FOURTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART I. 49 



vagrants and tramps that we are today having no law to regulate. Yon 

 have no law to put them on the rock pile, but you can put them on the 

 earth roads and you can run them out in gangs and you can force these 

 men to assist in building these roads, or drive them out of the Stale. 



The tramps and convicts of the penitentiary should be used in the 

 preparation of these roads. They have no right to come in contact witb 

 free labor. We want a law that is rigid enough to take these fellows 

 when they are standing around saloons and picking their teeth; that 

 a policeman can walk up and say, how do you earn your living? and 

 if he can not give a satisfactory explanation, let him assist in the con- 

 struction of roads. I will say now that I think within five years most 

 of the States will adopt some such law. Then we can take these pris- 

 oners and move them out in stockades, ten, fifteen and even forty miles. 

 You will be putting them on the public roads; in the cities you will be 

 cleaning your sewers and streets, and paving them, if necessary. 



I will take one thousand of your men that are penitentiary fellows 

 and you give me fifty guards; that is twenty men to a guard, and I will 

 build you a mile of road, sixteen feet wide, eight inches deep; I will 

 put on the gutters and ditches and will also put in drain pipe. "We 

 will say we have three hundred and thirteen working days in a year. 

 That means we will start in at Rock Island and we will build a road 

 across the State. In the northern climate it will cost about thirty-five 

 cents per head to feed and handle these fellows; it will cost about two 

 dollars for guards. You take one thousand fellows at thirty-five cents, 

 three hundred and fifty dollars a day, outside of your horses, mules and 

 machinery, and you are getting a mile of road for it that will cost you 

 two thousand dollars, or more, under the present system. 



I am looking at this from a business standpoint, not from a sympa- 

 thetical standpoint. It is a business proposition; we have got to meet it. 

 We have got to furnish work for these people, and we want to build 

 permanently, 



I understand your conditions. While I know you haven't stone or 

 gravel in many counties, I know you have clay. I know you can bum* 

 that clay and put it down. First grade up your roads. You can grade 

 up your roads for three hundred and fifty to seven hundred dollars a 

 mile. You can put in tile from two to four inches in diameter in all 

 the bad spots in Iowa at seven hundred dollars. If you haven't got 

 stone or gravel, you can turn clay, roll it up and put on your clay, and 

 in five years you can have hundreds of miles of the best roads you have 

 ever seen. After you do that you can put on one hundred and fifty 

 barrels of oil per mile, and after a second application you will have the 

 best roads you ever had; it will shed rain. We tried it over at Keokuk. 



On the 30th of March, this year, I was at Santa Barbara. It so 

 happened that Mr, Rockefeller was there, and I got to talking to him. 

 I asked him whether he remembered the oil he gave us. After thinking 

 the matter over a while, he says, yes, I do remember sending that oil. 

 I said, Mr. Rockefeller, it was by you sending us those two barrels of oil 

 that started the railroads to sprinkling their roads with oil. These 

 one hundred and fifty barrels will not cost you over two hundred and 

 fifty to three hundred dollars per mile. So if you have not stone or 

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