Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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THE ONE WA Y 7 IDEAL AGE Address of Mr. T. E. Wicker Convention R. F. D. C For Improv4 Brother Carriers of the United Sta tes: I come at an ill-timed moment to speak on this subject before you, following, as I do, two such excellent addresses as you have just listened to. But, my friends, Mr. Adams has let the cat out of the bag, when he told you awhile ago that the roads were jast as bad now as they wer when he and the balance of fie old folks were courting. It occurred to me that he and the balance of the oll -folks wore out the roads when they were courting. and now he wants us young folks to come along and fix them. If he was married last week I am wondering why his feelings seemed to be so blue today over the roads. But this is taking up your time. I hope that I have something more important. Now, I never sing without notes. and if you can stand my music a little while, I will try to stand it myself. The serious question before this convention, and one of the great ques tions before the people of the United States, is the questions of roads. We have advanced along every line in industrialism. We have built factroies. We have built railroads. Our mercantile interests and all other interests have advanced. Industrialism has been revolutioniz ed, but there is one instance in which we have not progressed. I refer to the public highiways. We are today where we were seventy-five or a hun dred years ago (when Brother Adams was courting). Now, gentlemen, we are told that in the.United States there are no ex cellent roads; that nine per cent of our roads are good; ten per cent fair ly good, and the other eighty-one per cent simply indescribable. Eighty one per cent of the millions of miles in this great country simply indescrib able! And no person in this round world kno.ws that to be a fact better than the rural carrier. Now I can't take up your time by discussing tihe manner in which to improve the roads. I ean't tell you possibly what little I know about road building, how it should be done. You. have heard it discussed already how to build roads. That is a very important feature. Bn,at gentlemen, the one supreme questionl, overshadowing question for us to con sider, is not how to build good roads, but how to get good roads built. There are two things necessary. One is sen timent in favor of better roads. That is the first thing. The next thting is funds. We have got to have the senti ment first, and when we have got the sentiment we will get the funds, but not before. Now, how shall we pro eed to ~et t.he sentiment? Every arrier in the United States must get so enthused as to become a good roads missionary, if he has not already be ome so, and go all over this broad land preaching the gospel of good roads. Mv idea is this: I will tell you 1 don't like to refer to loealities be ause that doesi' t interest us all; and right here I want to say that it is very difficult to speak to this audience be-, cause we must deal in terms that will interest everybody. and that is a dif ficult thing to do. But here is my idea, as to the dissemination of knowledge among the nations. The press of this ountry, which has already been re ferred to, is the great medium by which the people are to be educated on this particular sub.iect. In my' ounty we had a meeting on Labor Da :?we invited several speakers t-> come aind address us on the sub.ject f roads. They came. They adTdressed us. and at the end of that meeting we organized a good roads associationi fo Newberry county. Then to calrry the g:od work furth er alone. I went to the editor of one of my local papers and I asked him to set aside a portion of his paper for a good roads department. I told him I wanted to insert in that department lipin s from newspa~pers and ex tracts from speeches from noted men on the subject of good roads: short. terse paragraphs on the subjeet of oads. He granted it. We are rr ing that department, and the people nthe community don 't know who is unnig it. but they are reading it. he are getting the ideas. And that rns me to think that we mnust not r the people know that we are the ly persons that want good roads. ~q it ssociate other people with Other interests. be:-ause when the le once get it into their heads the carriers ar the only men re interested in roads, or who ning up and down this world an knocking and pulling for 0 REACH THE OF THE WORLD on Good Roads at National rriers-A Strong Plea ad Highways. roads. I tell you they are going to sit down on us. They begin to look up on us as chronic kickers. How shall we avoid it? I say associate with us other interests. Organize good roads clubs. good roads county associations, and from the county associations or ganize State associations. Then I say include other interests: that is. I mean interest the farming class of peo ple first. Interest tthe merchant, inter est the banker. interest the railroad man, and the m4nufacturer, and when all these men join hands with you, the people en masse will not know who to blame for the kicking. They will be absorbed finally and with one, grand and mighty array we will march on to victory and to better roads. Now as to the kind of roads. We are not contending for macadam roads; we do not say to the people, build us macadam roads. or even hard gravel roads. We will be satisfied, gentlemen, if we can get good hard dirt roads, and it does seem to me that as much dirt as there is in thi.s old world, we could affoird to have good dirt roads. Now when we have worked up the sentiment. the next thing is to drive the nail and clinch it; that is, get the funds. Well, there a*re a great many peonle that will readily agree with you when you say' to them, "We want good roads." "Oh, yes, we do too," you say, but there are mighty few people willing to pay for what they get. "Oh. yes," you say, "we want good roads too," but how much will you pay? That is quite different; then you have to talk with them awhile. There is but one way by which we can build roads. We must go down into our po'ikets and pay for them. A thing that isn't worth pay ing for isn't worth having, and when we pay for it . want it to be worth something. Now, you say taxation to people and they will turn up their noses at you. It doesn'-t set well on their stomachs. and especially is that I true with regard- to direct taxation. ~ If a farmer or anyone else,should go ~ to a merchant and ask the price of a hat, and that merehant says, ''Well, t That hat is worth $3.00'' he puts it ~ down over his head and walks out and ' never says a word; but if that deal- ~ er says, ''My dear sir, this hat is ~ worth $2.00, but there is a tax levy of t a dollar you will have to pay before ~ vou ean wear that hat''-if that were our method of raising taxes, there ~ would be a howl raised all over this ~ countryv and involve it in a period of ~ strife that we would never get over in many years to come. t But now are we paying indirect taxes? We are not paving direct tax es today in niany places for good roads, but are paying an enormous tax indirectly. For what? For good roads? No: for bad roads: an indi rect tax for a bad road. Who are we paying this tax to? Are we paying it to the proper county and State offi eials, getting a receipt for it? No, ir: but we are nayinZ it to the mule I dealer, and to the waZon maker, the .d harness maker and the blacksmith. They are receiving our taxes and giv- 9 ine us no receipt for them. If we a should levy a direct tax and .any it to c these otfieisls, and they should squan- c der that mor.ev upon their families, I we would raise a howl and turn them I out of offie. But the blacksmith and fi the mule dealer, and th'e uiarness mak- t er and all these fellows are receivine e von1r taxes and sonandering them onr their famili-es and you can't say a word. Now, my eloquent friend who pre ceded me. took the words out of my mouth. and I hated for him to do It hee:miwe I wanted the eredit for sa ing that thing myself abhout this roae t*n~ we ;ere 1avinO of enven(~ een' ,a E voce "TXou are 'eivingz them b)ack and I doing it zood'"). T don't like to handle second.-hand ixom . -hnt if it will do him any good. T wvill give them i baick when T set thrnih with the hil nce of this. O)ne ton can be hauled - over good ro-"de f,r ~ e'en{s aml. and it costs 25 eents ti haul a tone over h:ad ro.d4: 7 froim 2~5 leaves how mneh ?-18 cents. Then 18 cents pert mile is the amount that we ire throw inx away -ually. Of all the vast tonnaixe of freiZht that ila hauled over ,t ro-4in the I~nitd Stats-oday we c ari.' pain "18i & eets 'n 0eer ton on t evr mile that is abebel'y c wasted. x Absolutely wasted' Whv. ixentlemren c and ladies. if the peo)ple of the UTnitedi State had all of this moner that has r been ru thlesslv thrown away for thei last fiftoen or twenty ve"re. we enild maadamize, ves, m:ioadamize. not on-i ly every public hio-hway, but every lit- t le Ild b :-kw oIs settlerIn road in be Lnited S'aies. We e>uld di it. 1c4w innien uf the iraflie of hbis couin-, ry iv carried ver the pablic road? Iave you ever thought of that ? Nine ;y per cent of all of the freight, all he traffic in the country that goes >ver the railroad and the steamship ines-ninety per cent of it goes over I he wagon roads of this country. and Wly niln, per cent are good roads. The next question that I come to is his, Who should built the roads? Yho shouM maintain and build the -oads? Do they belong to any parti ailar class of people? If so, then that ,lass should be the one that should uild and maintain them? Do they elong to the farmer, the banker, the nerchant, the manufacturer, the rail vaY man, or who ? If they belong to my one of these classes, then decide rho it is and let that class build and naintain these roads and give them he exclusive right over these roads. 3ut if they belong to everybody, if hey are a public utility, as we know hey are, then let everybody contri >ute. Are they doing it? No. In nany States of this Union and espe ally nmust I say 'it with regret, in nany of the Southern States the .ad working falls upon the shoulders >f the farmer. I .;ay it is a shame hat men who were born on an equal ty with all men should be compelled >y the laws of this State to go out mn the public highways like the mana 'led felon and perform menial labor 1 or another man who evines whizzing ver that road in an automobile and I iardly gives the poor fellow time to et out of the way. These benefits I ire universal. Everybody uses the i oad. the rich and the poor, from the ] tutomobile down to the fellow that < rives a long-eared, flap-eared mule. Serybody uses them: even the poor vreck that has not where to lay his I ead can plant his feet in the public oad and no man there can dispute his. ight-of-way. Now as to this perni ious state of affairs I referred to J while ago, of making the country < )eople work the roads. There are ssibly those among you who do not now how this system is conducted. i want to tell you, because you might . aisunderstaind. The road is laid in sections from ne to three miles; an overseer is ap ~ointed who happens to live on that I oad. possibly. It is his duty to get ut'all hands on that road hetween ertain points, usually from eighteen o fifty-five years of . age. These I ands are compelled to work on that oad from six to twelve days a year,3 r pay commutation tax of from $3 I o $6. They can work the road or hey can pay the tax, just as th'ey pre er. Now, by this plan the whole bur- 1 en of keeping up the county roads < alis upon the country people, be- I ause there is no other tax except the 1 ommutation tax, which is a per capi a. I believe, as I said, that we have I he per capita tax on the people living 1 n the rural districts and not levied nywhere else; that makes them bear be burden of rural roads. That is 1 ne thing we want to agitate among< he people and get them to help us ight it. If we can get them to helpi is fight it, we can put the burden rhere it properly belongs, on thre hodders of everybody. Now we have disentssed State aid. shall not detain you much longer. t may not do in some States, hot I bould be awfully glad to try it in ~outh Carolina. I should be awfully lad to try anything in South Car lina. to improve our roads. Some of ur Sta.tet already have State aid. I eileve. In New York, I believe, they ave the best plan; as I understand. t the State pays fifty per cent of the ~ axes; the county pays thirty-five per ent and the township in which these oads are built pays 15 per cent, that ualizes the burden. It makes the1 urden fall upon the property as well s5 upon the individual. Now, why hould it be that way? Why should1 nv individual on the farm be taxed a lollar to keep up the roads when1 reat railway corporations are excus di One thing I contend for is that roperty should hear its share of the mrden..K Now, as to national aid. I have on v a ward to say. It does not seem to s that since this government has pnt millin and millions of d llars~ ron the rivers and harbors of this ountry and indirectly upon land rants to railroads, that no considera-r ion should be shown to the publiec oad1s of this enuntry. Theyv have rad some consideration. T am old. hut it is in the way of xperiments and object lessons. But here is one avenue of commerce that :inds in aind out among the farmers f this great co untry that is f:;r morte mlportan~t~. t: flO mr imipornat thman ie grei t rivers and harbors, far more mportan t thana the steam lcomative I- frei'h to teeryn' pr of the conn-: erv I say there i'ne little avenue (,i nmrece thiar leads --)ut mong I ]ie Tmers I l1.t i f*ar InUire im iport IIi t ZIII each of t , and without thiis little avenue of commerce none if tlise otiier great avenues could ex ist for a moment, that is, the little 2ountry road. Then why, why spend nillions and millions of dollars to im 3rove rivers and harbors and to help railroads and neglect the farmers' d ines of commerce. the lines of com-,' nerce that are keeping up this coun :ry? Why? Someone has spoken of the benefits )f good roads. I shall not detain you or that. I shall say that good roads C ill save time and labor, wear and ear, and give us cheaper and easier :ransportation. Those qu-estions have >een touched upon and I shall not de ;ain you. One thing I want to say is this, af- a, :er we have got the sentiment, when 2 ve get the funds, we have got along m ith that, legeislation. local Iagisla n , I ap ka :ion, I am not talking now about na ,ional aid, I am not talking about na- P :Ional legislation, but I am coming P lown to local legislation. Before I N ;ay that, I want to say this, that Is, n the early days of this Republic, the roads, a great many of them, were >uilt by the national government. The iational government paid for them. Wfter the advent of the steam rail vay it was thought that the railroads vould take the place of the public -oads to a great exter, and they quit . >ilding public roads, they turned the whole matter of maintaining public -oads over to the State and from the I "tate the whole subject of the roads ias fallen to the counties and there t rests today in a great many States. 7ow, a thing wa want to do is to get ur people thoroughly roused in the ;ubject of country roads, so that they vill vote in favor of men who are in ;erested in good roads, and vote , Iainst men who oppose good roads. knd there is a fine sense of judgment o detect who is the right kind of man o elect. because there are Judas Is ariots among the politicians as well s among other people. As I said while ago you can't find a man but hat is in favor of good roads, but if ou question him as to his plans you vill find that his plaqs are prohibi ory and impracticable, and if put in >peration they would defeat the very F urpose that he tells you that he fa rors. But now how is the poor little rur i carrier going to manage that ques ion? We are told we must steer lear of politics, and so we must, but' tell you, Mr. President, it is a great1 emptation when you see a candidate toing around over your country talk-' ng good roads and you know full well ;hat that candidate is not going to lo a thing for good roads, and you Enow another man who will, and you enow he is honest, it is a great train on you to keep from going into - >lities and boosting the man yonu Enow will give you the good roads.1( Now, I am done except this, and I 1ave been excepting for some little it now. It is a great question of sconomy, how to keep people from ~locking to the cities; that is one of he great questions we have been con ending with for years. Why do peo le leave the farm with all its attrae- U ions and move into the busy scenes - >f city life? Why? Because we are 2 iving in an age of progress. We are iving in an age when people wish toO >e up with the times. . They move to he town, they tell you, to educate I heir children: to be ini closer contact ith the age in which they are liv-0 ng. Now. the'n, there is but one way a o turn this great tide that is sweep ng toward th it,oyeten ?Lhatttrof ng toward the city, one way to turn. it hem back to the country and to rur l life. and that is to give them the ttractions upon the farm that theyv iave in the city: give them the tele- a ihone line: give them the best school 'aeiities that are possible. Give them nl ie R. F. D). service, which they al -endy have, so that the can haveC heir daily papers to read: and last et not least. zive them good roads.r hen that is accomplished. these con rstedl city conditions composed of a J >oul:tion that is growing more and' nore dense every rear will turn hack - Sthe country, and in a short time we vill have on great ettv. not several ities in the Vnited States. but one. ret 2reat eitV. whose cor-i orate limits touches upon the hore- of the Atlnutic Ocean and up- If mthe shorea of thep Pacific Ocean ed reaches from Mexico and the b ulf to Canada and the Great Lakes. th ne great. one mizhty and stupendous retropolis. T I thank yon. IIP MDGOCAINE AllD ho P EUlYEWHISKEY i' Habits eured at my Sanatorium in a p1 few weeks. You can return to your homne in 30 days well, free and ha~ppy. 1 I have made these habits aspecialty for 25 years and cured thousands. FE Book on Home Treatment sent f Address DE. B. If. WOMEY irs. Alice Robertson, TEACHER OF oice, Piano and Harmony. Studio Over Mower's Store. Open Mondays, Tuesdays, Thurs ays and Fridays. Phone 263. luying a Piano ir an Organ a not hard when you come or write to us. Our Pianos and Organs are guaranteed id up-to-date, and at a reasonable price. The cases are beautiful, the inside is ade by the best and most experienced en in their line, so it is no wonder our [anos and Organs hold their sweet tone lifetime. Write us at once for catalog and special ices and terms, stating preference iano or Organ. [alone's Music House, Columbia, S. C. PIANOS AND ORGANS. 11. G. Houseal, M. D. Office Hour - 39to po.m. L. A. Riser, M. D. Office urith Dr. Houseal. {38 to 9a.m. Office Hours - 2 to 3 p. m. 16-3o to 7.30 p. m. loo zer Bros., CITY MARKET, 311 Main Street. 'resh M eat. Quick Service. Phone 34. FANCY GROCERIES, 'he best the markets afford.. We Ask a Trial Order. IOOZER BROS. Be ginning December 5th and sting for 15 days, we will ake a sacrifice sale by giving 5 PER CENT. DISCOUNT ni all Clothing, Shoes and [ats, and special low prices a all Dry Goods, Notions nd Underwear. This sa'e made for the purpose of clos g up the, business of the S. S. BIRGE CO. s a corporation. The goods iust be sold. Don't wait, but ame ear.y. A e+a !leCSB CoD ELE OF PERSONAL PROPERTY. By virtue of the power and author to me given in an order of F. M. I Lumpert, Esq.. Judge of Probate r Newberry county, South Carolina will offer for sale to the highest ider, for cash, at the residence of e late John A. Atchinson. in New rry county, South Carolina, on tursday, December 17, 1908. begin ag at eleven o'clock a. m. all of the rsonal property of the said John R. ehinson. deceased, consisting of res. mules. cows, hogs, goats, bug ~s. wagons. machinery, farming i aments, blacksmith's tools, house ld furniture, etc. Joh n C. H-ill, Qualified Administrator. I Nomber 28, ~1908. td Itaw Newberrg Hardware compong ap 0 A CD NEBER ARw f BO -ANY