The citizen., 1908-09-11
Road Bnilding in the South.

In discussing editorially the con-
vict leasing system in Georgia in The
Sun of August you express your be-
lief that the best employment for
prisoners is road making. 1t may in
terest your readers to know that the
authorities of Fulton County, in
which Atlanta is situated. take the
same view. For several years Fulton
County has kept its prisoners at road
making. and it now has ESQ miles of
we'll built macadamiEed roads, which
centre at Atlanta like the spokes of
a wheel in the hub. General Clifford
Anderson, a leading business man OF
Atlanta, who is officially connected
with the great road building work of
Fulton County, recently told me that
this work had in every way proved
the best for the prisoners as we'll as
for the county. Most OF these prison.
ers. are negroes accustomed to out
door life. Imprisonment within
brick walls tends to ruin their health.
while the outdoor life OF road build
ing under official control and main
tenance is beneficial to them. The
county owns its rock NQuarries, its
stone crushing plants and its road
making machinery. 1t therefore does
not have to buy anything from out
side. About 400 prisoners are kept
al work and the cost of good roads
is about $500 a mile, which in
cludes much heavy grading.
1t is proposed to continue this
work by cross roads connecting the
lines radiating from, Atlanta until
Fulton County shall have 500 miles
of thoroughly good roads. Many of
the leading people of the South, men
VINO have given years of study to the
subject, believe that every Southern
State should put its convicts to work
in building great system of public
highways. A number of counties in
other States have been doing the
same work which Fulton County is
pressing with such vigor. Through
out the South there is great awak-
ening to the need of good roads, and
millions are being expended in this
work, but so great is the area of that
section that road building is a more
serious problem than in more dense
ly settled sections.
One reason advanced by some ad-
vocates of using convicts in road
building is that this avoids any posi-
BILE injury to labor by prison made
goods. Moreover, the scarcity of la
Dor in the South in times of ordinary
prosperity would make it very diff
cult to find men for road building
without drawing them by higher
wages from the farms and Industrial
interests where they are so badly
needed.
So great is the interest throughout
the South in road building, street i'm
provements and municipal undertake
ings that the work now under way
and that which is being planned will
represent an outlay of probably
100000. In this work Mary
land leads with recent bond issue
of s5,O00,O00 for the building of 500
to 1000 miles of main lines of roads
through the State, while the city of
Baltimore is spending and preparing
to spend s25,OO0,O0O or more on
docks. sewers, street paving. etc. The
whole South has caught the spirit of
municipal improvements such as sew
erags systems, water works. street
paving and schools and other public
buildings, while State and county au-
thorities are vigorously working for
better reads. This is simply the nat
ural result of increasing wealth, and
it is the best indication of how rapid
ly the South's wealth is growing
Richard H. Edmonds, Editor Manu-
facturers' Records in the New YORK
-tfs
Sun. ss