The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1919-02-21
SHOULD LEAVE EXPENSE OF PROPER
ROADS TO COMMISSIONERS JUDGMENT
Election to be Conducted in Near Future When
the People Will Decide the Question of Bet
ter Highways for Bingham County
TYPE AND CHARACTER CONSIDERED

In few weeks the people Of this
county will be voting to expend for
q most laudable purpose the sum of
100000. The object is to create
a new and efficient highway system
Of.which we may all be proud. An
expenditure of this magnitude calls
for deep thought and most careful
consideration on the part, of those
who will be to a great extend re-
SpOnsible for success or failure.
There will be many things to con-
slider, and one of the most important
of these is the type and character
of road to be built.
Astonishing Our Neighbors
If we should recommend that the
county commissioners should take a
junketing trip. into other states to
examine new roads and old ones al
ready built and tested, the suggestion
would probably meet with the ap-
proval of all thoughtful persons. If
we should say it were better they
should travel until they had seen
enough to satisfy them, enough to
enable them to reach conclusions and
have those conclusions clinched so
they would have no doubt as to the
type of materials that should be
used in this county and in the diff
ferent parts of the county, we believe
people would approve of that. But if
such travel were to cost the county
$4,000, If all that expense had to
be met before one foot of roadbed
should be built or decision reached
as to plans, we believe many men in
the county would be ready to pro-
test, or even to impeach the COM
missioners. There would be radical
persons in the county who would
say it was a shameless wasting of the
public funds. There would be wo-
men all over the country who would
be telling one another that the
commissioners were just wasting the
borrowed money something awful.
Three Per Cent for Information
But supposing that they should
expend $4,000 learning of the ex-
perience Of other states and counties
with similar materials, similar eli
mates and similar distances to haul
materials; that, would only be the
cost of one mile of concrete road.
It would only be expending $40 out
Of every $500, for absolute know
ledge Of how to expend the other
$3.50 to &c certain desired results.
Spoil One I'm Thirty
II the commissioners should rush
around and build sixty miles Of road
and we should then find that two
miles Of 1t was bad job and a mis-
take, but that the other fifty-eight
miles was all right, people would be
we'll satisfied.
Sacrifice One In Three-Hundred
This, then is the problem to which
the commissioners should address
themselves next, finding out what
type Of road to build, or what Diff
ferentStypes for different localities In
the county where materials differ.
We fx the maximum limit at $4,000
and II they do not expend more than
that in solving that problem, We
shall bind this office not to complain.
p But we think one-tenth of that
amount will be sufficient. Certain
It il that the editor Of this paper
does not know how to built roads,
and we have not found others In the
county who could tell us.
Stxteen- Thousand People Fussing |
If the $4,000 people in the county
should put up dollar apiece to have
three men educated quickly so they
could safeguard the expenditure OF
our 100000 in road building, we
think it would be money we'll spent,
and It would be wisdom for all the
other 1897 Of US to keep our hands
of and let the commissioners attend
to the job. We can probably make
that dollar apiece minding our own
business while the roads are being
planned and built.