Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1912-04-17
$57,OOO.OO FOR ROADS.
Large Sum of Money for Winneshick
County Road Work Should
be Wisely Spent.

For years the excuse offered for
the poor condition of the roads in
Winneshiek county has been that
there has not been enough money to
do much more than patch up the bad
places so as to get along as well as
possible. Certainly such a complaint
cannot be made this year, and there
will be no excuse for the board of
supervisors and township boards to
offer for not putting the roads of the
county in first class condition. We
are not finding fault, for we believe
there is a disposition as never before
to work on a definite system, to do
the business of making roads some
thing like a person would run his
own business, in other words to put
little common sense into it, little
scientific thought, study and expert
ence. We believe the officials are
determined to do their best this year,
and this newspaper, as public in
|
help them, for as always We believe
that Winneshiek county needs moth
ing so much as good roads. That
nothing will contribute more to the
general prosperity of the county, to
the pleasure and comfort of our peo-
pie, and to the increase desired in
the price of farm lands here as good
roads.
We believe that the thing most
needed in Winneshiek county now is
competent road engineer, an expert
whose entire time and study is de-
voted to road building, such as no
Iowa county now has, to go over the
county and lay out a general plan
which can be followed by our sur
veyor, Mr.. Lee, who is very COM
petent man, and the county and
township officials, so far as possible.
Next to that we believe in organized
gangs of men under good foreman,
with good teams trained to road
work and good ROAD machinery, to
spend all their time at it and go
from place to place in the county
and rebuild our roads.
Winneshiek county will have over
S57, 900 for road purposes this year.
That is enough to do wonderful
amount of work, to revolutionize the
roads of the county, if it could be
spent without wasting it, but it is
safe bet that much of it will be
wasted. The one mill highway tax
amounts to $1,000, the two-mill
county road building fund $4,000,
and of the automobile tax $4,000
has already been paid the treasurer,
with more to follow in the fall. Over
$4,000 has already been apportion-
ed to the township clerks for use OF
township trustees, and there will be
about $4,000 more for this fund in
the fall.
This large sum of money should
be spent with extreme care, and IT
is the duty of public officials to see
that value is received for it.
Such road work as has been done
in some parts of the county by town
! ship road workers is absolutely in
excusabIe. Flowing up the middle
of good roads, filling them up with
sod and other road destroyers, ditch
ing across the roads on side hills,
and all such work is worse than.
nothing. We were out the other day
and actually saw two men at work
piling up by hand and shovel in the
middle of the road loose, dead sod,
| TO spoil a good road to rot and
leave the road full of chuck-holes.
Last year some of the very pest
strips of road in Winneshiek county,
roads which had been first class
roads for twenty years, were abso-
lutely ruined by blowing them up
with big plow pulled by traction
engine. Better a hundred times to
have left them alone. 1t will take
years to make them as good as they
were before they started to work on
them.
This is what the people who are
interested in good roads, who are IN
terested in the prosperity OF Wlnne-
shiek county, who pay big road tax
and besides give literally every year
out of their. pockets for road work,
want to see prevented. A King drag
is worth a dozen traction engines
where the road does not need an
entire rebuilding. The Board of SUI
pervisors and many of the township
officers have done excellent work in
some parts of the county in recent
years, yet there is still room for
much improvement. We desire to
commend rather than to criticize, but
from well meant criticism oftentimes
comes the best results.
The Bonds of MatrimOny.
On last Wednesday afternoon, at