Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1912-08-01
Farmer With Forty Acres is Amazed When In
 formed of it.
HAD OPPOSED BRIDGE
Van Ruren Has Not Given Way to Fort Smith as Trading Point
 Some of the Benefits.
(By MEYER SOLMSON.)


 Folt Smith, Van Buren or any part of Crawford or Sebastian counties, would make converts out of anti Free Bridge people from Jefferson It would not be necessary to argue the merits of a Free Bridge. The air of progress, the actual inn the busy employees of various estab- not alone in Fort Smith and Van Buren, hut in all of the lit- tle towns within the Fort Smith and Crawford Free Bridge district, tell the tale.
 And the cost of it? That is never referred to any more by those who were made to see the light after the Free Bridge became a ralization here and it's benefits became so ap- parent. The opposition in this dis trict was in many respect similar 10 that in our own struggling commun- ity. It came from Mulberry, from Dyer. from Alma and from other lit- tie towns on the opposite side from Fort Smith, the same as Altheimer, where the only opposition to our Free Bridge now seems to come from, and other towns just north of us that are reaping the harvest of business that rightfully belongs to Pine Bluff But these people are now singing the praises of the Fort Smith, Crawford Bridge Commission, the same as our Atheimer friend will be doing after our Free Bridge is completed
 Now, listen to this. We have heard so much of confiscation down our way that this little story, which was related to me today by W. T. England, prominent business man and plant CT of Crawford county, fits the case exactly. Over in Crawford county some of the farmers had heard the same stories that are being and have been circulated by the opposition in Jefferson county. They could see their farms, the savings of years of hard labor, slipping away from them. While I was in the office of the tax collector for the district making in- quiries as to he tax paid by the var ious people of the district on the Free Bridge, the telephone rang. 1t was small farmer in Crawford coun- ty inquiring about his bridge tax. He owned exactly twenty acres. He was told that his tax for the year was thirty cents. He could not believe the statement of the tax collector, and insisted that he was ridiculing him because the tax collector knew that he had been opposed to the Free Bridge. He was one of those fellows, like we have in Jefferson county, who want to satisfy their spleen on the commission for an imaginary wrong being done them. Instead of hanging up the receiver and accepting the statement of the collector, the farmer insited on "bawling' him out. The collector told him that he was spend- ing more money for his telephone toll than he would have to pay bridge tax was really thirty cents. And the amusing part of it was, (the col- lector inquired when the farmer fin ished talking) the telephone charge against the farmer was 65 cents.
 The residents of Mulberry, Dyer and Alma say they are saving 15 cents every time they come into Fort Smith over the Free Bridge. Heretofore they were compelled to pay 9 cents railroad fare from Van Buren to Fort Smith and return. Now, they ride from their home to Van Buren, take a street car into Fort Smith and make the round trip for 10 cents.
 Van Buren merchants told me that they opposed the bridge when it was suggested because they feared Fort Smith would get trade that had been theirs for years and that came from their side of the river to them. They declare that the effect has been just the opposite The Free Bridge has increased the trade of the Van Buren merchants as we'll as that of the Fort Smith merchants and even the little towns in every direction from Van Buren in Crawford county report that there has been an increase of busi- ness as result, of the Free Bridge. This is accounted for through the daily trips that are being made just now by hundreds of fruit growers and truck farmers into Fort Smith and Van Buren. In former years, be- fore the Free Bridge was constructed. thousands of dollars worth of fruit and vegetables went to waste because the Crawford county farmers had no market for their product. They could not get cars to ship them and there were no local markets for their dis posal. Yesterday I saw hundreds of wagons, laden with peaches and cam taloupes, being drawn over the Free Bridge into Fort Smith. The northern markets net the peach growers only about 3a or 40 cents bushel. Peaches are ceiling fors5o cents s bushsl E ffsnr+iruod NJ I,easS E9nlhf 1 # 8s $. xl