The Mena weekly star., 1913-05-29
CAUSE FOR A BIG ROW.


 upheavaL
 Its all over the roads-so-ca--ed. These-.he most prominent and most-used of them-a-e -n about as bad a condition right now as canI well be .mag.nei-wor>e than inI years. 8. .eas.-and ne great effort in slsh. to remedy the lamen.ableI fix they are in.
 And The streets of Mena are not above suspicion. either. Tn fact. generally speaking. they are rough and little cared for.
 But -e.n- bark .o roads.
 Taxing. as an example. Nenas| che. show road-.ha. leading ,oI Bethesda Springs and Dallas-a| road that has been used more than any three cc four c.hers for pleas ure drives ny home folks and visit Ors.
 Th.> road generally speaking has not been lE-rlauleI and worked .l' years. The only attention i. has re- ceivel worth the name .s when. private citizens have contributed funds 10 have concrete culverts built and have had the road drag ged and the loose rocks thrown of One dime and another they have spent a good deal of money on this. Las. year t was not unc0mfort- able .5 maae the drive to Bethesda and the many fine springs and pleasure grounds hy auto in r ,o. 20 minutes. by horse and buggy in. 30 te ~ minutes. On Sundays and pretty evening, practically every car .n town went over the road. many coming around by Dallas. while some. especially the horse vehicles. made the beautiful drive by way of Potter.
 Yesterday one daring auto driver went to Bethesda Springs-and he pried his ear out of a bog hole with poles and lumber. The horses dragged through the mud holes. And H. the meantime, most of the road was dusty-and rough ditched and cross-ditched by water unguided and uncared for by the works of man, with the rocks sticking up wherever they existed, One car made the trip, and there are about fifty in Mena
 The old Dallas road Is little or no better. and only a hardy driver Of a horse vehicle would venture the Potter route.
 What's the matter?
 Don't We vote road taxes?
 Don't We pay road taxes, poll taxes, each citizen give up s4 a year extra?
 Sure We dO-all of them.
 Most everybody jumps on" the county judse-but he has an alibi
 The road oversrers are elected and he can't make 'em do a thing nor fire 'em.
 There seems DO way to get at i- unde4 the law.
 If they don't do anything to takt care of the roads. they just don't and that's the end of it-at least il seems so. some even say that tn, main effort seems to be to ~worl out the money intead of the roads
 Be that as it may it's time some thing was being done
 It's time the fault was locate. and remedied.
 The money paid in may be usec honestly, but it would be hard tc convince most people that it i used efficiently.
 Where does 1t go. anyhow?
 Lets take a look at these thing and ourselves.
 If it's the road Overseers that ar to blame, make them face the mu sic, If it's the law, get a good lav ready and change 1t.
 The best roads we ever had abou here were when Judge Wrigh Prickett gave over to the care O a single worker a section of roa, and held him to the job of lookin. after it.
 The same is true of Mena streets
 We'll never have good roads noI good streets till We adopt a plan O. caring for them when once they are made.
 If the law won't allow 1t. it's time it was changed.
 Make someone responsible. theI see that they do it right.
 We can talk good roads till we're all black in the face, but wei never have them under the presen system and management
 We're wasting money, time, 0p- portunity and good nature
 If we can't get better roads any