The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-10-13
WORK FOR GOOD ROADS
Wichita Meeting a Step Towards the
Paving of Highways.

/
roads cost less than you imagine" said
one speaker in the goods roads conven-
ton held under the auspices of WITCH
tia business men. the National Good
Roads association and the St. Louis &
San Francisco railway.
You have always made country
roads too wide. causing maintenance
and building unnecessary. Nine feet
is wide enough for the macadam. with
about five feet of grade on either side.'
Just one word said a man in the
audience; "a nine foot roadway would
not give room for two loads of hay
to pass
You are right, sir said the speak
er; but if you'll think it over you'll
remember that hay wagons are always
loaded; in the morning they're going
to town. and when unIoaded in the
evening they're all coming home.'
And everybody laughed good natur-
eddy. The speakers and the audience
get pretty close together in these meet
ings and everybody has a chance to
ask questions
In the afternoons session W. r. Colt
spoke of road construction under the
present system and gave figures to
show the wastefulness of it. Before
the meeting held in Girard, Kan. last
week, Mr.. Colt was given figures by
the county clerk showing that Craw-
ford county had spent $230,000 on
roads in the last ten years with no
permanent road to show for it. There
are 100 oVerseers in the county and
in the same ten years they have drawn
in fees $4,000 of the $3.50, 900. The
rest went to bridges and repairing and
patching.
s"The mudhole that was first filled ten
years ago." said Mr.. Colt, was filled
again this spring and will be again
next spring. And it will always be the
same old mudhole so long as the pres
ent slipshod methods continue
In this county, Sedgwick, Mr.. Colt
found similar state from consulting
the figures given him by the county
clerk. In ten years about q million
dollars has been given to road work
A hundred road supervisors draw 81, $50
year each as regular pay and are al
lowed a similar amount for extra work.
In the ten years their fees, Mr.. Colt
says, have been about Sac, 1000.
At night a stereopticon lecture on
THE Roads of the World was given
by ". H. Moore.
W. E. STANLEY'S SPEECH.
Ex-Governor w. E. Stanley, in well
coming the delegates, said:
I'm this county we have raised 3
million bushels of wheat in one year
and We are not a wheat county. Sum-
million bushels of wheat in a year.
Jewell county. a corn county, has
grown 13 million bushels of corn in one
season Up in the northwest part Of
the state, a district we never used to
associate with crops, one county seat,
one little town, shipped 600 car loads
of hogs to market last year. Every
bushel of wheat and corn and most of
the hogs that go to market in Kansas
must be carried to the railroad in
wagons That's the farmers first
freight bill. If a farmer can carry 30
bushels of wheat in wagon on poor
Ir1cI 7a1 n
how much will good roads save O.
rnilIion-busheI wheat county in year?
Let the wheat grower figure it He
knows. And it's the same with corn
farm.
1.-The federal government is proposing
to make great appropriations to help
in road building. There are worse ROADS
in America than those in this part OF
the state, but we can't stay behind the
rest of the country, we must be IN line
when the time comes. This movement
has nothing of the visionary about II,
it's a great business question
In his response to Governor STAN
lev. w. H. Moore, president of the
National Good Roads associate SAID
President Roosevelt had said to MIN
and shall work hard to keep them in
this nation
.'Some people here suggested that
this movement is promoted largely for
automobiles" said Mr.. Moore Does
anyone believe the Frisco railway
would put $4,000 into a movement to
help automob iles
An officer of the Frisco road said:
I'VE have 80 per cent more freight
cars than we actually use through tne
wear why? Because third of the
year the bad roads prevent the farm
ers from bringing in crops and dur
ing that time our rolling stock is rust
ing on the rails. We want good roads
so that farmers can bring produce to
market all the year"
c. w Strain. division passenger
agent for the St Louis & san Fran
cisco railway, said the railway was
sending out the train to benefit its
commercial interests He said;
1.-The Frisco railway has spent
east If we could take these people
over good roads we could settle ten
people where we settle one
1t was brought out that Sedgw1ck
county. of which Wichita is the coun-
" seat. collects $4,000 a year in poll
tax, work and cash, and uses 1t on
roads How much good road does 1t
give you2'' the speaker asked None,
came from several voices 1t ought
to give you twenty miles of stone road
Long ago Wichita put stone pave
ments in place of plank walks and
it is time to build highways in the
county in place of the mud roads,
said the chairman. Mr.. Allison Good
stone and granitoid sidewalks are laid
in all parts of the city. The business
district is paved with asphalt that is
in excellent repair and what is rarer.
clean The whole town has an air
of prosperity that constantly impreSSes
itself on the visitor.