Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1909-10-28
PEOPLES PULPIT

About Good Roads.
Highland Center, Ia.

4 OCt. 20, 1919.
| Editor OttumWa Courier:
| There has been great deal said and
written on how to improve our public
i1oads and some very good plans but
rot to my way Of thinking. Some men
| have written on this subject, men who
have never done days work on the
highway and very little manual labor
anywhere. are trying to get instilled
| into the people how to make good
roads when they know nothing about
construction work at all and never
| stop to think what it costs to do this
| work according to their ideas of it and
we have men who have nothing but
personal interest in the roads and
never paying dollar of the taxes.
! am poor man and don't pay but
| little of the taxes, but wish to present
my views to the people for their con-
sideration. I will say that the present
| system is a start in the right direction
| but not what it ought to be. l think
that each township should own their
| own teams and road machinery and
run the work after the fashion of the
railroad. In the first place / would not
| establish any more officers than we
| have at present, but use them in the
best possible way In the second place
would establish in each township
! mile posts numbered so as to designate
| the work and the trustees in each
township hire a competent man, one
| that has done construction work, or
that knows how to do this work-hire
| him by the month, to take charge and
require him to report to the township
clerk every Saturday night what ne
has done, how many men worked, what
kind of material used and how used
and designate where between mile
Iosts so and so (give number) and so
on retaining.a copy of the report to be
presented at any meeting of the trus-
tees when called upon to do so. The
trustees to have he right to remove the
man in charge when he does not COM
ply with the contract and in this way
the actual cost can be considered.
The county commissioners will know
where every dollar of the road tax has
been spent and what for as well as the
township trustees. Under the present
system the taxes are collected and paid
out for road work and the actual cost
is unknown.
Everybodys business is nobody's
business. Another thing that is a det-
rment to the good roads is when the
township has spent dollars to grade
and drain the roads, farmers are al
lowed to fill bitches with old rails or
posts for the purpose of crossing from
the road to the adjacent field and al
fill up and wash out the road bed so
as to cause trouble and costing the
township lots of extra expense in grad
ing the road again. There should be
law framed and passed governing this,
making it heavy fine for violation
of same and when road is graded allow
no travel closer than three feet of
bitches. have notices put UP to that
effect, on every mile of road and make
it fine for violation of this.
1t is one thing to construct road
and another thing to take care of it
after it is constructed.
There has been thousands of dollars
spent in this way and then cry high
taxes Take care of the roads after
once they are graded and we will al
ways have good roads. We can grade
q road and let it go and be cut up and
made rough so it will hold water and
we are spending money for nothing
but my idea is TO grade the roads to a
special plan devised by the trustees
and then use the road drag. Now i
would divide the township into road
dragging districts. The reason would