The St. Mary banner. (Franklin, Parish of St. Mary, La.) 1889-1931, 1909-05-29

Co.. .Santers and Good Roads.

In his address to the editors at
Gown gton, Gov. Sanders said:
every man and woman in this
world has a certain work to per-
form. There is no duty greater
and more underpaid than that OF
the publisher and editor Of a
newspaper.
"When one man makes fortune
in the business, thousands
make clearly nothing beyond a
bare living. cannot impress too
much or too strongly upon you
that you ought to weigh carefully
the things tnat you put in type.
You ought to make up your mind
fully that the things you honestly
and conscientiously believe to be
true, and having made up your
mind of that, then publish them
to the world no matter what the
consequences may be, nor whom
they may hurt. but in making up
your mind let your mind be re-
sponsive mind SO that you can
cast aside what is bad and take
what is good. You are the guar
dian of the different members of
the civilized communities of the
State of Louisiana.
"Now my friends there are
certain things that are your du-
ties, belive, l would like to dis
cuss with you, but l am going to
discuss but one of them.
"There has in recent years been
inaugurated in the State of Lou
isiana the idea of building good
roads in the State, so that one
community may be linked with
another by permanent highways.
That particular thought has en-
larged and in all of this State we
find people eager and anxious for
permanent highways through
their communities. Take this
one thought home with you, the
permanence of your public roads.
If you want to build court house
in your parish, you figure on the
cost of the building, then you
calculate how much money you
can have to put into a building
and you build it either by levying
a special tax for that purpose or
by infractions on your revenues
for ten years. What would you
think of your police juries if they
decided to build courthouse in
your parish and said we will build
it within the next ten years. We
would put down the foundation
the first year, the walls the second
year and the partitions the third
year and so forth. The people as
one man would rise up and say
what kind of a business is this.
The money they have spent in
this building will be absolutely
wasted and thrown away because
when the ten years will roll round
and the finishing touch put upon
the building they will have spent
more than it was worth. When
you go to build school, you first
calculate how much money you
have and you build the school
house and you pay for it as the
years roll round. You don't
build it by piece-meal, but you
capitalize your funds and build it.
Ii you build a bridge you do the
same thing.
Now~you cannot build your pub
lie roads by piecemeal any more
than you could build your court
house or schoolhouse or bridge
or anything else. You have
to treat the public roads question
just as you have treated the other
important questions that are
arising. Every department of
public Improvements, public men
and representatives have grasped
the true conception Of how to
work and how to do public works.
saving the one thing, to build
public roads.
''If my friend Mr.. Marks from
Assumption will investigate he
will find that his parish spends
each year S15, 900 on public roads.
They will never have permanent
highways in the parish of As
sumption. For the next ten years
they will spend S15O,0OO on the
roads and instead of spending it
year by year to the end that when
the ten years shall have been
spent you shall have no better
roads than you have now. Lay
aside $4,000 for ten years and
raise $50, 900. Put it in perman-
ent highways throughout the
length of Assumption Parish.
You will have the use of your pub