Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1913-01-04
South Dakota Notes Press Comment.

Il Y
capita of new wealth in South Dakota
for 1912 Of 1903.
Aberdeen police made 1,422 arrests
during 1912. not to speak of the ones
they ought to have made while asleep.
Mobridge is to have 100000 hotel,
with tile floors, bar, and other appur-
tenances of a metropolitan air. Several
Milwaukee trains stop at Mobridge for
meals.
With the Inauguration of F. M. Byrne
as governor this week, Robt. s. Vesssy
becomes ex-governor in name as well as
in fact. For over year Mr.. Vessey has
been interested in busiaess in Chicago
and other cities, and even his close poll
tical journals have censured him for his
seeming Indifference to the respon sibil-
tiles of his position.
E. K. Mather, an agent of the Dakota
Engineering Co., of Mitchell, is in the
Hills, verifying the work of series of
guide books relative to the Black Hills
highways. these books to be distributed
all over North America, as they are be-
ing asked for by automobile clubs every
where. In speaking of good roads, Mr..
Mather says we can justly claim to have
good roads here, but that the worst spot
on the scenic road from Deadwood to
Hot Springs is at Inlay in Pennington
county.
In his annual report, Public Examiner
J. L. Wingfeld cites six banks as haying
failed during the year: Chelsea State
bank; First State bank, Onida; North
western State bank, Newell; Meade
County bank, Sturgis; Farmers State
bank, Mobridge; Henderson State bank,
Washington. The examiner traces the
failure of these banks to various causes,
ranging from failure to maintain the re-
quired legal cash reserve, a large amount
ofdelinquent loans, negligence ofofficers,
and the carrying of heavy loans without
good security. Because of the failures
at Sturgis and South Shore, two cashiers
committed suicide; several others have
been given terms in the state peniten-
tiary.
The Outlook is one among the many
to disparage the structures of the fiery
Gov. Blease of South Carolina, whose
vituperations against the Constitution of
the United States at the recent meeting
of the governors at Baltimore are the
best index to the man as he actually is
] n the course of discussion regarding
mob law, Gov. Blease announced that
he would never call out the militia, or
try in any other way to prevent mob
from lynching a negro who had been
guilty of the usual atrocity for which
negroes are put to death by mob law.
Gov. Blease's remark, "To hell with the
Constitution" is merely a criterion of
what he said in the address he made,
and the press ofthe country is fortunately
active in condemning his unstatesman-
like and foolish attitude. In deploring
the affair, the Outlook quotes, among
many other papers, the Sioux Falls
Argus-Leader thus:
"The Governor, in wishing to uphold
the rights of Southern womanhood, did
not show that real chivalry which from
time immemorial has been credited to
the South. And the most significant
rebuke he received was from some South
ern women, who left the hall as soon as
he had uttered the ill-advised words"
The Pahapasa Quarterly, published by
the State School of Mines at Rapid City,
in its latest issue has splendid article
from Ben NJ. Wood, of Rapid City, on
the subject of Good Roads and High
ways, topic that is almost too common.
place for the excellent material under it.
Here is sample of the educational and
practical features of Mr.. Woods argu-
ment:
"The problem of good roads is an
economic fact which cannot be over
looked by the custodians of our civic
affairs. That it is an economic roblem
which demands attention is proved by
statistics issued by the United States
Government-the greatest and most au-
thentic statistic gathering institution on
the face of the globe. BY the figures
issued by our government We are sur
prised to find that the average cost OF
transporting the products of the farm to
the market is twenty-seven cents per ton
per mile, as against seven cents per ton
per mile in Europe where the countries
are cobwebbed by good roads built and
maintained by the several nations.
Without fear of fcontradiction, we believe
it can be said that here in the Black Hills
the costs Transportation of over our roads
per ton per mile, will exceed sixty-five
or seventy five cents. There are better
than thirty thousand miles of so-caled
roads and trails in the Black Hills alone
If the estimated total weight mileage o.
every wagon travelling over our roads
each day could be obtained, we believe
that it would average one ton trans
ported over every mile of our entire
mileage of road. Ifso, it would NEAR
thirty thousand tons transported thirsy
thousand miles each day at cost of a
least sixty five cents per ton per mile
making total price paid for such trans
portation daily of nineteen thousand FIVE
hundred dollars. Statistics show tha
the cost of transportation in the mount
ainous countries of Europe having gooC
roads. is sixteen cents per ton per mile
Figuring on this basis we are startled Il