Show ROAD LABOR while we were on our back to the middle west recently we ve were forcibly impressed the immense amount of road construction work going on everywhere A very noticeable feature of this work was the fact that machinery rather than man power was being used it had been our understanding when congress appropriated emch huge sums of money for road work that the intention was to furnish employment to as many men as possible to help relieve the unemployment situation but evidently this purpose has been defeated by the contractors A more extensive use of men and teams would increase the consumption of hay grain foods of all kinds and would bring a great amount of money into circulation in the community where the work was being done take our clear creek road construction st for instance wa are reliably informed that only 25 23 to 30 men are employed now on a job that involves the expenditure of nearly then when the clearing work has been completed we are told that this force will vill be reduced about half how much will the use of 12 or 15 men help relieve unemployment local people who have protested such a situation receive the reply that modern modem times demand modern methods and that a return to the use of teams would mean increased cost it seems to us that the slight additional expense would he be justified if more men could be given jobs and more money put into circulation locally those in charge of this work should call for bids with the understanding that as much of the work as possible be done by teams and man power in some counties this plan is being insisted upon and is working out successfully right in our own state another thought that occurs to us along this line is that of using con convict conict labor on public construction work in times when there is not so much employ employment meriL our prisons are full to overflowing and the unrest in these places of detention has leached beached an alarming stage if these prisoners could be put to work in the open air they would not have time to brood over their lot and a small wage might be set aside for them to go to their dependents if they have any or if they have none it could be placed in an account to he be turned over to them when they are released so that they could start life over again with more confidence and not be tempted to go back to a life of crime laboring men would complain that these convicts were cheating them out of jobs but it is possible that the county state and national 9 government overn ment would be justified in helping support some of these idle men outside of prisons in order to keep convicts b busy ausy and thus render an inestimable service to society by giving these men a taste of what it means to actually earn a living honestly |