FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 45 



business to the extent of the individual transaction of carrying me, 

 he would also have charged me enough to have paid for the operation 

 of the railroad so far as this transaction was to be considered and 

 also enough to pay the taxes of the railroad company for that frac- 

 tion that this transaction was to the whole business of that company 

 in the State in a year. 



But as I could not get a train, I hired a rig and the owner of the liv- 

 ery stable charged me enough to pay a dividend on the money invested 

 in the livery business, enough to pay for the employes and enough to 

 pay his taxes in Brown City, that is that fraction of them that this in- 

 dividual transaction was of his whole business ; this included school tax, 

 his county tax, and his paving tax; and then this livery man and I, the 

 unconstitutional state highway commissioner, had the consummate gall 

 to ride to North Branch over twelve miles of road built by the farmers 

 and kept in repair by the farmers and to which he or I had never con- 

 tributed the first red cent. 



Now I would be glad to pay a good road tax of twenty-five cents on a 

 thousand. This would cost me on the house 1 live in the same amount 

 as it costs me to take my wife to Barnum's circus — one dollar a year, 

 and it wouldn't bankrupt me; this would raise the State something over 

 1400,000 a year ; about sixty per cent, of this would be raised on village 

 and city property and the balance upon farm property ; the money would 

 all be expended in improving the roads in the country ; the money as well 

 as the road would be left in the country, for the labor would be hired 

 there ; this, would have a tendency to stop the country boys from flocking 

 to the city and when the roads became good would allow the village and 

 city people to ride and enjoy the country scenery and get the pure ozone. 



There are some who contend that as the village and city pave their 

 own streets and permit the farmer to use them, that he ought to build 

 and improve his own roads ; if they were for him exclusively, I have no 

 doubt but what he would be willing to, but the roads are for all and all 

 should contribute; when the farmer uses the village or city street it is 

 for the purpose of selling his load on which the village or city buyer 

 sets a price as will permit of his paying his paving taxes, and when that 

 farmer gets his money for that load, he buys another load or part of 

 a load to haul home and on this load the village or city seller has set a 

 price and he has put his paving taxes into this also, and when he retains 

 the lawyer or settles with the doctor, they put in a paving charge and 

 they never forget to make it large enough ; even when he goes to the 

 hotel and eats the musk-melons that he sold for fifty cents a dozen they 

 put in a paving tax and charge him fifteen cents for a half of one. 



However, I have no complaint to make for I am a manufacturer and 

 when I sell the former something that I have made, I put in a paving tax 

 and a good one, too, but I am willing to give a little back and believe 

 that when state aid, and national aid is adopted and I surely believe 

 it is going to be, it will not only develop the rural district to the benefit 

 of the farmers, but I believe in that development all classes will be 

 benefited more than they could be by an equal expenditure, in any other 

 way, of a like amount of money. 



