The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-11-29
BOL LIGEE GIVES OUT DATA ON HIGHWAY
Letter Written To SCruggS Nov. 5 Urging Compliance
 With Road Law

i"N's V VI 5"'S OSiiiP'AiiNS
 With Road Law
 BOLIGEE, Ala, Nov. 21.-(Special.) Correspondence indicating that as far back as November 1, 1920, determined efforts were being made by Greene and Sumter county citizens to avert the adoption of a roundabout route between Eutaw and Livingston, was made public here today by w. D. Johnston Jr.
 The only answer to our protest against further expenditure fin con struction of roads by way of Gaines vile, MT. John Rogers home, is that we had made no previous protest said MT. Johnston. T am making public this correspondence because 1t shows that We left no stone un- turned, from the very inception of this controversy, to advance the claims of the shorter route. We wrote to Washington, and were advised that road projects to be constructed by federal aid must be initiated with in the state. We then corresponded repeatedly with Chairman Rogers, of the highway commission; w. s. kel- Ter, state highway engineer, and every member of the highway com mission. We have replies from prac- tically all of them including MT. Rogers, so that it cannot be said we did not make ourselves heard. Independent Survey Made.
 we went to the expense of hay ing an independent survey made, filed our report, maps and data with the highway commission, and we never have been able even to get them back.
 "Our protests were steadily ig- nored. The federal aid project con meeting Livingston and Gainesville went through, and now federal aid project connecting Gainesville and Eutaw has all but gone thronugh. There is nothing to stop it but the will of the voters of Alabama, and their interest in fair play. It is not, as Chairman Rogers indicates, mat ter for the people of Greene and Sumter counties to decide. It is state and federal, not county money, that is being spent"
 The letters made public by MT. Johnston include a series of com munications with the old highway commission, The most recent was that addressed on November 3, last to MT. J. H. Scruggs, State Highway of the highway commission, which was as follows:
 Letter Addressed 10 scruggs.
 "Boligee, Ala, November 5, 1923. MT. J. M. Scruggs, State Highway
 Commissioner, Montgomery, Ala.
 Dear Sir: I judge from your ac- tions, as stated in the papers, that you are making an effort to carry out the laws, as far as the state highways are concerned. Owing to my physical condition, I shall not be able to attend the meeting of the state highway commission at Bir- mingham, so I am writing you per sonally regarding the proposed state highway through Greene county connecting the county sites of Greene and Sumter counties.
 'The law states that the most direct and feasible route should be selected. The highway commission has made only one survey to de- termine this route, that being the one crossing the Tombigbee river at Gainesville, Ala. Believing that this was not the most direct route, employed Mir J. T. McLemore, Jr., who is now employed by your depart ment as. engineer of road construc- ton, to make a survey of the route stated above and also of route crossing the Tombigbee river at Epes, Ala. As a result of said sur vey, he found that the detour of the I f N nine miles further to Livingston than the route crossing the river Ut Epes; that the cost from Eutaw to Gaines vile would be $196,000 more than the cost of the road from Eutaw to Epes.
 Data Filed With Department.
 This map and data regarding the survey made by MT. McLemore, at the request of MT. s. R. Batson, were filed with the highway department while Mir. Batson was acting as chairman of a meeting of the com mission in Birmingham in 1922. l have since learned that these val uable papers have been mislaid, whether Intentionally or otherwise it Is not for me to say. You should be able to find also on file in the federal engineers department a re- port made by MT. Davis, the federal engineer, which could give some in formation of his findings regarding the two routes mentioned, as he has been over both routes at the direc- ton of the federal government. MT. Davis, in his discussion of the mat ter with several reputable citizens, said that there was no comparison between the two routes; everything was in favor of crossing the river at Epes.
 You may know that the home of MT. John Rogers, chairman of the state highway commission, is at Gainesville; that he owns over 12,000 acres of land in Sumter county, and his close relatives have large land holdings on the Greene county side of the Tombigbee river, near Gaines vile. This being the case, his per sonal interest weighing on one side and the public interest on the other render him, in my opinion, unfit to locate the highway in Greene county; hence the appeal to you to investi- gate and see that the highway is located according to law, and not to forward private interests"
 This letter was signed by ". D. Johnston, ST., now deceased.