The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1921-12-02

anu dohSu MN IL IL was LIuS LhdL the
taxpayers in the district were opposed
to the road improvement. He looked
at me pityingly and replied: "There
are only about dozen kickers against
the road taxes out of about three
thousand taxpayers. I'll show you
just how much we are against the
road building. Ninety-eight per cent
of the individual taxpayers met their
assessments in full before date of ma
turity. / don't think there is better
record than that in the world"
asked the sheriff if it was true that
one-third of the taxpayers had been
bankrupted. He answered quickly, 81
don't know of anyone being bankrupt,
and | think / would be the first one
that would know it." | found the
sentiment throughout the district in
favor Of the roads. There has been a
great transformation since the roads
have been constructed. Children are
going to school five days a week that
scarcely got in sight of school
house before. And as to the road tax
es--instead of amounting to three or
four dollars an acre, as | had under
stood, the average yearly tax and as
sessmen t for road Improvements
throughout the districts isl ess than
thirty-ive cents per acre per year. In
some cases slightly more, some slight
ly less.
One plantation owner assured me
that the money saved in transporting
one crop to market over the hard-sur-
faced road, in comparison with the
old dirt roads, would in a great many
cases pay for the entire road assess
ment covering a period of twenty
years. l was still puzzled. l have
read the New York Times for years.
knew there must be some fire where
there was so much smoke. | had I'M
derstood that the citizens of this dis
trict were ninety-eight per cent
against the roads. found just the
lopposite to be true. l finally found
the reason for the tremendous change
of feeling. A planter told me the fol-
lowing story, which, think, explains
the cause of the objections made six
months ago and the reason why prac-
tically every vestige of resentment has
disappeared since. "The planters of
this district, and in fact every other
district of the State, enjoyed three
wonderfully prosperous years, which
were probably unprecedented in the
agricultural history of the state" the
planter said. "Tillers of the soil had
more money than they had ever had
before. The first thing they thought
Of when they received this newly ac-
quired wealth was the building of
good roads. They had suffered the
old valley ruts long enough. They
wanted the best road construction that
money could buy. They desired to
profit by the mistakes other states had
made in building cheap roads which
had to be torn up in year or two.
They wanted roads that would be good
roads in ten years from now. So not
only the taxpayers of this district but
the entire state embarked enthusiast
tically into a very progressive road
building program. And remember
this-practically one hundred per cent
of the people of this state were in full
accord with the road districts when
they were validated. They were in
full accord with the road improve
ment districts when advertised Any
one that wasn't satisfied, within this
siXty-day limit, could enter suit and
hold up the entirer bodybuilding pro-
ject. He had that power if he exer-
cised it during the legal sixty-day
limit prescribed by law. No one, to
my knowledge, objected during that
period. That's the reason the bonds
were issued and the roads construct
ed. In the meantime, however, al
most like bolt from the blue, cotton
dropped from forty and fifty cents a
pound down to the low level of from
eight to ten cents a pound. That was
different story. While every one
was enthusiastic over the roads they
had constructed when they had a shed
full of forty cent cotton to meet the
assessment, they suddenly acquired
long faces and crouch when they
had to pay the fiddler with liquid as
sets that had deprecated seventy-five
per cent almost overnight. The small
planters became frightened; agitators
got busy--especially the element that |
could command legal fee for agitat-
ing; peanut politicians with an AK to
grind started to rave about the Eek
travagance' of their more fortunate |
political enemies who We're in office
\and supporters of good road building.
L. Z