the greater portion of the agitation
Tor hard roads comes from the automo-
Die users and makers and the road
builders or those who hope to con-
struct the roads. He believes further
that II hard roads are built they will
be monopolized by the automobilist
and that it will be dangerous for far
mer to venture upon them with a team.
Mr.. BIuhm's Letter.
The letter is as follows:
There seems to be determined eff
arf nf fI,a i :.
to burden the taxpayers of Iowa with
a taxation problem that would put to
shame the most daring gold brick
scheme ever invented. A problem far
more reaching than any railroad bond
scheme ever dreamed of is the question
OF putting on the statute books of Iowa
the so-called hard roads law. The
railroad bond scheme was limited af-
falr and in some rare instances justi-
fable, but the hard road law would be
practically unlimited in the expendi-
ture OF money required.
L would like to sound note of
warning of the taxpayers, of Iowa to
be on the alert. The fact that the
hard roads law was defeated recently
at Des Moines will only make it's adj
herents work the harder and with a
more powerful lobby next time. Now
note the fact that the men at the head
OF most all hard roads organizations
are, all automobile men, the men that
make them and the men that use them,
7 the men that make hard road machin-
cry with the men that hope to get
good jobs constructing and overseeing
the construction of the new roads.
The farmer, the man that accord
ing to their theory is losing hundreds
OF thousands of dollars annually pull
ing his produce to market through the
mud is not agitating hard roads and
why, because he knows that in the
end he is the one that will have to
pay the fiddler For eight months in
the year we have the best roads for
horse to travel on in the world and by
proper tile draining and grading we
could have ten months. Is not that
time enough to market our produce.
venture to say that there is not farm
er in Wapello county even with the
roads such as we have now that could
not market three times the amount of
corn, hogs and cattle, if he only had
them. The most vital problem just now
seems to me is how can we raise more:
corn, more and better hogs and cattle
and keep the cattle trust from skin
ming us out of all of it. This and not
the hard roads problem is the vital
problem.
81 am cheerful advocate of good
roads but only to the extent of the
dirt road, which if properly tile drained
will answer all practical purposes. The
farmer does not have to be on the road
every day in the year. If we were all
milk peddler' garden trucksters and
coal haulers he case would be differ
ent.
Would Not Dare.
Now suppose there was a system of
hard roads, and macadam is what they
are after, from Ottumwa to Eddyville,
Oskaloosa and Des Moines, do you
think, brother farmers, you could make
use Of it? If perchance you We're alive
after your first attempt you would be
after the supervisors to open a new
road so you could get to town on ac-
count of the automobiles. There are
few if any teams in the country that
will face one of these monsters. 1t
would be suicidal to take your family
to town over the pike because the au-
tomoblie would have the right of way.
No lady would dare to drive a horse
past one of these machines. In the end
you would realize that you had built a
pike for the use of paying annually a
large sum of money to keep in repair
for the benefit of the automobile users
in this country.
"They say we are 500 years behind
other older countries in the matter of
hard roads. That is true even more
DeCtluSS liie oII ISoiililiS pulll Adl VI
roads, but not for the use of the farm
ers in particular, but for the purpose
of moving their armies. They We're
military roads and nothing else. Ger
many, France and Austria have them,
but they are not building them any
more. Why? Because the steam rail-
road has taken the place of the pike
for military and other transportation
purposes.
an the future our rural transporta-
| ton will not be over an expensive sys-
| TEN of hard roads but over the more
| economical and more practical system
OF electric urban roads. This fact is
now being demonstrated throughout
Indiana, Illinois and Ohio. Let us be
careful whom we send to Des Moines
to make our laws. Let us insist on
every candidate regardless of party,
putting himself on record on this hard
road law and let US defeat at the polls
any man that is on record for this law
| ALBA.