The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1909-06-25

1925. Forty thousand dollars was at once
spent for mules and road building ma
chinery and work was started. With
the sum remaining, l1S miles of the
finest sand-clay roads in the south had
been built within two years from the
date of the bond issue; generous
sum was still on hand; eight gangs
were at work, and the people were so
pleased that they stood ready to take
up the remaining issue of $4,000 and
expend it in the same way.
1t is the belief of the director of the
office of public roads that such facts
should be impressed upon the people
of all counties DESTROYS of extending
and improving their highways before
actual work is under way. When that
has been done, he is warmly in favor
of the raising of funds by issuing
county bonds with the restrictions
which the Virginia highway law i'm
poses, viz: that all moneys so raised
shall be spent, under the watchful
supervision of state highway COM
missioner. because otherwise the money
may be wasted.
Many farmers fear bond issue as
they do the visit of the chinch bug
or the Kansas grasshopper, but the
benefits they derive from that method
of raising money for road improve
ment are far-reaching and immediate,
while the individual tax on each is so
small that it is scarcely noticeable.
In reality, borrowing money through
the sale of road bonds is like buying
house, farm, or a business on the
installment plan. The purchaser re-
ceives the object at once and derives
the benefits from it while paying for
it. As the benefits derived from per-
fected highways cover long periods of
time, fairness and equity demand that
the rising generation should bear a
portion of the cost and that the in
creased citizenship, always attracted to
the locality by system of good roads,
should also aid in paying for the adj
ded benefits.
Besides that. there is a financial wis
dom in floating county bonds for road
bonds sell at a premium, and every
body interested gains benefit. In
some southern states good road bonds
have brought price so high that the
premium has wiped out two or there
years interest on the principal. In
Bradley county, Tennessee. but few
years ago the supervisors voted bond
issue of 100000 Those bonds bore
interest at the rate of five per cent
So enthusiastic were the citizens for
road improvement, and so much con-
fdence did they have in the locality
in which they lived, that the premium
was $4,000; the cash sales placing in
the county treasury $4,000.
1t has been ascertained by the Of
flee of public roads, the bureau of the
federal census, and the land and indus
trial divisions of twelve great railroads,
that the building of modern highways
enhances the value of the
through which they run to a
marked extent This increase is esti-
mated by the most conservative at So
an acre, and by the more enthusiastic
at So. All concede, however, that the
increase is immediate and inevitable.
Place the acreage of the rural portion
of county, therefore, at 100000 acres
and the increased valuation due to the
construction of better highways at but
the property holders whose land is to
be thus benefited would gain not less
than 100000. So great an increase
in the assessed valuation of county
would certainly seem to constitute a
powerful argument in favor of liberal
first expenditure.