Peninsula Enterprise, January 9, 1892

Parsons on Warren's Reply.

Transportation -- Road - Legislation

MR. EDITOR -- If my friend, Mr. L. D. Warren, had not misrepresented me I should not say one word in reply to his communication in your last issue. He asserted that I favored borrowing $50,000. This is a misstatement. I mentioned no sum, but I did favor borrowing such sum, on long time bonds, as would be required, to make out public roads good and then to create a sinking fund to pay off the bonds at maturity. Governor McKinney suggested the same idea, and Mr. Gillet favored it with slight modifications and named $25,000 as the probably sum. I think this sum would be ample if we use the best road making machinery, and certainly it would be a mere bagatelle to a great county like Accomac, and if its payment were extended over a period of years it would never be felt. Certainly on this point I am in company with prudent, cautious, level-headed men, and I am not at all alarmed by the woeful forebodings and pathetic appeal of my friend Warren "to let this cup pass" -- even if he does think its dregs are so bitter. I see nothing alarming in it. All progressive communities borrow money. The great volume of the business of the world is done on credit.

Again, Mr. Warren misrepresents me, by saying, I do not want the poor man to bear any part of the public burden. He knows I advocated a capitation tax of 50 cents to help keep the roads in repair and there is already a capitation tax of $1.50. Is this nothing? It may be little to my drummer friend, but it is considerable to a laboring man. Now what would 50 cents per capita yield in Accomac? I answer about $3,500. Ten cents on the $100 property tax would yield, say, $5,500, and about that sum is now expended on our roads. These sums added together would make about $14,500 -- more in my opinion than would be necessary to keep out roads in good condition with improved machinery. The surplus (which ought to be $2,500) could go into the sinking fund to pay off the bonds. This plan may seem wild to friend Warren, but in my opinion, it isn't half so wild as his pet Keller panacea, for delinquent road hand and laziness. Indeed, I think this wonderful panacea was born in the wrong country. If it had been born on the banks of the Neva, the Czar would have fallen down and worshipped it. This creature just suits the genius of his government. On another point, my friend seems greatly bewildered. I threw a text of Scripture at his great panacea, just as David threw the stone at Goliath, and lo! behold, friend Warren mistook that text, Exodus V -- 18, for "Egyptian brickyard." Terrible mistake. Well he charges me with making him "odious" to the laboring class. I didn't do it. His great invention is the odious thing.

Again, he thinks I want office -- no, my friend, I want no office. I was elected to the Legislature in 1876 and got all the glory I want in that line. I do not flatter the poor laborer but I want him to have justice and to feel contented, and that his interests are as well protected here as anywhere he can go. We want him to stay with us. On his strong muscular arms depends our prosperity. There is a right way and a wrong way to do everything. The right way to build public works of every kind, roads included, is for the State or municipality to go into to the market and hire its labor, just as private individuals do. No government has the right to compel the service of its citizens, except for public defense, or in the enforcement of its laws. To do so is an unwarranted and undemocratic interference with individual liberty. The State can levy capitation or property taxes and hire its labor, thus preventing the friction, odium and harassment of compulsory labor -- always inefficient. But an increase of the capitation tax is obnoxious to the present constitution, and therefore the wisest plan is that suggested by Mr. Gillet to permit the road hands to commute by the prepayment of a very moderate tax before the commencement of the road year. My friend Warren was greatly confused on this point. He asserts that "two or four days labor on the roads is not too much to require out of 365." He don't allow for Sundays and bad days. But which does he mean "two or four?" He's bewildered. Four days each for the 7,000 road hands would be 28,000 days that labor would contribute annually towards keeping them in repair with good machinery. Two days labor with the privilege of commuting by the prepayment of one dollar is the ultimatum that should be exacted. A larger sum will cause dissatisfaction, (to that large element of our population) the oystermen and laboring poor who are far less interested in good public roads than the property holders.

J. D. PARSONS.