The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1923-01-18
Friends Are Mobilizing to
Save Road Board Pla1,
Supporters over State Rallying to Cal
to Get Biggest Good Out of
Good Roads Program

Spurred to action by danger of de-
feat for Minnesota's good roads legis-
lation through public misunderstand-
ing of the facts, advocates of better
highways everywhere in the state are
mobilizing their forces for campaign
that will carry to victory the program
advanced by Charles M. Babcock,
state highway commissioner.
Farmers, doctors, professional and
businessmen in every locality who
united to get the big vote ito pass
Good Roads Amendment No. l are
starting out now to get the biggest re-
turns possible from the better high
way plan. They express the feeling
that the need of good roads never was
greater than now with the prospect
at hand of the greatest industrial adj
vance in state annals; with the ire
mendous growth of highway trans
portation and the gains and benefits
it brings, and tourists travel bring
ing in vast sums and speeding up
state development. They will fight
to keep Minnesota in the front rank
among good roads states in spite of
the fact that others are awakening
to possibilities and providing much
larger funds for highway develop
ment.
The good roads friends are using
Commissioner C. M. Babcock's point
that the new program already is re-
ducing road tax levies, that the bad
, road-taXes have been, have been drop
ping steadily and most rapidly in the
| L.. ~ hot
were and probably never will be bet
ter for bulldog needed roads. They
point to results to date as the strong
est argument for going on and secur-
ing without tax increases the biggest
immediate benefits held possible under
the highway bond proposals.
The aim of the better highway adv
coates will be only to fight misrep-
resentation and spread the actual
facts among the taxpayers over the
state. Already they are showing that
the bond proposals will mean mainly
larger mileages of grading and gravel
ing and that paving will be built only
where demanded by economy on the
heavy-traffic sections of the big
trunk highway system.
4 x
A Good Business Proposition
Commissioner Babcock's plan for a
bond issue to push Minnesota's good
roads program to an early conslusion
is good one.
| While in some instances bond issues
are in bad repute, from purely bust
ness standpoint they are not, and Min
nesota's good roads program is bust
ness proposition. Making no move
until there is cash enough On hand to
! pay for it is all right to- q certain
extent, yet how far would business
progress and development go by
strictly adhering to that program.
Good roads are gilt edge investment
for the state or community and bor-
rowing money to more quickly COM
plete the fine program which has been
so well begun is decidedly good bust
kess.
Commissioner Babcock has handled
the gigantic provisions of the good
roads amendment the past two years
in manner that places him on high
plane as public official. No finer OPP
portunity was ever offered for playing
the game of politics than in the adj
| ministration of this program, and to
his distinct credit Mr.. Babcock has not
played that game. He has attended
to business and built roads which fact