The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1918-09-06
HOW MANY CARS IN TOWN
SATURDAY NIGHT?

TOa0S HOWdudyS. luCIe 10 CouoAuCi-
able talk about cars, and roads for
cars to travel over. There are still
some people who speak lightly about
the necessity of making roads that
are suitable for motorized vehicles
to travel over, and say that our roads
are far better than ever before and
ask why we would agitate for still
better roads.
The answer is that modern ways
of living call for different kind of
road now, and roads that suffice for
all purposes now will be insufficient
to stand up under the travel and
loads and machines that will pass
over them in five or ten years from
now. Therefore it is not only neces.
sary to build roads for present use,
but to anticipate the needs of the
future and provide for them.
We need to analyze our surround
ings occasionally to help us get the
measure of changes. Five years ago
nearly all the travel on our roads
was during the daylight hours.
Only few rigs were out on the
roads after dark, and they were con-
tent to move slowly. II one looked
around the county seat at shutdown
he would find very few rigs left. If
he looked again at nine or ten o'clock
he would find very few or none.
Ten years ago it was more pro-
nounced. There were no rigs in
town at 10 O'Clock at night unless
there was q show or dance or some
body sick or drunk. And it would
be an unusual show or dance that
would account for more than a dozen
or twenty rigs at that hour, to 60
home in the dark.
Last Saturday evening there was
nothing unusual going on. There
were about the usual amusements
and shopping. At 9.45 there were
a good many wagons and buggies
about town, there were good many
cars coming and going and there
were 211 cars parked, all likely to
speed away into the darkness within
an hour or two. The places where
they were parked are West Main
sixty-five, Broadway sixty-one,
Bridge fifty and Pacific thirty-five.
The war in Europe is consuming
horses and mules at rate that
makes it impossible to keep the
world adequately supplied for farm
work. Tractors are being improved
and built at such strides that it be-
comes a necessity to give up the use
of animals for much of the heavy
work and get tractors. If tractors
are to be used, and used extensively,
provision will have to be made for
them to pass over the roads and
bridges and still have good roads
left after they pass. That condition
does not confront us now, and the
tractors are coming thicker and
faster and heavier. Each year, each
month, the winning of the war de-
ponds more and more upon the use
of motorized vehicles. Railroads
are overworked land it is plain that
they will continue to be overw orked
for years to come. That makes it
necessary to rely more and more
upon highways for swift, sure trans
portation.
In the face of all these facts, men
are saying that nothing should be
done in the way of road improvement
until after the war. Men are saying
that we should not even do much
at repairing roads till after the war,
and our county commissioners are
making the blunder of instructing
road overseers to make no repairs
excepting those that are absolutely
necessary. For the next four months
the roads will be lined with teams
hauling the supplies for armies and
navies and unnumbered millions of
workers behind the lines both at
home and abroad. and this hauling
will be done over the wrecks of roads
that once were good. 1t will be done
over roads that are more firm and
hard than ever before, but infinitely
more rough, and bridges and culverts
more exposed than ever before, and
with all the talk that people thru
out the county are doing, condemn
ing the present road management,
little or nothing is being done to
hurry up the repairs that are most
needed. AS the harvest advances
and the hauling continues, more and
more will be seen and said regarding
the heavy and unnecessary damage
and loss ACQUIRING from bad roads in
spots where repairs could be made
easily and cheaply. Men will not be
satisfied to pay out the price Of the
new bridge or culvert to repair Their
vehicles and still have to buck the
same obstacles again day after day,
and see all the other travellers suf-
fer the same discomfort and loss.
We predict that in the next four
months there will be more upright,
downright, outright cussing of road
overseers and commissioners in this
county than has ever been done in all
the history of the county before, and
people are not growing any less rev.
erent either.
A year and a half ago an assembly
of q hundred or SO of what might be
said to be the leading men of the
county, sat around fine tables and
agreed that 1t might be we'll to bond
the county for about quarter of a
million dollars and use the money to
build roads, but they also agreed that
in all probability the people would
not vote the bonds if the question
were submitted to them.
That might have been true at that
time. But public opinion has
changed and we predict that if such
a question were submitted to the PEG.
pie to vote upon now, they would de.