The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1909-07-22
COST OF POOR ROADS
Waste of Labor in Hauling Crops TO
Markets.


lars to haul the farm crops OF
America to markets last year. With
good roads, roads such as are to
be found in some parts of America
and in all parts of France, the
marketing of the crops would have
cost $500, 900, 900. Six hundred
millions dollars per year, then, is
the price we pay in this land of
the free for having impossible
roads, Says a writer in the ST.
Louis Times. Did ever a nation
spend so much for so doubtful a
luxury before? With American
roads lying open and fathomless
before the eyes OF our foreign
critics, what monstrous injustice
it is to talk of American dollar
worship!
Most men of middle age can re-
call the annual picnic known as
mending the roads. Just why it
got that name no one has ever ex-
planned, for in practically every
case the picnic left the roads in
worse condition than before. The
law in many states prescribe that
each resident of a rural district
must pay a certain road tax in
labor each year. The payment of
this tax was done under the super
vision of local officer, known as
the pathmaster. The customary
time Of payment was in the early
summer, just before haying time,
when there wasn't much else for
the men and teams to do. The
neighborhood turned out with
horses and plows and harrows,
ripped up diverse sections of
highways which the years travel
had packed to a more of less navi-
gable condition, rounded them up
nicely in the middle and scratched
them up smooth with the harrows.
You were never expected to work
very hard at these festive ocCa-
slons, and the pathmaster who in
sisted on real work soon found
himself very unpopular. 1t was
just as we'll, for, since nobody had
any knowledge of road making,
the more work the worse results.
What some of these results were
and are we have vivid testimony.
Across Iowa last winter the rae
Ing autos had to take to the rail-
road tracks because the common
roads were simply impossible.
Last March some misguided crea-
lures began an automobile race
from New York to Savannah, Ga.
1t was just at the opening of navi-
CATION on the country roads of the
middle south, the time when the
roads are too thin for wheels and
too thick for boats. Across Viz
glnia each racing automobile had
an escort of six mules to pull 1t
out OF extra deep mudholes and to
haul its emergency rations of gas
oline. Ususally this was enough,
but when an auto was so thought
less as to stay in the mudhole all
night the mule teams had to be
doubled and all the negroes of the
neighborhood Communicated to
service before that particular con-
testant could proceed. The racers
averaged four miles per hour across
the Old Dominion--a perfectly
stunning rate Of speed, all things
considered.
And yet the roads of America
are vastly better than they once
were, and the improvement is go
ing one apace. The United States
government is lending a hand by
setting its spare scientists to work
teaching the people of different re-
gions how to make the best roads
at the least cost. The states are
doing vastly more. New York in
1905 voted to spend $50, 900, 600
on her highways, and, while no
other is investing in roads at that
Fate, all are doing something.
Cities are finding it good bust
ness to improve the roads leading
out into the farming region,
the farmers are hepinriuU to +oDy