The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1909-07-29
AMERICANS LOSE
25O,OOO,OOO. A YEAR
A comparison Between the Old and
New Methods of Working the Pub
lie H{ehways-Convict Method Has
Proven Failure.

William, the Conqueror, over 9OL
years ago saw the Importance of con
structing viaducts across England IL
order that troops nigh. be swiftly
marched from one sde of the island
der to protect the realm from the IN
vasions by sea likely 10 occur at any
time. The highways esLabItanu1 ctr
ing that period are in Use today. Cum
ing down to a later period. the cider
states Of the east started good
roads movement several years ago
which has steadily gained momentum
until at present every state IN the
union is devoting hund 'eds of thou
sands of dollars per year in building
roads which will lasL for generations
to come.
Owing to the tendency of the great
mass of people to settle IN o; very
near a railroad line The good leads
movement in the Quilted States has
been heavily Handicapped since The
wholesale construction OF railroads De-
gan back n the S0s. 1t is very diff
ficult to convince thu n3l WHO iNcs
within SIGHT of railroad of the ne
cessity of improved highways, which
shortens the distance DctNeen tirM
and market by from 70 10 > per
cent
1t is conservatlyely estimated tina,
the American people pay on an aver
age of $250,0O0,OO0 per year as tribute
to the bad roads cause MS 1esdlt
is figured on the difference IN the cosl
of hauling farm products to market
over bad and good roads.
The average haul made by r1fs
American farmer in carrying his pro
ducts to market is nine miles. which,
under the present system of road mis-
management, costs an average of 20
cents per ton. The same haul is made
by the farmer in Europe at cost of
from Z to 8 cents upper ton. There is
a vast difference taken for a few years
would network the United States with
system of highways equal to the
famous roads of the Roman empire.
While this country is comparatively
new, yet it is a matter of fact that
Americas country roads are SO no.
toriously bad that it costs more to
haul a ton of produce from farm 10
market than to ship that ton from
New York to Liverpool. Americas
country roads are SO bad that it costs
the American farmer % cents to haul
ton, when it costs the English, Ger
man or French farmer only from tC
8 cents to make the same haul. Tha
farmer and town man pay for the
unnecessary waste of those bad roads
the city man by the extra cost OF
what he eats, the farmer by lesseneo
profits on what he sells. The same
reason explains why the city resi-
dent pays $1.25 in the spring for po-
tatoes which cost from 80 to 70 cents
in the autumn.
Old Methods Proved Failure.
The methods heretofore generally
adopted throughout the United States
of working roads by requiring each
citizen living Oh the highway to de-
vote a certain number of days OF
each year generally about six is mora
Of a joke than anything else as every
one knows who ever tried the expert
ment. A small number of men gather
several hours after sun-up and pre-.
tend to work for a few hours with
the inyariable result thai the road
was generally in a worse fix after
working than before This fact is no
torious wherever highways are worked
by inNid1al cooperation. There are
so Ehy of the people living on high
MI who fail to render any benefit by
their efforts that the system has prov
en- a complete failure.
Nor has the system of working
roads with convicts proven better than
the above method. In a few isolated
cases excellent highways have been
built with conyicts, but the instances
are so rare as to compel those who |
have studied the matter to place the
ban of disapproval on this method, !
as we'll as the system of requiring