The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-04-18

eAAS IWO ilCShOoS Ol SCIIlAS ahead-to work and to steal. The last is precarious and involves com. pllcatlons. But work always counts It counts perhaps less in public thar in private affairs, because of the safe guards thrown around officials to pre-. vent extravaganza, and this ofter breeds waste of time and money Yet what the public lacks most is perse- Verance when pushing it's own affairs If the citizens of the average commu- nity were as persevering in procuring what it needs, as the politicians are In working for their own advantage there would be little to complain o1 In the way of results.
 I am not here to find fault with the politicians Of the form of govern ment, but I am here to kick about the way we the people neglect our af- fairs and to beg this responsible body to take heed. The average business man is wretched coward. He is afraid some one will injure him fi- nancially if he takes any hand in af- fairs. He is responsible more thar any other member of society for the ills that afflict the body politics.
 The village storekeeper is afraid he will lose the sale of a few supplies te the town if he does his share in keep ing the selectmen close to the line oi duty. The manufacturer has sold his soul to the protective tariff and SC has made the politician his master The community, so bound by private interest, dodges it's public duty with pitiful cowardice. The community Its officials, instead of which it erin ges before one and obeys the other Out upon such citizenship! Can we not have @ new day in this state when the citizen will come to his own Then we will have better Connecti' cut. and not until then.
 This is a great state. It has been described as being ninety miles wide and seventy-five miles thick. It has on the north the foremost state in the union in thought and deeds. Massachu- setts. To the east, Rhode Island has long been afforded bad political ex- ample, while on the west New York combines independence and inefficien. cy in government to a delightful de- gree. It is far cry from Miantono- moh to Simeon E. Baldwin, but as not improved much through the cen- turies. It is barely twenty years since local Sunday trains were allow ed The ungodly could go through the state, but they could not stop. The railroad continues to be greater than the government. The press is begin ming to break away a little from the Junior Ike Bromley's thrall. His father held it hidebound. Jim Walsh from my town of Greenwich, repealed the general railroad act five or six years ago. There is now on the books no statute by which a transportation company can enjoy the right of em- ineut domain. The waters are not free. The shores rights are sold to cendants of the settlers cannot dig clans at low water without being ar rested for trespass. In short the state is sewed up. It will take a long campaign to make it free. Yet have an idea that 1t can be done land in a very commonplace way, inv volyine no fierce assaults, no charges of wickedness, no changing of laws, or the make up of the Legislature or Of the town boards of selectmen.
 The nations and states that have become great are those that have ex- pedited transportation by public methods. New York was made by the wise De Witt Clinton. who did it by digging the Erie Canal. The dle West. Rome made itself master of the world by good road building and Napoleon dominated Europe as much by paving highways as by arms. Without the former the latter meant little. He met his smashup in Russia and Spain. where the walk ing was bad. But from Paris to Berlin or to Dresden or Vienna was but a promenade. We have in this day of motor carriages means of escaping from railway and steamboat oppression. The highway law of Con- necticut is most liberal. The sum ap- propriated is large. The result is rotten. Why do not the enormous sums spent by this state accomplish something? You know they do not. Instead of permanent highways we have only permanent highway com missioner.
 The fine old piece of Scotch granite who holds that job defies public opin- ion and continues to waste our mon ey in his purblind way, not because he is wicked, but because he is fool ish. In his fifteen years of office holding he has made himself more powerful than the Legislature, mightier than the governor, superior to the press. His is the hand that disburses the money taken from the public by taxation, and which is fed back to that public in inefficient drib- lets to keep his political fences stand the needs of modern traffic, and free us from railroad domination. Two years ago I, with other respon- sible citizens of Greenwich, went with Commissioner Macdonald before Gov ernor Weeks to lay down what the governor called a "sound business proposition" Briefly we proposed to build the first link of what should become an Appian Way across Con- necticut that would accomm odate Greenwich to pay s5o,ooo. the trolley company $SO,000, and we asked the state to contribute $50,00O, to the end that some three miles of brick high way forty feet in width should be to the Stamford line. Here is a road on which often more than 1000 autos per day enter this state of Connecticut.
 It was rejected. The governor wriggled uncomfortabIy. He was plainly in terror of the commissioner, afraid of a fellow public servant. 'I know you bring a sound business gentlemen, but you mus4 see how it is. You know every town in this state has two members of the Now the commissioner has to go to the Legislature for his and if he was to give $50,0O0 to one town, and that a big one like Greenwich, the little towns would re- sent it, and it would tend to injure the commissioner with the Legisla- ture." This was his whimpering apol- ogy for turning down "a sound bus mess proposition
 ty foot brick highway we have a wretched strip of macadam. sixteen feet wide, four and half inches deep, laid on mud and even now dis integrating under the spring frains and so dangerous it must be nightly