The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1919-11-28
CROSBY WRITES
IN FAVOR OF BONDS

the Weekly Star:
Editor Star: Some months ago at
Board of Trade meeting in your
city l stated that | would now favor
a bond issue for good roads and that
| thought now was a good time to
kond for such a purpose.
About five years ago we bonded our
school district for $1O.5OO for new
school buildings; the result. has been
satisfactory, our children are getting
the benefit and no one feels the extra
five mills a burden, and | have heard
no complaint from any resident tax
payer nor from the railroads or tele-
graph companies who pay large
part of the taxes, and our sinking
fund is drawing interest at 4 per
cent. compounded quarterly and long
before the principal will be due, the
five mills will be cut down by the ac-
cUmulation on interest to 4, 3, 2 and
l mill respectively.
I favor bonding Marion county for
81, 100000 for road building. l have
been interested in the controversy
or. the bonding question, and the one
main point against bonding is the
higher millage. 1t is a fact that the
millage will be little higher, prob
ably 25 per cent, than the present
millage for a few years and then it
will be lower, but my friends what do
you ever expect to get unless you pay
for it, and when will we have a sys-
tenn of hard roads in the county un-
less we bond? Certainly not by direct
taxation. One of the greatest ad-
vantages of nation, state or county
is it's hard roads. In the great world
war it was over the hard roads in
France that the allied armies were
enabled to quickly get to the front,
and keep supplied with war material
and commissary supplies. 1t was over
the splendid hard roads in the Unit
ed States that army trucks and much
| equipment was rushed to the loading
wharves from factories.
| have never yet heard of nation,
state or county collapsing or it's peo-
pie suffering financial embarrassment
on account of it's expenditures for
hard road building.
The federal government through
the last sessions of Congress made
appropriations of hundreds of mill
ions of dollars for road building
throughout the United States, the
same being apportioned to the states
on the basis of each and every state
through it's legislature appropriating
an equal amount.
| Florida's part was $3,O0O,OOO The
1919 session of the legislature passed
laws to raise this amount of money
to enable the state road department tc
meet the federal appropriation on a
lfifty-fifty basis as the federal gov
errment required.
A line of state roads has been des.
ignated and the Dixie Highway thru
Marion county. Aren't you glad OF
that? The state road department has
apportioned $28O,OOO to Marion coun.
ty on the Dixie Highway, providing
Marion county puts up the cash tc
complete it. Now, my friends, how
are we going to do that? If thi:
bond issue fails then we lose the
$280,000 and the road department will
build no road in Marion, but will give
to other counties the money raised b!
the two-mill levy and we, all over the
county, will be paying to build road!
in other counties that are meeting
the state road departments require
ments. The need and demand fo
hard roads is growing daily and NJ
one can question the fact that the!
are a necessity, and we certainl!
should make the proper arrangement
: for raising the money to build a sys
tenn of substantial roads in this coun
ty, and the logical business PROPOSE
: tion to do so is to bond, and eventual
ly we must bond, so why not bone
now?
Yoy say that prices of building ma
terial are high and that labor is scare
and high. So it is, but when will ma
terial be cheaper and when will labo
be more plentiful and cheaper? Wit
7 high prices all over the country an,
high wages all over the country, tn
tendency seems to be upward; how
ever, if we should bond, by the tim
the contracts are let for road build
ing, if there is going to be a declin
in prices and wagon soon, it will hav
= reached US. With the demand in Sout
} Florida truck farms and orang
groves and many other lines of in
dustry for more labor, and the nava
; stores, lumber and phosphate indus
) tries booming. does it look like labo
will be more plentiful and cheaper i
D this state very soon? 1t does mo-
Will tho auricu1turaI in+nractS in May
D ion county suffer? l think not If tn
! bond issue carries at the election mex
D Tuesday, it will take some months t
J validate, advertise and sell the bond
> and advertise for bids and let som
; contracts, and by the time any cor
, tract is let many months will hav
) passed and possibly the 1920 crop