The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-10-25
Good Roads
For Kansas
BY WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE.

b1 WILLIAM ALLEN w
Kansas is the only state in the
Union now that cannot help local
counties build good roads. In practi-
cally every other state the law per-
mits the state to join the national
government in helping the counties
and townships .defray expenses of the
man along the highway in building
good roads. An amendment now
pending before the people of Kansas;
amendment No. 8, provides that the
states may assist any county to build
a hundred miles of road. That in brief
is all there is to amendment No. 3,
yet amendment No. has been the
subject of a lot of grotesque and
gaudy lying. To begin with the
amendment was called the hard sur
face road amendment" and there is
not a line in the amendment which
provides for hard surface roads.
Moreover, there is not a line in the
amendment which will allow a mile
of hard surface road in Kansas high
ways unless the people along the high
way formally petition for that road.
In many counties brick and concrete
are foolish. But in order to defeat
amendment No. 8, the railroads and
a lot of other interests that would be
handicapped by cheap local transpor-
tation from county seat towns out
ward to the smaller towns and to
Kansas farms, are insisting that this
good roads amendment calls for hard
surface roads," The truth is that
gravel roads will. probably be used in
Kansas rather than brick or concrete.
Under the new law the state can help
just as easily in maintaining good dirt
roads as any other kind.
What the law seeks to do is this:
To give the man along the highway
a helping hand in lifting Kansas out
he md. c c hn fn6 nT-o EYTlX
eminent pays part of the cost of high
ways, very properly because the fed
eraI mails must be delivered quickly
and regularly and good roads are nee
essary for quick and regular de-
livery; now it is purposed to have the
states join the federal government be-
cause it is an advantage to the state
to have some regular method of quick
sure transportation for the short
hauls that are necessary in business
inside of the state.
Given good roads and trucks ana
Kansas people can build up their own
interKansas commerce The town
merchant can deliver his goods into
the country as we'll as in the town if
the roads are lifted out of the mud
and made passable every day in the
year, and that does not call for brick
or concrete either. The state can APP
ply a special tax to gasoline and let
those who ride on the roads pay for
them II this amendment is passed.
The Kansas farmer could get his pro-
duce to the county seat at a minimum
cost if a good road runs by his door.
1t does not have to be a concrete road
or a brick road. it can be dirt road
or a gravel road or an oil road and
come within the provision of amend
ment No. 1. But no law or consti-
tutional amendment in the world shall
keep the farmer from saying what
kind of a road II shall he
Amendment No. 1 provides for low
interest and rent for the farmer;
No. provides for low
transportation for the farmer: and as
our farmers thrive our cities will
grow. No man should split his vote
on these three amendments; they
belong to one program-the program
of a bigger better Kansas. Kansas
should no longer be a stick in the
mud state merely because the rail-
roads don't want trucks to handle part
of the local traffic.