The Taney County republican. (Forsyth, Mo.) 1895-1992, 1910-04-28
THE COST OF GOOD ROADS
How fancy Has Not Been Get
ting What Was Coming to Her.

to use the influence of this paper t
get the county court to make an al
!, lowence of county funds to help out il
his district the coming year. w,
told John we wouldn't do it and ",
told him why. And we are going t.
tell the people about our talk with
John Haworth, because we believe
there are things that the people should
know.
John Haworth is road overseer O
district 80 which lies just across the
river south of Forsyth. Last year John
conc entrated all the resources of the
district on the hill south of the river
putting in permanent Improvement. In
other words they BUILT a road over
that hill instead of patching it. The
county court donated about SIS the
people have donated about SIS in
work large portion of the poll tax of
the district was put in on that hill.
Altogether little less than $3.50 was
spent on that hill. And we believe
that the people have received more
benefit for the money expended there
than in any other expenditure of money
on roads in'the history of Taney county.
Naturally, John feels that the county
should invest more in the same way.
But we told John that while the county
got more benefit from money he spent
last year than they had ever got before
1t still got just half as much as it ought
to have COTTON. And that's the point
we want to i'm press upon the people
and oficials,of Taney county.
Sections 11o14-11918, Road Laws.
of Missouri, provide for the creation
and expenditure of the State road fund.
All money coming into this fund is
apportioned to the various counties and
if any county does not draw its part in
two years it goes back into the general
fund. Taney county has never gotten
any Of this fund and is losing it right
along. This road law provides that this
state fund shall be expended only for
permanent road improvement which is
defined as 'surfacing any road with
rock and gravel, or with a we'll con-
structed mixture of sand and earthly
material, commonly termed a sand-clay
road, any grading of the road and the
construction of concrete or masonry
culverts, or any and all of the above
defined Improvement Certainly this
definition covers the work that John
did on that hill.
When we called his attention to this
law John wanted to know why they
didn't get this state aid and who was
to blame for it. We told him the people
of his district were to blame. They
did not meet the requirements of the
law which provide that the money do
mated by the citizens and the county
court must be placed in the county
depository and requisition made on
the state auditor for an equal amount
of State money. Now If the people had
put up their SIS in cash and the county
court had put up their SIS the state
would have put up $50 and thegy
would have have had $500 to put on
that hill and they could have put their
poll tax work somewhere else. John
could have hired the men who donated
the money to do the work and they
would have gotten their money back.
In other words the way the work was
done the people lost $50 of the state
money.
We asked John why they didn't do
that. He said that in the first place
they didn't know about this law. and
in the second place the people of the
district were violently opposed at the
start to putting all the work on that
hill, and that it was only by the hard
est efforts that he finally got as much
as SIS donation work and that it was
not all donated at once but little at a
time. He added however that most
everyone in the district was now highly
oleased with the results obtained.
Right there we and John Haworth
began to get together and John asked