Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1917-09-17
Good Roads and Bad Roads

There is no danger of this wasteful and slovenly
work in a community that is willing to apply fair
measure Of business management to its public
affairs.
There is serious and definite danger of slovenly
work and foolish waste in community whose man
ayers determine first the color of mans hair, who
tagged him last just before the election, for whom
he voted and how he is likely to vote next time;
there is absolute danger ahead for the community
whose managers think of and act upon all these
things before they are ready to take up and decide
whether man is capable of filling position on
the road construction scheme.
Cheap politics. and by that is meant partisan and
factional politics, will turn the best road ever
planned into the rottenest road ever travelled
These are facts that have been demonstrated Just
as clearly as the value of good road in it's relation
to the progress and good name of a city or town.
1t is impossible to construct a system Of good
roads with men or material that have personal and
factonal politics mixed into the assembling and the
makings anywhere along the route. This sort of
politics means trade somewhere along the route
and the price of that trade is sacrifice of time
excessive labor costs-and "skinning the job" in
construction. For all this, the community pays
And for all this, the community curses it's fate and
too frequently choroforms itself into the lazy mans
state of mind that "it can't be helped
The solution of the whole problem may be found
in consistent and insistent, practical campaign
that will cause people to keep their eye on the road
just keep constantly in mind that it is the road
we want. We don't care whether the man who han
dies the pick wears pink shirt or blue shirt or
no shirt at all. 1t is the road we want We don't
care whether the man building it is named Bill
Jones, Kanakanui, Arakawa or Chop Suey. It's the
road we want. A road that will stand the traffic
a road planned by men who have some capacity for
visuazing the future, road that is sound and sub
stantial in all the details of its construction road
that is permanent, q road that is credit to the
men who built it and the people in whose town it
runs, a road to which every man, woman and child
can point with oldfashioned pride as the work of
their fellow citizens, lasting monument to their
integrity, common sense and ability. III
1t is comparatively simple task to survey a road
and specify the materials
The record shows that it is a superlatively diff
cult task to prevent cheap politics from running that
road -
But it can be done through the application of a
fair amount of unselfsh attention to public affairs
by the average citizen, at time when his attention
and action will count
1t be done through the exercise of intelligent
cooperation.
1t can be done if the men who are profting by
the hard work and the sacrifices and the brains of
the pioneers of this nation will give relatively
small share of their time to the management of>the
municipal plant which is our plant and our bust
ness. %&rE 49,. II
There is just one point where the analogy Of the
bad egg and the bad road do not connect
When you get a bad egg, you can rightly blame
either the hen that did not notify you that when
the egg was laid the forces Of nature that started
the noisome decay When you get bad road in
this country of government Of for and by the PEG.
pie, you have only yourself to blame.