The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-03-22
CRAFT ON HIGHWAYS
MOBILE ENTHUsIAsT TALKS ON
 GOOD ROADS.
Returninx From Convention of
 state Association He Says Outlook Hs Better Than

V Fresh from his attendance on the annual convention of the Alabama Good Roads Association. of which he was elected president. Hon. John Craft. of Mobile. spent few hours yesterday in Montgomery en route home.
 For more than twenty years MT. Craft has been engaged in a campaign looking towards good roads In Ala bama- Each year he says he is growing more enthusiastic on the subject and likewise more hopeful. Since his cleo 1 ton to the head of the State Good Roads Association. Mir. Craft, who IS also President of the Mobile Com mercfal Club and a member of the City Council of the Gulf City. declares he will inaugurate a most energetic agitation for good roads. Publicity is one of Mir. Crafts most valuable weapons in this fight and he will prepare and Issue literature bear ing on the subject of road improve ments and construction. This will be distributed through out the State and 1t may be that in addition to this speaking campaign will be conduct ed.
 T do not know of a single economic question of as much importance to the life of a county in Alabama as the necessity of good roads" said Mir.
 
 statement because 1t Is borne out by the facts and figures which so with the subject"
 Then. MT. Craft began an. ilIustra- tion of the importance of road con struction in Alabama
 Let us say that the average yield per annum of cotton in Alabama is one million bales said Mir. Craft. ''on this basis I have computed that for the lack of good roads, such as some progressive states have built the farmers of Alabama lose annually S340- coo. This applies mind you, only to the cotton growers
 statistics which I have in hand show that inf this State the average haul per bale of cotton is eight miles over the dirt roads before the concen- trating point Is reached. The cost to haul bale of cotton this distance is practically fifty cents. It can be demonstrated that the cost a bale can be reduced on standard solid road to sixteen cents a bale. There you have difference of 34 cents a bale. Multiply this by the annual yield in Alabama and you have approximately ss40.0o0 annually which could be saved the farmers of one class on a single commodity
 ITO continue the estimate of the cot ton growers loss annually on account
 
 his cotton seed to the market Re- member. too, he hauls back to his farm his fertilizers. Just here I would not so Into the mathematics of the thing but am prepared to show that if the cotton growers had standard roads the money saved on these two items would bring the total to about $2.o00. 900 each year. This includes the saving on the haul of cotton.
 "So much for the economic side of the proposition. would add, how ever, that it can be shown conclusive ly that the counties together waste annually about $2.000,000 in expendi- lures on the roads that are not per manent. Outside of Mobile. Montgom- cry and Jefferson counties the methods of road improvements and construction are very faulty. I am criticizing no single county in this matter for only desire to arouse the attention of the people to the general customs that obtain in road building in this State.
 T will say that in my forty-odd years of observation since maturity there has been wasted In the shape of money and labor on roads in Ala bama enough capital to macademize all the 55.o00 miles of dirt road in the State today"
 Reference was made to the other. side of the good roads problem, the pOCidl aHu eOuCdtiOnaI Sl0e. lie em- phasized the important relationship good roads bear to the educational uplift of the community. Where school houses and churches are now accessible to. say 100 people. with good roads they would be accessible to 500. It would tend to increase social intermingling and bring all parts of the State into closer relation ship with each other.
 The efforts of Mir Craft this year will be concentrated on the campaign in behalf of the proposed constitu- tional amendment which would allow the Legislature to make appropriations for the improvement and construction of good roads in the various counties of the State. The amendment is to be voted on at the November general election. It provides briefly that the net proceeds from the working of the State convicts may be used for dis tribution among the counties for good roads.
 Under the Constitution, of Alabama as it now stands. the State is pro- hibited from taking any part in in- ternal improvements and when an ef- fort was made in the last Legislature to get a law passed providing vir- tually what is proposed in the amend ment the bili presented was blocked because of the constitutional prohibit tion.
 Mir. Craft left last night for Mobile on the southbound Louisville and Nashville train.