The weekly soliphone., 1917-08-09


 chants to clip out and pin in their hats. It's a story of incompetency, inefficiency and indifference upon one hand all of which has com bined to render Greene county pub lie roads impossible, and a Craig head county farmer upon the other hand who wants to come to Para gould to do his trading, but cant, The story of incompetency relates as much to the public as it does to officials for the reason that the public has learned to endure most anything that is handed to it in a political way. The public will be- lieve any kind of lies an aspiring and perspiring officeseeker may care to wrap up and palm off and will vote him resolutions of thanks and a big fat salary if the pack age'' is large enough. The story of the man who wants public road /, for use in hauling the products of his farm to town might we'll apply to hundreds of working agra rians in all parts of hte county who have been deceived and imposed up on until they have almost grown accustomed to expect nothing. w. A. Miller is the farmer whose story directly concerns usl today. He is now in Paragould spending some money with Paragould merchants, and he is preaching the doctrine of better public highways. But he has grown tired and is disgusted with the manner of handling public ques- tions in Greene county, and to a large extent has given up hope of securing any relief from the quagz mires and ruts which combine to render the road between this city and his farm untenable. Mr. Miller has tried for months and years to interest his neighbors and others in the subject of bettering highway conditions. He was one of a large number who offered to put fifty teams to work several years ago on the highway known as the Eight Mile Road provided the county would agree to surface the roads after preparations had been made,
 Today Mr. Miller has another idea. He is now working not for the interests of Paragould, because the work he has done in the past has
 
 turned his attention to Monette, and has joined with others farmers many of whom are on the Greene county side of the line-in an ef- fort to have the road from his part of the country to Monette made available for the transportation of such supplies as will be offered to ,the market. And he has met with success. As matter of fact, Judge Fuller of Craighead county has al ready consented to have the county bear the expense of building a bridge from Big Island to Stroud Landing-a stretch of construc- ton more than fourteen hundred yards in length. The distance from MT. Miller's place to Monette is approximately six miles, while the distance to Paragould is eleven. MT Miller does not hesitate, howts ever, in stating that Paragould's markets are better, and under any reasonable conditions he and his neighbors would prefer to come the additional distance but for the fact that the work of hauling a reasonable load over the gumbo roads, in bad weather is so heavy that it is too much of an imposi tion upon a six hundred dollar team of mules. When the weather is good ruts and washes are so bad that the trip is one to be dreaded
 Greene county and Paragould are also losing trade from Missouri that ordinarily comes from over the Hopkins bridge. This structure, be- ing out, renders traffic impossible
 Gentlemen of Paragould, the sit uation is indeed serious. This is in no sense an attack upon the county judge. Much of the neglect for which we are today suffering was inherited by the official whose duty it now is to show results. The coun- tvs finances, as everyone knows, are not in healthful condition and it is hard to work without a treasury balance. But the people of Para gould only a few months ago offered to put the county on cash basis ito stand back of the inauguration of condition that would spell ad- vancement and profit. The sugges tion then made by this organiza- ton of men was sane, sensible and practicable plan. The county judge, who knew about as much concerning finances as Nero knew about wireless telegraphy,. raised up