Fulton County tribune. (Wauseon, Ohio) 1883-1925, 1922-03-16
POLITICAL EXPENSIVE
IN ROAD BUILDING
Farmers Check up on Advice and
Find ii More Profitable to Pay
Heed to Their Engineers

Spring meetings of farm organiza-
tions throughout the United States
are bieng reached with difficulty over
roads sottened by thawing weather.
Under these circumstances highways
and how they should be maintained
provide topic of earnest and quite
o1t.n heated consideration.
In Ohio this situation appears to be
more pronounced than in any other
state. In some counties during the
past week, on highways upon which a
goud deal more has been spent on re-
pairs than has been returned in SER
vice, school plants have been affected
seriously. In some cases, where
motor bus transportation has been
introduced and schools consolidated,
thawing weather seems to have en-
phasized the false economy of pro-
gress wrong end to-" to use phase
common in the country.
In these cases., where one-room
educational units have been consoh-
dated into graded schools and modern
transportation methods introduced, a
lesson on the necessity for highway
improvement in keeping with other
That lesson, it appears, is that waste,
with all the restrictions on rural edu-
cational and social life, will continue
despite the introduction of all other
forms of improvement, until the sur
face of the road has been brought up
to the standard of present day re
quirements.
This spring thaw lesson and the ag-
gravations that result in cOmmunl-
ties being forced to wait for the suns
rays to do what engineers are not per
mitted to do in the first instance
harden the road surface-has brought
to the front at farm gatherings, this
question:
"How soon will expenditures for a
low cost road with high upkeep and
poor service eat up enough money IN
maintenance and repairs and then
new construction - to equal the cost
of a higher type road with low upkeer
and better service-and practically nc
reconstruction"
Ohio farmers, it appears, are
sharpening their pencils to get at this
problem, and barring few resolu-
tons calling for highway reform
they are beginning to wonder if this
reform after all, should not start first
in turning deaf ear to so muct
general advice, mixed more or less
with politics, and place greater reli'
ance upon the advice of their en-
gineers. AS engineer and poll
tician, farmers have discovered, are
as far apart in public service as the
poles, and that while the politician
talks, the engineer works.
Engineers have said low cost type
of road, particularly en- main routes
does not make it practical to spread
highway funds over greater mileage
for the reason that if the money ism
put into substantial road in the frs
instance, it must go in afterwards il
repairs as a matter of necessity
which retards the final construction O
a complete system for the entir,
state.
AS an illustration of how farmers
are checking up on this statemen
and finding it true, case in Logan
County is given One mile of SOCIAL
ed low cost road, here is what ha'
happened, they say in nine years;
1912, Original construction $7,295.4;
1914, State reconstruction 5,5OO.0'
1916, To maintenance 1,16S.l'
1921, Reconstruction 12,71Ol
1921, Surface treatment est. 1879
Total $28,353. 6
In nine years the so-called $1,000
road turns out to be approximately
$4,000 road, with tax money still go
ing into it in order to prevent the in
vestment from going to pieces al
together
Farmers in Ohio are not going t
stand for excessive first cost on thei
highways" said one, "but they ar
also not going to take any more SC
called low cost road advice withou
looking into facts of the case first.
NOTICE
| desire to announce my name a
offica of Clerk of Court of COmmO