338 
Editorial Page of the American 
American 
Agriculturist 
Founded 1S42 
Henry Morgenthau, Jr. 
.Publisher 
E. R. Eastman . 
Editor 
Fred W. Ohm . 
Associate Editor 
Gabriellf. Elliot .... 
, Household Editor 
Birge Ktnne . 
. Advertising Manager 
E. C. Weatherby . 
. Circulation Manager 
CONTRIBUTING 
STAFF 
Jared Van Wagenen, Jr., G. T. 
Hughes, H. E. Babcock 
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Published Weekly by 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, INC. 
Address all correspondence for editorial, advertising, or subscription de¬ 
partments to , 
461 Fourth Ave., New York, N. Y. 
Entered as Second-Class Matter, December 15, 1922, at the Post Office 
at New York, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1879. 
Subscription price, payable in advance, $1 a year. ( anadian 
and foreign, $2 a year. 
VOL. 113 April 5, 1924 No. 14 
The Good Road Problem and the 
Farmer’s Taxes 
I N connection with our fight to reduce farm 
taxes, here is a question we want to talk over 
with you. The study that we are making shows 
that the largest, or almost the largest, item of tax 
for the State, the county and the town is spent for 
building or maintaining good roads. Now we 
want to be constructive. Good roads are neces¬ 
sary and no one needs them worse than the farm¬ 
ers. But the farmer needs other things, too, and 
if he is obliged to spend all of his money for taxes, 
a considerable portion of which goes for roads, 
what is he going to do for money to run his own 
business or to buy his wife a new. dress, or his 
family a little pleasure once in a while? 
Maybe we are wrong, but it seems to us that 
State, county and town officials are spending pub¬ 
lic money for improving roads, like drunken sailors, 
and the worst of it is, every farmer knows that 
much of this money has not been well spent. 
Even the ancient Romans used to build roads that 
lasted better than our modern ones do. Either our 
road builders simply do not know how to build 
roads, or else the money is deliberately misspent. 
In either case, the road is no sooner built than the 
great job of repairing has to lie started immedi¬ 
ately. The maintenance cost alone is already a 
staggering burden to the taxpayers of every State. 
There is another factor which every farmer has 
thought of as he has had opportunity to observe 
labor conditions when new roads are being built 
or repaired. The farmer knows that il there is any 
road-making taking place anywhere in his vicinity 
he can not get help at any reasonable price be¬ 
cause such high wages are paid for the road work. 
The taxpayer pays these high wages. Moreover, 
the State road-laborer does not return value re¬ 
ceived for the wages he gets. We have personally 
seen truck-drivers asleep on the seat ol the truck 
during working hours, while men were loading the 
truck so slowly that you could hardly see them 
move. We believe it a conservative statement 
that three workers laboring as hard as a farmer has 
to on his own farm, for instance, could do the work 
of from five to eight average laborers on improved 
highways. The fact that human nature is such 
that most men will not work as hard for a State 
or local government as they will lor themselves 
or for private employers is one of the chief reasons 
why government should stay out ol business and 
keep its activities as small as possible. 
Out of every hundred cents that New York 
State collects in taxes seventeen are spent for 
roads. We have already stated in these columns 
that the farmer’s greatest tax problem lies nearest 
to his home, particularly in his county. It is the 
heavy county and other local taxes that hit the 
farmer the hardest, and of this local tax burden, 
road-building is the chief cause. 
As an example of just what this means in dollars 
and cents, we will pick two counties at random in 
New York State. In 1917, one of these counties 
spent $22,492.42 for roads; in 1923, the same 
county spent $80,348.22. Another county spent 
for roads in 1917, $24,950; and in 1923, the same 
county spent $341,550! These examples are not 
exceptional. They indicate a situation to which 
every farmer should give attention. 
Now here is our thought, and we say again, 
maybe we are wrong. If so, we hope you will cor¬ 
rect us. Why not slow up this road-building busi¬ 
ness until better times? We all agree that taxes 
are ruinous, and we know that roads are one of the 
biggest tax items. All right, if this is so, we also 
know that “we can not eat our pie and have it, 
too.” Let us cut out the pie for a while until we 
can afford it, and have more money for the things 
which we need worse. Let us take good care of 
the roads that we already have, but let us demand 
of our officials in town, county and State, espe¬ 
cially in the county, that new road-building be 
held up for a while. 
American Agriculturist is trying to work out 
a practical tax-reduction program. To succeed, 
there are a number of different things which must 
be done. We are going to put these different sug¬ 
gestions before you, and if they meet with your 
approval, we will gather them altogether in a tax- 
reduction program. We will then take this pro¬ 
gram to public officials in all of the States in which 
we circulate and back up our demands by the peti¬ 
tions which are coming into our office by the 
hundreds every day, signed by farm people who are 
demanding a square deal through a reduction of 
farm taxes. 
Are we right or wrong about this road prob¬ 
lem? Let us hear from you. 
Help Us Help You 
I N an old volume of American Agriculturist 
published in 1845, we found the following: 
“WHAT THE FARMER CAN NOT AF¬ 
FORD TO DO WITHOUT. This is an agri¬ 
cultural journal. The moment he drops 
that, he may expect to fall behindhand.” 
For more than eighty years, American Agri¬ 
culturist has been a welcome visitor in thou¬ 
sands of American farm homes. For more than 
eighty years it has been fighting the farmers 
battles. In that time, reaching back to long 
before the Civil War, those battles for farmers’ 
rights have been many and long. 
But never in all those years has there been 
any one more important to the farmers’ 
future success and destiny than 1924 will be. 
We are standing still at the crossroads of agricul¬ 
tural progress. We are at the critical period when 
the forces put in motion by the World War are to 
be soon settled one way or another, settled for 
our weal or our woe. Farm prices are low, taxes 
and other expenses are ruinously high. What are 
we going to do about it? Shall we keep still or 
shall we make farm opinion count on the problems 
of FARM TAXES, THE SOLDIERS’ BONUS, 
TITE DISTRESSING MILK SITUATION, 
THE WHOLE PROBLEM OF FARM OR¬ 
GANIZATION, THE TUBERCULOSIS IN 
OUR DAIRY CATTLE? 
These and a hundred other problems vitally 
affecting the farmers’ interest and welfare will be 
handled constantly and without gloves in coming 
issues of American Agriculturist; and in 
accordance with our honorable history, they will 
be handled from the standpoint and welfare of 
farmers, and farmers alone. 
We hope you will follow these discussions 
closely, write us frequently, and help us continue 
American Agriculturist, April 5, 1924 
Agriculturist 
to make the paper a real help. If you are pleased 
with what we are trying to do, show your copy to 
your neighbors and help extend the service. 
M. C. Burritt Goes to Farming 
M R. M. C. BURRITT, who for several years 
has been connected with the extension 
work of the New York State College, left on April 
1st to operate his farm at Hilton, New York. 
He will be missed at the College, for few men 
have rendered more service to agriculture in this 
State than has Mr. Burritt. But in making the 
change, lie will have the best wishes of his thou-, 
sands of friends among New York State farmers. 
Encouragement for All of Us 
“I have been at the poultry work ten years, and 
find it. a good pastime, hobby, as well as a money maker. 
My flock of pure breed birds have paid their way and 
mine. 
“Speaking of pastimes—after being thrown from a 
horse, hurting my back and leaving a curvature of the 
spine as well as leaving me unable to do heavy work, 
the doctor advised me to stay in the open and try 
something of that kind. I have found pleasure and 
profit in the poultry work, putting both study and time 
at it. I will try to get our neighbors to sign the tax- 
reducing petition.” — H. F. B., Ohio. 
W E receive a great many letters in the 
course of the year like the fine one above, 
and every time we do, our faith in men and women 
and what they are able to accomplish in spite of 
handicaps, is renewed. 
Sometimes it seems to us that the good Lord 
purposely visits his children with adversity and 
trouble in order to develop their character and to 
spur them on to bring out the very best that is in 
them. Some of the greatest tasks of the world 
have been accomplished by men and women who 
were badly handicapped physically. 
If, in spite of their pain, they who are crippled 
or who have ill health can reach such heights of 
real success, how much more should we who are 
sound be able to accomplish? 
Eastman’s Chestnuts 
T HE following story was sent in by one of our 
friends from Delaware County. It is well 
able to speak for itself without any additional 
comment from me. 
“After reading your Eastman’s Chestnuts, I am 
sending you one that I doubt has very often been 
heard. Some twenty years ago while sitting around the 
stove at this very hotel the proprietor at that time told 
this one relative to the Civil \\ ar. As he was a veteran 
of the war, I believe it to be authentic. 
“A certain private of proud Irish distinction wanted 
a furlough. He had been bothering his Captain until 
the man became distracted. In order to rid himself of 
Pat the Captain placed the matter before the Colonel 
of the regiment. 
“Pat was sent for and asked why he wanted to go 
home. T have,’ says Pat, ‘received a letter. The 
wife and babies are sick, and shure me wife needs me. 
They are in great trouble, and shurely. Colonel, I'll 
get the furlough.’ 
‘“I need you, Pat.,’ says the Colonel, ‘I need every 
man. We are soon going into battle, and I’ll need 
every man here. But I ll think the matter over and 
give you a reply in a week.’ 
“The week came around quicker for the Colone 
than it. did for Pat, for, sorry to say, the Colonel had 
forgotten all about it. Not so Pat. At the end ol a 
week he called on his Colonel much to the latter s 
surprise and dismay. Arming himself the best he could, 
he prepared to meet Pat. 
“‘Now Pat,’ says lie, ‘I just received a letter from 
your wife. She says not to let you come home. She is 
afraid you will get drunk, hurt the babies, and beat her 
up. You are safer here, so you had better stay. 
“Pat with a twinkle in his eye looked at the Colonel. 
“‘Colonel,’ says he, ‘may I spake to ye?’ 
“‘You can,’ says the Colonel. 
“‘As man to man?’ says Pat. 
“‘You can,’says the Colonel. 
‘“I am a private. Ye are a Colonel. Will ye ioig<? 
that and not afterwards be holding it against me. 
Man to man. Colonel, as citizens, not soldiers?’ 
“‘I will,’ savs the Colonel. , 
“‘Well,’ says Pat, ‘we are two blithering liars. 
AM NOT A MARRIED MAN.’” 
