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F there lis any field of public- .
spirited activity in the United
States which stands out con
spicuous above all others be
cause of recent progress it is
that which concerns itself with
the betterment of our public
highways. If anybody had pre
dicted a few years back that the
beginning of the second decade
of the twentieth century would
gee so marked and widespread
an improvement of the public
roads of the United States he
would probably have been
laughed at by all save those few
enthusiasts who were looked upon until a short
time ago as “cranks.”
This 18 not saying, mind you, that there is not
much yet to be done to bring the highway sys
tem of this great land to the point where it ought
to be and to maintain it there. We are still a
very long way behind most of the countries of
the old world—notably our sister republic of
France—in the condition of our roads. But that
{8 perfectly natural, not because the foreigners
are any better road builders than we are, but
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simply because their highways have been in the
making for many centuries, whereas we have
mighty few turnpikes that are more than one
hundred or at most two hundred years old. And
furthermore on top of the youth of our country
in road building there is the circumstance of the
tremendous size of Uncle Sam’s domain. No
wonder the Europeans have bgen able to have
good roads when half or two-t{rds as many pec
ple a8 we have in this whole Wast country‘have
been contributing their work and their taxes to
Kkeep up the roads in a territory no larger than
one of our medium size states.
But for all the lea® given by time and the ad
yantage of dense population it looks as though
we would overtake our cousins overseas in the
‘matter of the possession of good roads. Indeed,
even now in some states, such as sections of
Massachusetts, there are roads as fine as any
thing of similar character on the other side of
the big pond. The secret of this boom in road
building in America lies in organization as well
as agitation and the country is likely to see new
fruits from both during the middle week of Sep
tember when a “Good Roads Week” will be held
throughout the United States. This week of
“misgsionary work” is expected to stir up a good
ly share of our people on the question of good
roads and it is hoped that some of the new con
verts and the old will that week practice what
they preach to the extent of lending a hand to
the building here and there of stretches of
“model road” that will serve as convincing object
lessons.
“Good Roads Week” is going to be held in con
nection with the first annual convention of the
American Association for Highway Improvement
which will be held at Richmond, Va., and will be
addressed by many of the most prominent men
in the country. This national organization will,
of course, be much in the public eye in this con
nection, but it is only one of scores of associa
tions great and small that have been helping in
this cause. There are state organizations and
county organizations and even township organi
gations all over the country that have been sup
porting our national, state and municipal govern
ments in what they have been doing for better
roads, and the results attained prove what can be
accomplished when a large number of people who
are very much in earnest set out to all “pull to
gether” toward a desired goal.
A good many people who have not looked very
deeply into the subject have gained the idea that
the motorists are more largely responsible than
any other class of people for this dawning era of
good roads. Now, it would not be right to dis
parage what the automobilists have done, which
has been considerable in one way or another, but
in the interest of the truth it must be pointed
out that the one factor supreme in influence for
better roads has been the wide-awake farmer. To
be sure it is a fact, and a mighty significant one,
that the largest and most powerful corporations
in the country—business interests such as our
biggest railroads and the steel trust and the
Standard Oil corporation—are working energetic
ally with the new American Association for High
way Improvement because they realize that any
thing that will help the condition of the country
at large will help their business. At the same
time it is the farmer class that are supplying the
backbone of this movement just as they are of
every other big movement affecting rural condi
tions and have been from time out of mind.
It is just as well to admit right here, too, that
the average farmer who is going in hard for the
canse of better roads is not devoting his time and
his labor to the project on any fanciful sentiment
al bagis. Os course, it contributes to his pride to
gee his farm bounded or bisected by 2 splendid
road and he is gratified that the good folk who
go past his door pleasure riding should have an
‘easy pathway, but the great underlying impetus
ig found in the need of good roads to enable the
farmer to market his. produce converiently and
economically. i}
The average old-time farmer was prone to look
upon bad roads as a necessary evil. He realized |
in a sense what a detriment they were to his in
terests, but he put up with the situation because
he did not see any way out of the dilemma—at |
least not without more work than he could afford |
to give. Then along came the United States gov- |
ernment, when rural free delivery commenced to
be introduced, and declared that these rural mail
carriers could not be placed in districts where
the roads were not in fair condition. This did
much to awaken the farmers to the situation, for
every rural home prizes the boon of a daily mail
delivery. And, at about the same time the farm
ers, who thus had their serious attention focused
upon the good roads question, found, as they
looked closer, that bad roads meant a hole in the
pocketbook of every tiller of the soil. It began
to be realized that if a farmer required the serv
ices of four horses and an entire day’s time to
get a load of produce to market via bad roads the
loss to him was just as serious as though he had
to accept a very low price for the yield of his
acres. Herein is found the supreme incentive
among many that has enlisted the progressive
farmer in behalf of better roads. |
One of the best things accomplished for the
farmer by good roads is that it has broadened
his markets. With rocky or muddy highways en
forcing slow progress the average farmer was in
the old days restricted to one market town-——the
one nearest his farm. Now with good roads he
can in a shorter interval than was formerly re
quired reach any one of several communities lo
cated in different directions. This enables him
to attain the market where he can get the best
prices. Similarly with good roads the farmer is
not likely to be so restricted to one railroad for
shipping facilities. If the road nearest his farm
will not give him the cars he needs or otherwise
play fair he most likely has some redress by
driving across the countryside to a rival.line.
And the very fact that the introduction of good
roads is destroying such monopolies has served
to render ‘he railroads more obliging to their
farmer clients. : 1
The new country-wide Highway Improvement
association which is to hold its first annual con
gress in the near future will not seek to drive out
or supplant the various good-roads associations
that have been organized all over :
the country and many of which are,
as has been said, doing an excellent |
work within a more or less local
sphere. However, the new national
institution is designed to serve as a
clearing house that will pass on all
good roads schemes wherever they
may originate and that will seek to
bring together all the various local
associations, harmonizing their aims
and policies where in the past they
have too often been working at
Ccross purposes.
The United States government is
back of this new national organiza
tion upon which public attention is
now being focused. Indeed, the
first president of the body is Uncle
Sam’s chief expert on good roads—
pnamely, Mr. Logan W. Page, direc
tor of the United States office of
public roads. And just here it
should be noted that this public roads office—a
branch of the United States department of agricul
ture—is doing a most important work for the cause
of road improvement throughout the length and
breadth of the land. For one thing, laboratories are
maintained at Washington, specially equipped to
ascertain which of these are best adapted to
use in any specified locality or under any given con
ditions. Even more important is the work of the
government bureau in building stretches of “model
road.”
Under this plan of building model roads to serve
as object lessons in the possibilities and benefits
of highway improvements Uncle Sam sends his
force of engineers and experts into any community
which seems to need to be aroused regarding good
roads and with their own helpers, or by means of a
force of workmen recruited in the neighborhood
they construct a mile or two miles of just the sort
of road that is ideal for that particular district.
How beneficial these object lessons are is proven
by the fact that thousands of miles of good roads
have been built in various parts of the country this
past few years with these governmental “sample
roads” as patterns. The showing made, by rural
roads “before and after” treatment by the govern
ment road doctors has prompted state legislatures,
county commissioners, local boards of trade, farm
ers’ granges and other bodies to appropriate money
for a more extensive good roads campaign in lo
calities that have thus had a taste of the benefits,
and in some states, notably Delawunre, wealthy
men have paid out of their own pockets for long
stretches of improved public roads for the use of
the whole comzaunity.
B imes in Mi
usy Times in Minnesota
Those in charge of digging the state drainage
ditches complain that they cannot keep men be
cause the farmers grab the laborers to work in the
harvest fields, says the St. Paul Dispatch. A Min
neapolis man with an automobile tells how he was
shanghaied by those who wanted a machine in
which to ride to and from their 'work as burglars
It would seem as though no one is safe in these
busy harvest times. el e
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“The fault of. our modern popular songs
{8 their utter lack of literary flavor, as
well as their violation of English con
struction. The sentiments now so crude
ly and even vulgarly expressed in popu
lar songs might very well be refined to
such an extent that they would not offend
the sensibilities.”—Eminent Critic.
“CASEY JONES.” Z
Come, my jolly good fellows, if you will
be kind enough to listen :
To a narrative concerning an heroxc‘
engineer. \
His name was Casey Jones and he be
came famous upon the Southern Pa
cific. :
At 4:30 in the morning he was summoned
to duty,
He bade his wife a fond farewell and
mounted his locomotive
And subsequent developments proved that
he rode into the hereafter.
“KELLY.”
May I inquire {f any person here has seen
Mr. Kelly?
His name is spelled as it is pronounced.
Once more I inquire if any person has
seen him?
You would recognize him promptly by
his smiling countenance.
His hirsute adorment is a vivid carmine,
‘While his optics are of a cerulean tint.
I beg you to inform me if you have seen
Mr. Kelly
Who is a native of Ireland.
“RINGS ON MY FINGERS.”
Patrick Shea was shipwrecked upon a
+ desert isle;
The denizens of which grew to admire
him in a while
Because his disposition was most friendly,
to them all;
And soon he was the center of the coro
nation ball.
His nostalgia soon ceased and- he took
his pen in hand
And sent a joyful missive to those in his
native land:
‘“My fingers are jeweled, and my royal
feet '
Bear anklets of bells which their tinkles
repeat.
Please come for a visit—though ’tis quite
away.
Yours truly, King M. M. Jijiboo J. Shea.”
“WHO ARE YOU WITH TONIGHT?”
Kindly inform me who accompanies you
this evening.
Who is the extremely attractive person
who gives you such delight?
Am I correct in presuming it is your sis
ter? :
Tomorrow morning will you divulge the
identity of the person with whom
you are this evening
Roosterology.
A good many people are asking how
to keep a rooster from crowing. It
seems that they resent being awak
ened at the first blush of dawn by the
gay chanticleer. They open their eyes
and grab a pad of paper and a foun
tain pen and write to the editor. So
many people think editors have noth
ing to do but right their wrongs.
The average person conceives of an
editor as a man who has no other
function in life than to go to a rail
road officlal and threatem him with
condign punishment for smashing a
trunk on his line, or to step boldly
into public office and smite alleged
offenders. Now they are demanding
that editors go about making roosters
quit crowing at the dawn.
The ordinary editor ‘has other
things to do. For a penny a day you
cannot expect a high-browed intellect
ual giant to linger near a chicken
roost until the pale streaks in the sky
proclaim the coming day and then to
stand valiantly beside a buff cochin or
a plymouth rock bass singing rooster
and dissuade it from singing its matin
welcome, so to speak.
To our recollection and beliaf neith
er Horac# Greeley nor Charles A.
Dana, in all the years of their public
service, stood sentinel in a chicken
coop. They were ever ready and
anxious to right wrongs and to uplift
the downtrodden and to lighten the
loads of the weary, but our impression
is they would have asserted that they
would be eternally dodgasted if they
believed molding public thought in
cluded mufiling roosters.
It is too much to ask of a man who
has been all day or all night adjusting
the fate of nations and aiding or dis
arranging the futures of statesmen
that he come ahead of the milkman
and say harsh things and wuse firm
measures with a shanghai rooster
with two-inch spurs and a siren crow.
The way to keep a rooster from
crowing is to secure an old oak sturap,
about a foot in diameter. Upon this
place the rooster’s neck. Then apply
a sharp axe at the third cervical
vertabra.
e e R A e
| MACON, DUBLIN AND SAVANNAH
MILROAD COMPANY' i o
' LOCAL TIME TABLE.
- Effective July 2, 1911.
No.l§ N 0.20 Stations. N 0.19 N 0.17
AM. P.M. Lv. Ar. AM. P.M.
7:10 3:25 Macon 11:15 4:30
7:22 3:37 Swiftcreek 11:03 4:20
7:30 3:45 Drybranch 10:55 4:12
7:34 3:49 Atlantic 10:561 4:09
7:38 3:53 Pike's Peak 10:48 4:06
7:45 4:00 Fitzpatrick 10:42 4:00
7:50 4:04 Ripley 10:37 3:53
8:00 4:14 Jeff’sonville 10:27 3:42
8:10 4:23 Gallemore 10:15 = 3:30
8:20 -4:33 Danvilel 10:07 .3:22
8:256 4:38 Allentown 10:02 3:17
8:34 4:47 Montrose 9:53 3:08
8:44 4:57 Dudley 9:42 2:phß
8:50 5:03 Shewmake 9:36 2:52
8:556 5:09 Moore 9:29 2:45
9:10 5:25 ar v 9:156 2:30
Dublin
9:16. 5:80 1y ar 9:10 . 2:3%
9:17 5:32 SouMD&SJct 9:08 2:23
9:21 5:36 NorMD&SJct 9:04 2:19
9:31. 5:45 Catlin 8:54 2:09
9:40 b 5.54 Mintor 8:47 2:01
9:50 6:05 Rockledge 8:36 1:50
9:66 6:10 Orland 8:31 = 1:49
10:08 6:23 Soporton 8:19 1:33
10:19 6:34 Tarrytown 8:07 1:21
10:26 6:41 Kibbee 8:00 1:15
10:40 6:55 Vidalia 7:45 © 1:00
CONNECTIONS.
At Dublin with the Wrightsville and
Tennille and the Dublin and Soufh
western for Eastman and Tennille
and intermediate points.
At Macon iwth Southern railway
from and to Cincinnati, Chattanooga,
Rome, Birmingham, Atlanta and in
termediate points. Also the Central
of Georgia, G., S. & F. railway, Ma.
son and Birmingham railway and the
Georgia railroad. -
At Rockledge with the Millen and
Southwestern for Wadley and inter- -
mediate points.
At Vidalia with the Seaboard Air
Line for Savannah and intermediate
points, and with the Millen and South
western for Millen, Stillmore and in
termediate points.
J. A. STREYER, G. P. A,
Macon, Ga. :
Foley's
Laxative
Is Pleasant and Eflective
CURES
Constipation, Stomach and'
Liver Trouble,
by stimulating these organs end
restoring their natural action.
Is best for women and chil« é;_i
dren as ORINO does not gripe .
or nauseate. o fl
Poriable and Btationary
‘ AND BOILERS.
Baw, Lath and Shingle Mills Injectorsy
Pumps and fittings, Wood Baws, Bplit<
gers, Shafes, Pulleys, Beltiug, Gaso=
Mne Engines.
LARGE STOCK A?
Feundry, Machine and Bolier Werke
Supply Store.
AUGUBTA, GA.
Be s e ee T e et et e S
Wakes Kidneys and Bladder Right
@
If it is worth
doing at all,
° 9
| it’s worth do
o) mgwelle s
A
a
- classwork
at all times is
our motto.
Let us figure
with you on
your next job.
