The French Broad hustler. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1896-1912, 1910-12-29

(thia bay is impossible as no one
man { ID economically handle
100 les Of road, but ii these
figure ana going to give the sys-
tenn "a advantage that / can
give, Ne viii say that this 800
miles be supervised by s men j
I do nc believe any one thinks
hat there eight men could be hired
for 9 salary of less than $50 per
month for each man. This would
amount to 5000 for. each oyerseer
or contfactor, and for the eight
men th would amount to $4,000
alone There are approximately
1000 en- in Henderson county
-subje % road duty. If the young
men bttween 18 and. 81 are exemt-
ed. I think this number would be
reduced one-fourth, bnt to be sure,
we viii say ones6fth. This will
Hreducs The number to. 1900. It is
also s that So road tax from
this ii pber Of men worked under
the cd traet system will put our
roads fine shape. Let as see.
1000 men, at a tax of So will pro-
.duce gross, before any of the COM
missioi pf the officers for collect
ing the tax are taken out, $4,000.
Your eight contractors salaries
alone vii amount to $4,000, SO that
you are $1,000 short of having
money enough to pay the contrae-
tors, ouch less to pay labor to
work With. It has been said that.
the chain gang could not be oper-
ated successfully with less than 30
or 40 men IF this is true with the:
chain gang is it not also true
with the free labor systemg IF it
is true, then each Of the contrac-
tors must have. we will SAP
the same number that has been.
worked Onthe chain gang for the
last / 2nopths, which is SO. Then.
each contractor must have SIC, ,296.
to hire labor and as there are eight
contractors We must have $s2.368.
to furnish them te hire labor in or
der they may Wofk econ6m-I
icaIly, which I think any one win
say has gone far enough to put it
entirely out of our reach. But
someone will say that this is not
the system to be used, that our.
roads are going to be let under
this contract system to contractors
at SO much per mile. Very well,
look at it from this stanG oint.
If the taxes are left as they are at
present for road purposes, and
the chain gang abolished. with So
collected instead of free labor, it
would produce net about $4,000;
and as there are 800 miles of pub
lie road in Henderson county,
you will have about $40 mile left
to keep up your roads, an amount
entirely insufficient to give us
anything ike as good roads as we
now have. Think of spending
$40 mile to keep up your roads
when lots of counties are spend
ing four or five thousand dollars a
mile for the Improvement of one
mile of good road. 1t will cost
from $3.50 to $4OO a mile to grade,
surface and properly drain our
roads without applying any hard
finish. 9 It would be too bad even
to dream about road that was
attempted to be maintained by the
expenditure of $40 per mile.
Right here. let me warn. the
man who lives on the small cross
road, that is not very much trav-
elled, under this contract system.
The money will be spent on the
most important roads, and the
man who lives on the cross road
will get very little, if any, returns
for the tax he is paying. Did we
not find this true under our form
err road law? Was there not con-