Mexico weekly ledger., 1919-07-03
Bolts URGES
ROAD LEGISLATION

Judge W. W. Bolts, Audrain Coun.
tvs representative to the State Legis.
lature has written Governor Gardner
asking that his road bill No. 511 be
considered at the forthcoming called
session of the Missouri Legislature
which meets to ratify the National
Equal Suffrage amendment.
Among other things he states in his
letter:
Mexico, Mo-, June 14th, 1919.
Hon. Frederick D. Gardner,
jefferson City, Missouri.
Dear GOVERNOR
This is to call to your Excellecy's
attention to a weakness in the road
laws of Missouri, that is just now be-
coming APPARENT to the public, and is
causing much criticism of the Legis-
lature, namely: Their is no provision
in the law for levying any portion of
| the cost of road building on the prop
erty in the vicinity of the road, al
though it is always specially benefited
thereby. Taking Audrain county as
an example, it has about eleven hun
bred miles of road and the state is
proposing to furnish aid for about
fifty miles, it is manifestly unfair,
that the county, even, as a unit should
supply the money for the one half of
the improvement, and require nothing
of those who are directly benefited by
the improvement.
Efforts are being made in the var
ious counties in this part of the state
and, | presume, elsewhere, to supply
this defect by popular subscription.
But it is found that there are always
property owners that will not respond
and that on almost every projected
line of road there is real estate owned
by non residents that cannot be reach
ed. When the promoters of these i'm
portant roadbuilding projects meet
with these obstacles to bodybuilding,
they begin to clamor for some lawful
means of raising themoney required, |
and it is a just demand.
Now at the last legislature the SEN
ate passed a bill providing hat the
county court of each county might
assess for the purpose of improving
a road a tax of not exceeding five dol
lars per acre on each acre within one
half mile of the road and about half
that amount on each acre in the next
half mile and so on, every acre, re-
CARELESS of value to be assessed ac-
cording to it's distance from the road,
a manifestly unjust proposition, for
the reason that even on the same road
in some-in many counties there will
be tracts of land not worth five dol
lars an acre and other tracts worth
fifty and ever q hundred dollars. The
law was defeated in the house. l do
think such a law could or ought to
pass.
l introduced in the house, House
Bill No. 81, a copy of which | am en-
closing. 1t is an independent act, not
in conflict with any other act or with
any law now in the statute books and
can be applied in any county or on
any roadbuilding project in the state
where the people want roads built.
It's title expresses clearly the princi-
pie on which it is based and the pur-
pose to be accomplished. This bill
was heartily endorsed by road build
ers and at good road meetings in this
part of the state. l think it would
have passed but for the fact that the
Morgan-McCullough law had just
been passed and the members were
carried away with the idea that the
state and National governments were
going to pour out money in unlimited
quantities for road building, without
any call for local aid.
1t nov appears that very few if
any state roads will be built without
local aid, and that the local aid will
have to be raised from those who are
public spirited enough to contribute
voluntarily and that the selfish or the
nonresident, though benefitting, will
not have to pay. 1t is easy to see
what a handicap such a situation will
be to the development of the state in
the all-important matter of road build
If people in other parts Of the state
have met with the disappointments
that they have in Northeast Missouri, |
]