The Black Hills union and western stock review. [volume] (Rapid City, S.D.) 1904-19??, 1909-02-19
The Union Publishing Company.
Subscription. $3.50 a year.
Among hte multitudlnous bin:

Among hte multitudinous bills
that have been introduced in the
legislature the good roads bill
ought to come out of that body en-
bodied in law that will result in
South Dakota having some consci-
entious work done on the highways.
says the Mitchell Republican. The
main feature of the bill is that the
manner of working road tax shall
be done away with and that all peo-
pie shall pay a certain amount Of
money into the county treasurer and
then have the money expended in a
judicious manner to put the roads in
good condition. The system that
has been employed, not only in this
state but in other states where the
law has not been improved, to per-
NIT the taxpayers to work out their
tax on the roads. This has resulted
times without number where they
got together and made play at
work, with no system behind them
to make a road better. This is not
true in all cases for there are COM
munities where the farmers are
really in earnest about making
good roads. The road overseer is
picked out of community, and
when he has six or eight of his
neighbors at work to pay their road
tax it is a different proposition to
insist on their doing this or that for
fear of offending them, and thus the
work will be poorly done and the
roads and the county are losers
thereby. With the money paid in
to the county treasury and the roads
that special purpose, we are inclined
to the belief that 100 per cent more
will be accomplished and the roads
will be kept in better condition than
ever before. Two years ago the
legislature killed good roads bill,
and this year there is an opportun-
ity to retrieve that error and give
the state a substantial road law
While the country is stirred up
by the various reports and addresses
upon the important subject of the
conservation of natural resources,
it has occurred to one man, Dr.. Ru
dolph Cronan, to write the sad story
of the poverty of his country in
wild animal life, in which only
century ago it was fabulously rich.
The most shocking example of recl-
less destruction in the way in which
the American bison has been made
to disappear. Up to the beginning
of the nineteenth century the buffalo
still roanls the prairies of Illinois,
and the number spread over the
great plains of the west is estimated
to have exceeded 10000, 900. To-
day there remain but 1,600. scat
tered in small herds in the Yellow
stone park and geological gardens.
The buffalo We're slaughtered ruth
lessly in and out of season for mere
sport, and for the value in the
hides. After the buffalo, the two
animals to suffer most from the per-
secution of man were the moose and
the elk. Antelope, once plentiful,
have practically disappeared OF the
smaller species of deer, the bear,
the otter, the beaver, the muskrat,
and others whose number ran up
into the millions, the same story of
determination holds true. Even the
alligator, according to Mr.. Crouan,
is being hunted out of existence. The
destruction of birds is another pain
full story. The waste of wild animal
life was the result of the spread of
civilization, in which individualism
ran riot. The poor attempts to stay
the hand of the hunter have resulted
in some state legislation, but the in
evitable free and independent"
American has to great extent neu-
tralized its effects through politics,
and through evasion of laws, when
he would not have tolerated in any
of the known and conventional form
Of crime.