Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1916-04-13
Good Roads Booster Tells
Of Move to Improve
State Highways
1
GRANGE MISTAKEN
ON TAXATION IDEA
Legislation Needed to Get
Better Results Without
Increasing the Cost

Inc action OF WapellO County Pa
mona grange in opposing the plan Of
the Greater Iowa association for coun
ty option in the matter Of road build
ing, has brought a response from D
w. Norris Of Marshalltown, editor OF
the Marshalltown mes-Republican
and one of the foremost good roads
boosters in the state. Following Is Mr.
Norris letter:
Editor Courier: wish to correct an
apparent misunderstanding of the pur
poses Of those who desire better roads
In Iowa as 1t was expressed in resolu.
tions by grange meeting and publish.
ed In your paper.
Nobody Is out to bond Iowa for forty
millions or any millions except as the
people Of each county, or township, or
special district vote to bond them.
selves and inasmuch as the farmers
cast two-thirds Of the votes in this
state they will have great deal to
say about the bonds and the kind OF
roads to be built with them.
Iowa farmers are putting up $11 900.
900 every year now for road and bridge
taxes and they get nothing but mud
twenty-six states in the union that
have more miles Of hard roads, gravel
and otherwise, than Iowa has upon less
tax money per annum They Issue
bonds SO as to distribute the first cost
Of permanent grade or bridge over
period of years. In some states they
string out this first cost over twenty
and in some forty years and they build
permanent roads as they go.
In Iowa we spent 81, ,OOO, 900 last year
upon dirt roads and less than $4,000
900 was classed as permanent work.
Over $5,OOO,OOO was washed away this
winter and will have to be done over
again.
In the next twenty years that waste
will amount to $100,000,00O without
any bonds.
Your own county will spend nearly
$4,O00,O00 during the next twenty
years upon it's county roads and
bridges at the present rate Of taxation,
allowing for normal increase In auto
money. What will you get for this
money? What have you to show for
the money spent during the last TWEEN.
ty years? Just mud.
Clay Hardin, Buena Vista, Sac, Dick
inson, Emmet, Cerro Gordo and Black
Hawk counties have decided through
their boards Of supervisors this spring
to permanently grade and gravel their
entire county road systems within
from three to five years and issue
bonds.
The board Of supervisors can bond
county road and bridge revenues un-
der section 403 Of the code. In each
of these counties the estimates show
that the people can have these roads
to use at once and can pay off the
bonds with interest and maintain the
roads within from the eighth year to
the twelfth year without increasing a
single tax levy.
In some of these counties 1t would
have taken them thirty years to put
their county roads to grade at the
present rate Of progress. The average
county in Iowa Is putting to permanent
grade only five miles per annum with
100 miles In Its county road system
alone. It will take thirty years in
Iowa to permanently grade our county
road system at our present rate OF
progress and 100 years to gravel It,
and yet we will waste $5,000,000 out Of