The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-10-12
LETTERS TO EDITOR
Jelks on Good Roads

To the Editor of The Age-Herald:
 I find in your issue of yesterday an alluson to a joint discussion between Hon. John A Rogers and myself at the meeting of the Good Roads convention at the fair grounds When I was called
 upon I did not intend, and was inno- cent of any purpose of interfering With the programme already decided on by the Good Roads convention. l casually said in the course of my remarks that could not favor a $50, 000,00o bond issue, but that I thought good roads in this state were worth almost any price and l heartily favored state aid in good roads. l be- lieved that the state was now proceeding on the proper line that is, assisting the counties; and I believed that the state
 could in its present condition do nothing
 because according to the auditors report 1t was running behind s40o,0oo year; that 1t would take some most excellent financing at the present constitutional
 tax limit to make receipts equal to dis bursements, leaving out the question of
 the payment of the present deficit. l also said it was folly to talk about taking the convicts out of the mines and work
 ing them on the road, speaking from a
 financial standpoint alone, until some
 thing was done to make up to the state
 treasury a loss of about a half million q year which it would thus suffer. l did say
 that I would be willing to see the tax
 limit raised by mill or two mills the
 income from which to go directly in the way of state aid to the counties in the
 building of roads,
 It is fair to say that the advocates of the $5O,00o000 bond issue have in mind perhaps the idea of distributing the bond issues over a number of years. take the position that an issue of s50,0oo0oo of bonds is impossible, because they could not be floated There would be no pur-
 chaser for them. and am sure that an issue of s5,ooo,oo' of bonds could not be floated at reasonable rate Of interest when notice is given that nine other $5,- 000000 issues were to follow. l am afraid your report of this joint discussion be- tween MT. Rogers and myself would lead the public to infer that I was opposed to a bond issue for good roads. l am not I certainly would not favor, how ever. a bond issue to be expended in any county except under the supervision and direction of a competent and experienced civil engineer
 My observation has taught me that we are wasting really more money in pre- tending to build roads than we are vast ing in any other line. l therefore, would only be willing for a bond issue in any
 given county when 1 felt sure the par ties handling the money were not only honest, but competent business men.
 only mean to say that such issue should
 be ordered with a great deal of care and with a great deal of hesitation. am not, however, opposed to 6 bond is- sue for good roads. did not so express myself in the joint discussion. l per haps did say that I thought we ought to pay some part of our way and not leave all of the obligations for our chil- dren. I did say that while l was gov ernor I retired s3O0,000 of the state bonds with some moneys that came into my hands as a premium on the sale of about nine millions of renewed bonds. l added that those bonds, cancelled. were fin the state treasury and very likely the legis- lature had authority to reissue them if they saw fit to do so. This would help the deficit some. | am an enthusiast on
 good roads, but I am unwilling for our people to lose their heads on the sub ject Let everything be done in order and conseryatively. We ought not to chase rainbows
 Possibly the Good Roads association by resolving to stand for a S50.000.000 bond issue merely meant to advertise thor oughly and heartily to the world that 1t favored good roads at almost any cost, with no purpose or expectation of having the legislature authorize an amendment to the constitution, causing the sale of so large an issue of bonds. and also author izing at the same time an additional tax of 6 mills merely to pay the interest on them: if it were possible to have some syndicate buy them and this I hold, would be impossible. Truly yours.
 WILLIAM D. JELKS,
 Birmingham, October II. 1912