Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1920-10-28
DUNBAR ADVANCE OF kANAwHA
COUNTY SAYS OPPONENTS
ARE DISToRTING FACTS.
MISLEADING VOTERS ON
GOOD ROADS AMENDMENT
Printed in Same County Where
Opposition First
Started.

L.,
ed the following article:
"On this page of The Advance an
pears an advertisement, published at
our regular advertising rates, on the
order OF an opponent of the proposed
good roads amendment to the consti-
tuition of West Virginia.
1T will be noted by its readers that
the advertisement is skillfully pre-
pared with the object of misleading
the voters, more especially those to
whom the dread of being called upon
to pay few cents in the shape of
taxes for the benefit of some one else
overshadows even their fear Of future
punishment for misdeeds done in the
flesh.
Not $5o,ooo,ooo In Bonds.
1.-THE compiler Of the advertisement
gives the chief accountant of the West
virginia Tax Commissioners office as
authority for the statement that the
interest on $5O,OOO,OOO for 30 wears
will amount TO $3S,T5O,OOO. The same
result could have been obtained by any
public school pupil in the earlier stages
of arithmetical education, but the point
sought to be impressed upon the pub
lie by dragging the expert accountant
into the controversy is the conveying
of the idea that the adoption of the
amendment compels the immediate is
sue of S50000,0O0 in bonds. all bearing
interest from adoption of the amend
ment throughout their entire life of
thirty years, which is such an absurd
ity on its face that its proponent must
be reduced to desperate straits indeed
to expect the public to swallow any
such statement
The language of the proposed
amendment is very plain in its provi-
sions as to the issuing of bonds. In
itself, 1t neither provides for a bond
issue nor instructs the legislature to
do so, its actual language being that
the legislature shall have power to au-
thorize the issuing and selling of state
bonds not that it shall issue bonds,
as the advertiser would evidently
have us believe.
What Other States Are DOING.
hS uuNSlliSCl TIE
statement that in the event the amend
ment carries, West Virginia will be
the fifth bonded state in the Union,
and that its bond issue will be larger
than the combined bond issue Of 80 of
the great states of the Union, several
Of which are named This statement
is based on the assumption that the
irf,
the issue of bonds, which is not tho
case, and only the most reckless con-
tortion of the language Of the amend
ment can SO construe 1t. The matter
Of the issue of bonds, if they are issued,
lies solely with the legislature, which
will be empowered in the event of the
amendment being adopted, to author
iZe the issue Of bonds, in such amounts
and at such intervals as may be re-
Quired, not to exceed in the aggregate
a total of $5O,OOO,OOO.
Among the states specifically named
in the advertisement as being included
in the SO whose combined bond issues
case the amendment carries and the
legislature should happen to be COM
posed entirely of bOneheads and graft
erS, as the author Of the advertisement
seems to assume, are Texas, where a
direct road bond issue of $4,000 900 is
now before the vote RS of that state for
determination; Georgia, with a direct
road bond issue of 100000 pend
Ing; Kansas, with direct bond issue
of $60,oo0,000 pending; and Missouri,
with a direct bond issue of $50, 900 900
pending, all for road purposes; or
total of $3.50, 10000 direct road bond
issues pending today in four of the five
states specially named in the adver-
tisement as an argument why West
Virginia should refuse to empower its
legislature to authorize the issue of
bonds to secure funds for road build
ing purposes as needed, but at no time
TO exceed Il maximum of $J0,00O,OOO
with provisions for a sinking fund to
provide for their retirement at fire.
quent intervals, thus assuring a con-
slant reduction in interest payments as
well as the reduction of the principal,
so that even in the highly improbable
event of the election of a legislature
sufficiently lacking in intelligence to
authorize the issuing of the entire SjO,-
100000 set by the amendment as the
limit beyond which they may not pass
in a single block, the actual interest
payments would amount to about one
half Of the interest on the entire $50.
600 900 for the full term of thirty years,
which the advertiser has so carefully
figured out by the State Tax Commits
sion's chief accountant, whose figures
are not to he disputed but whose use
in the connection under the inference
drawn in the advertisement referred
to, merely demonstrates to what igno-