Newspapers / The Lincoln Times (Lincolnton, … / June 21, 1907, edition 1 / Page 1
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rMwjrti4a,'iiiMiiii i i save ritty Lents I f II V. lSKISIIIKil. I 81.00 on July 4th. the tirice of lliis will be .50 Per Ye&r. 7 TWICE A WEEK Hew to the Line. Let the Chios Fall as Ihey Man. $1 00 PER YEAR 5 CENTS PER COPY. , ' '' " " ' ' '' ''' " .Ml. I I II I. . 1. , . , . ,, . , . . ' .1 1 .,, Vol. 1. LINCOLNTON, N. C, FRIDAY, JUNE 21, 1907. No. 49. " " i . . .i -.. - i- i . "? THE BOND ISSUE. An Answer To "Beam" And "Argyle." Mr. Editor: Iu your issue of June the 18th, and in your issue of Jane the 14th, there appear articles written against the "bond issue" for good roads. The first of these articles (the one of June the 14th) is signed by Mr. C. W. Beam, and that of June 18th is signed by one who styles himself "'Fritz Argyle." It is to be re gretted that both of these writers seek to inject politics into this matter. One of them (Mr. Beam) says "that whenever the Demo cratic Party loads its gun all of the little suckers, in the county try to pull it off," and the other wri ter seeks to leave the impression . that this is a political movement gotten up by Jack Reinhardt I say that this is to be regretted, for it shows either a wilful effort to mislead the voters of the county and to arouse political prejudices to the injury of all, or else it shows suck gross ignorance of the subject in hand that these men should in form themselves a little better be fore they write for the benefit of others. The writer of this present article happens to agree with Mr. Beam in politics and yet I do not hesitate to say that iu my opinion every broad-minded and thinking man iu the county will uot hesitate to give this good cause (good roads) his support-at the ballot box re gardless of politics if he will but take the time and trouble to think over the matter seriously and in form himself. If one looks around him and sees certain men succeeding in business while others fail and that one should think of going into business for himself, would he follow the " methods of the man who "fails, " or would he follow the methods of the man who succeeds! The an swer to this question is too obvious to any man with ordinary sense. Apply the -principle to this ques tion of good roads. Learned men, men of the widest experience, men of national repute have made it their study for years and years and they one and all agree that one of the greatest blessings that '' can befall a community is to have voters within its bounds who have wisdom enough and foresight enough to vote for a bond issue for good roads. If we had no other guide we might safely follow the advice of such men. But Ave also have the practical experience of many men and many. .communities, on this line, and wherever we find "gqod - roads, " - that is modern, improved roads, graded and ma- , cadamized, we find well-to-do, in ,. telligeut people; people who are --much more- prosperous- thaaia those communities where the old, bad roads prevail.. Any one who disputes this fact will do so at the expense of being laughed at for his ignorance. Now, it makes very little "difference whether you say that the good roads were the result or the cause of the intelligence and prosperity of the communities through which they run; take it either way and it would seem that . good roads or intelligent and pros perous people are very desirable things to have. The most pro gressive and prosperous counties ' in our state are those which have good roads. ;. ; Youcan now go to the county of Mecklenburg or the county of Gas ton and find many people who vio lently opposed a bond issue for good roads before they became a fixture and who will now tell you that they cannot understand how they were ever so foolish as to do so. The two gentlemen who wrote the articles abo've referred to say that "they" (meaning those in fa vor of good roads) are boasting that it will raise the value of your lands. Of course. Why not! It i will not be an arbitrary raising of They would be very foolish in value but a natural and, healthy deed if they did not see, if expe- development. Do you object to the value of your corn, wheat and cotton being-raised? Y'etthat will be the practical result of good roads. With good roads a farmer can haul froni five to ten times as much' at a load as he can now, and ho can make from three to four times as many miles (or trips) in one day as he can now, Does it need argument to show that such a condition of affairs will be vastly to the interest of the .farmers! That goods roads are a great bless ing to a county does not even ad mit of an argument. : The only question is how is the best way do get them. Some of the opposers say that they would be for the bond issue if they -were sure the roads would be begun at their land, drat their gate, but' that if the good roads are to be started at Lincolnton they are opposed to it. Such a selfish and childish state ment is no argument at all. If the opponpnts of good roads have no better Arguments than this to offer and expect to defeat the bond issue by such statements they woefully underestimate the common sense and intelligence of the masses of Lincoln county. A farmer might as well say, "well, I know I need this ditch cut a mile long; I kuow that it will greatly benefit me, but since I cannot start it and finish it all along the line at once I will uot start it at all." He might as well say that because his cotton field was full of grass and 6 could not get it all out at one dig of his hoe he would not start anywhere, but just let the grass take his crop. Another so called argument (and this is one; that h Argle used in his article) is that if a man lives off from the main road he would not , be benefitted by this "good roads plan," or if he lived under a hill he. would not be benefitted, and that it is not just and fair to tax these men for a good road run ning by his neighbor's house. If any one will stop just a .moment and use the wits that God gave him he would see that there is ab solutely nothing in this argument (so-called), for if there is anything iu it then it will apply to any road whether it be a dirt, plank or rock road. And if you apply it to our present roads every man who lives a mile, or a half a mile from the "big" road would have a right to say, "you must not make me work that roadpyou must not make-mer1 pay any tax to keep that road up for it runs" by "John's houseand not by mine." Of course it is true that the inan who lives directly on the good road has some advantage over the man who lives far from it, t but that is so even as it now is. It is no argument against good roads. Even for the man who lives off from' the main road it is a good thing. Would he just as leave drive ten miles through the mud and over steep hills as to drive half a mile over such a road to a good road where he can make the rest of his journe' (nine miles and a half) in comfort and where he can make three times the speed he could make on the old road? Is it not a little remarkable that - -- ........ y ..,., ... if these bond issues are such bad things for Jthe, farmers that every where it has been tried that, is bonds issued and a few miles of good roads built the people (that is to say the farmers who consti tute the greater part of the people) instead of stopping a bad thing ac tually vote year by year to go on increasing the bond issues and building more roads and paying more taxes! ' Are the majority of tle voters of our sister counties of Mecklenburg and Gaston and other counties, fools to thus burden themselves! rience had not taught them that for every dollar they spent out in taxes they reaped a ten-fold har vest of dollars.-: .; i They would indeed be very un wise if they found out that a tax was burdensome and that their money was being, foolishly spent if they did not "stop the leak in the barrel'' befoie all was gone, but these people have found out by education and by actual expe rience that "for every pint that comes out at the spigot" through their "bond issues" "more than a gallon is poured in at the bung hole" through the increased pros perity of the people as a whole. Shall we of Lincoln county show ourselves to.be less wise and less far-seeing than those of our sister counties? What is good for them is good for us. AVhat benefits them will also help us. ' Of course you may find a few voters in these counties who still kick but it is self evident that these arc very far from, being a majority for it is a well selected fact that where the voter's pocket-book is hurt he will forget politics and church in his effort to remedy the injury. Again, shall we go on in Lincoln county in the future as we have in the past as to our public roads just because we have done so in the past? - If a farmer's father used a bull tongue plow and an old-fashioned cradle, must the son therefore meem it unwise to use a disc plow or to cut his wheat w ith' a binder! Must the farmer still have his wheat ground with an old-fashioned mill stone, or use a roller mill? Must we still use the old "Ground Hog" thrashing machine and wear the life out of our horses 'at the old time platform and lever horse power, just because we used to do so, or shall we use a steam engine and separator? Does the lumberman still insist on using the old up-and-down saw just "because it was used . sixty years' ago, or does he use a circular saw, or a band saw that will do five hundred times as much work in the same length of time? Does any sane man think that the farmers now use disc plows and mowing and binding machines just for the fun of the thing, or be cause it is fashionable! - Does any one think that we use the Separator instead of the "Grouud Hog," and the "Circular Saw11-instead-ot-the "Up-right Saw,?' just for the pleasure of wasting ". money 0nI)CW"fangled things? . Yet there were people, like Mr, Beam . and Mr. ."Argyle," who frownednipoimnd- fought thein-4 traduction of these modern ma chines just as these two gentlemen are now fighting the bond issue for good roads, and they used the very " same argument that these gentlemen use, viz: "The new ones cost too much money for the bene fit that would be gained." The civilized world has now found out that such an argument was utterly falacious and untrue as to these machines, now in gen eral use; and wherever bonds have been issued and good roads built the people have found out. that such argunieiits areequallyiutriie and misleading as to them. The people of North Brook township are known-to this writer. He is so near to them in so many things that he is one of, them as it were. He knows that many of them are poor and that many of them were once poorer than they are now. He knows that they are people who will not act hastily but will sit down and reason over this mat ter, and he knows that they more than any other people in the coun ty need these good roads. Fur thermore he knows that for every mile of good road built under this bond issue in North Brook town ship the North Brook people will have to pay only ten cents where the rest of the county pays ninety cents. North Brook' township pays but little more than ten per cent, of the whole taxes of the county while Lincolnton township pays nearly one half. (or. nearly fifty per cent) of the whole taxes of the county; so out of every dol lar spent upon good roads in North Brook, Lincolnton township will pay fifty cents and . the rest of the county outside of Lincolnton and North Brook -townships will pay forty cents, so that North Brook will have to pay only one-tenth the cost of building her roads. -.As it is now Lincoln county sinks five or six thousand dollars each year in' the. mud. She pays this money out year by year and gets absolutely nothing in return for it. Is it not good business judgment to put this money into interest on bonds and get some good roads for it, even if every by-way iu the county cannot be made into a ma cadamized high-way? Who can gain-say this? ' All things have to have begin nings, humanly speaking. Even our .voters are not born grown up men, twenty-one years of age. Shall we stop producing them just because they have to start as babies? Just so sure as Lincoln county is to hold her proud place among the counties of this State; just so sure as . she is to keep pace with the civilized world around her; just as sure as her citizens shall rank equal with any in intelligence and pros perity and patriotism, then just so su rely will these good roads come, Is there any better, more expedient or cheaper way to get them than by a bond issue? If so, the wisdom of all the other counties has not discovered it. Think of it! Just think of it, my friends, some of these unselfish men who are op posing this "good roads bond issue" say they do so because they have such a tender and unselfish love for otheas that they do not wish to put a tax upon those that come af ter us, and yet. these same unsel fish, patriotic men say they are going to vote against this bond is sue because good roads will benefit their . neighbors who live on. or near, the main highways more than it will those who live some distance off from the main roads. Do you really believe these men who op pose this bond issue are so very unselfish after all? ',''.. They are just the reverse, and like most very selfish men they are not -willing to be benefitted them selves for-feaisuiiuio) ceivc a fraction more benefit than they, : They talk about relieving pos terity of a burdensome tax. They seem to forget thatr they will be giving to posterity that which will add to the health, wealth and hap piness of this whole county years and scores of years after we are dead and gone. " Let these men take care that posterity does not live to curse them for their utter selfishness and short-sightedness. When posterity looks upon the steady advancement and prosperi ty of the world around them,' ouT side of Lincojn, county, do you think ihey will have any reason for lauding or loving the ancestors whose "penny-wise and pound foolish" policy condemned them to climb these red hills and wade knee-deep through mud for the rest of their days! . I have been told that, it is not popular to take the side that I have taken iu this article. I have been told that any man who is de pendant upon the public for a liv ing had better not advocate a bond issue for good roads. The writer of this article is dependant- for his living and for the living of his family, upon the public, mainly upon the people of this county, but while he is thus dependant upon the public he is not depen dant upon popularity for his'living, if he were,' he would have to change his politics. It is not a question of popularity. It is a question of right and .wrong as I view it. The greatest boon and the most precious blessing that was ever offered by God to the human race was not at all popular at first, for the Gospel of the "MaL of Sftrrows" was des pised and rejected, not only by them who were in political suprem acy (the Romans) but also by those who were politically on the losing. .side-(the Jews.) Let us then forget partizaii politics in this local matter so vital to us all; so vital to our, industrial and social life. Let us rise superior to selfish ends and vote for the greatest good to the-greatest number. Tax Paykk. The Girl Who Pays Her Way. "You probably have no concep tion of your importance as a unit. Few of us have," writes Margaret E. Sangstcr in Woman's Home Companion for July. "Yet socie ty is so coMStructed that we de pend on one another, and, with out quite -"understanding it, we constantly assist in molding the opinions and shaping the conduct of people whom we may never ap proach in our neighborhood. For instance, I knew intimately a young girl who was -born in a ten ement house on the East Side of New York, who scrambled tip as best she could through a meager and poverty-stricken childhood, working as a cash girl in a depart ment store when she was 14, and later earning her livelihood in a tobacco factory. Her work when she first became one of my girls was very hard and unwholesome. Her face was pale, her fingers were seined,- her hours we're long, and ner weekly wages, most of it giv en to her mother, was a sum that many girls in well-to-do families spend on candies and chiffons without a thought of economy.' But she had a dainty air, was fas tidiously neat, arranged her hair very prettily 'and was gentle and attractive in speech and manner. She had the sweet and refined air of a lady. : IIowto account for it would have-beeim- puzzle -had I known girls of only one condition ahd'trainingr I askodlio" ques tions, yet I found out without much trouble, what I wanted to know. My little friend was spend ingrn Sunday with-me and-she said incidentally, 'When I was a Fresh Air," the year I was ten, I saw a young girl who must have been fifteen. She was the loveli liest thing you could imagine She used to drive down the road past the farm where we were staying, and I knew she was going to the train to meet her father. Often she stopped with her mother and visited a little with us, and T made up my mind that I would be like that girl. I tried to talk as she did. I made her my pattern. Af terward," when I was a "cash," I sometimes saw her in the store, and oh! what a joy it Was wTiei'i at last she came to the Settlement and sang for us in the evenings. That girl has been my ideal.' " 'Did you ever tell her about it?' I asked. " 'I have never spoken a single word to her,' was the reply. 'I don't w,ant to. I like better to think of her as a star or a beauti ful flower. She belongs to me and I belong to her, aud if we w ere ac quainted maybe it wouldn't be so perfect.' " Hobbies And Happiness. If you want to be happy, get a hobby. It makes little difference what it is, poultry fancying', fine cattle of any breed, horses of any style, a particular kind of flower, or even cat raising, so only that you love your occupation and find pleasure in its pursuit.' The one idea man, the specialist, is he who obtains from life the most enjoy ment. Audubon following the wild turkey in Kentucky, sleep ing in the woods so as to observe the habits of birds, watching their nest-building from day to day, was a happier, '-man than Rockfel ler with his millions. John Bur roughs, in his cabin on the Hud son, listening to the woodpecker's tap and the squirrel's bark, finds an enjoyment more exquisite than falls to the lot of any king. Bur bank, with his floral experimenta tions, his endless efforts to pro duce or train new fruits and vege tables, is always busy in a pleas urable occupation, and that is the nearest approach to happiness that is to be found on earth. The happiest farmers ..arc those who devote themselves to special ties. Perhaps it is a herd of Herefords, perhaps a particular breed of sheep, or goats, or ponies, or mules. If his heart is set on his work, if he takes delight iir production and watches the devel opment of his animals as the result of selection and breeding, he will find a joy. not to be measured in money. It is the same with the gardener in search of a new or improved vegetable. The old alchemists, who spent their lives in a vain search for the "philoso pher's stone," though what we call cranks, were not unhappy inen..BThey at least had a hobby, and this they rode at all seasons, blissfully unconscious of the wor ries of the 'world. 'The great in ventions and discoveries have all come from hobby-riders. Only they have the concentration of mind, the intense self-conviction, the enthusiasm that produces big results. And they get intense enjoyment from their work, the enjoyment of pursuit, the enjoy ment of anticipation as well as the enjoyment that comes from self centered occupation. , Women, especially unmarried women, should by all means have a hobby. If it is a love, of flowers, how delightful the results. Better of course if the hobby leads to pro lit as well as pleasure, but - profit or no profit," have a- hobby Miss Helen Gould's Iwbby is the estab lish men t of institutions fo and while this gives her unalloyed pleasure, it confers happiness up on' thousand of others and these maid who cultivates cats forgets the disappointments of youth, the proposals she missed, and forgets to dwell on her sorrows and disap pointments because she is too busy looking after her tabbies and tom mies, Hobby-riding is especially valuable on the farm because there it is apt to do good not only to the hobbyist, but to the country at large. We are inclined to believe that no great success will come of poultry raising or any branch of the live stock industry unless the one in charge m akes 7 a V cr i table hobby of it. " One must be enam ored of his pursuit, must find genuine pleasure in his occupation or he will 'not succeed and certain ly will obtain from it no happi ness. American Farmer. Mr. Edgar Love lias been mak ing extensive improvements out at Horse Shoe Park. The baseball field has been nicely graded off, trees trimmed, and a comfortable grandstand erected. The park has also been enclosed with neat wire fencing. r
The Lincoln Times (Lincolnton, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
June 21, 1907, edition 1
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