"Pull Illinois out of the Mud": the sixty million dollar bond issue explained

              Pull Illinois out of the Mud
The Sixty Million Dollar Bond Issue Explained
By Thomas Sudduth

Treasurer Illinois Highway Improvement Association, and a Well Known Land Owner and Farmer of Sangamon County

Illinois Highway Improvement Association 1918

ALLIED PRINTING UNION LABEL TRADES COUNCIL CHICAGO 344



A Sixty Million Dollar State Bond Issue for Hard Roads
was authorized by the last Legislature, subject, however, to the approval of the people at a Referendum Election to be held in November, 1918.

No Taxes
will be levied to pay for any part thereof.
Automobile License Fees
will pay the entire cost.

A Benefit to All and a Hurt to None
for as every automobile owner knows, with his main travel over these hard roads, the cost of his license will be more than offset by his increased mileage from gasoline and tires.

License fees have been fixed by Law, as per Schedule hereinafter shown.  And it is probable that the average fee in 1920 and thereafter, will be about twelve dollars per car.



This Source of Revenue Will be Ample
In 1917, more than 344,000 cars paid license fees.  That number alone, in the twenty-five years over which the Bond Issue will be spread, will provide a fund of over One Hundred Million Dollars—far more than is necessary to pay off all the Bonds and Interest.

And that is saying nothing of the vast additional revenue to come from the fast increasing number of machines.  The increase in 1917 amounted to 92,000 machines.

And, roads or no roads, every automobile owner knows that he will have to pay his license fee anyway, therefore
A Magnificent 4800 Mile System of 365-Day Boulevards Built and Maintained by the State is to be had for the asking

Authorize these Bonds now, while we have the opportunity,
 and issue them after the war, and build the roads after the war when
Labor
and materials may be had without robbing the farms.  For history and experience teaches us that every great war is followed by a period of business depression when labor and materials are plentiful and cheap.  Such are preeminently the times for great public works.

Indeed, when this war closes, with a cessation of all those manifold industries which were called into existence thereby, and men are thrown out of employment and our soldiers return home, it may become necessary for the State to provide work for the unemployed.



Governor Lowden Says
I am willing to go upon record as saying that if the good roads bond issue is approved by the people next fall, I shall not attempt to market the bonds nor to begin this great work until the close of the war.

I wish to say, however, that I would consider it a calamity if this bond issue should fail to receive the approval of the voters next November.

In my judgment, the legislature has placed before the people an exceptionally well balanced system of State Highways, together with wise and adequate provision for issuing the bonds and constructing the roads.

If we fail to approve of their action, I believe it will be many years before we will again have the opportunity of securing such a system of highways on such advantageous terms, if at all.

I, therefore, urge your organization (The Illinois Highway Improvement Association) to carry your campaign of information into every County and Township in the State, and I pledge you my hearty support.

I think that in your campaign, particular emphasis should be placed upon the fact that the entire cost of this system of roads will be paid from automobile license fees, without calling for a dollar of direct taxation upon the lands, or any other property outside of motor vehicles.



This State Bond Issue road plan dovetails perfectly with the present State Aid Law (Tice Law) and the Federal Aid Law, neither supplanting nor interfering with either in any way.  And it offers to the people of this State the most perfect, the most business like and the fairest system of State Highways that has ever been devised, and one which, if adopted by us, is sure to be taken as a model for similar legislation in other states of the Mississippi valley.

It would be folly to lose sight of, or sidetrack this movement
 now, just because the public mind is distracted by war, for it is not an opportunity that may again be offered to the voters on short notice at some future time, for it has taken several years to pave the way for this opportunity that is offered at the polls next November.  And this plan and this forthcoming election represents the only way whereby people now in middle life may ever hope to see a great system of connected State Highways in their day.



Fair Warning
If this Bond Issue fails
You will be Taxed
If this Bond Issue fails, this automobile license money will be divided among the various Counties under the provisions of the well known Tice Law, one of whose provisions is that the Counties themselves, must raise a like amount of money each year by
Taxation
And at that, they will only get short, scattering stretches of road built each year.



You will want to Understand this
This forthcoming election is going to establish, once for all, one or the other of these two programs, to-wit:

Great System of Connected State Highways at Once Bonds No Taxation
or
Scattering, Short, Slow Construction No Bonds Taxation


Opposition to this Bond Issue fades away wherever and whenever the above facts are properly understood.

But this proper understanding, so much to be desired, is very far from being general at the present time, and the average voter seems wedded to the fallacy that the way to defeat increased taxation is to defeat these Bonds.

Moreover, whatever has been achieved in the way of advanced highway legislation in the last few years, represents the labor of a comparatively few persons, and that chiefly in legislative halls.

But it will have to be otherwise at this forthcoming Referendum Election next November, for there the masses will have to take a hand, for there a majority of all who vote for members of the Legislature, will also have to vote in favor of the Bond Issue, else the proposition will be lost.

It therefore behooves the friends of this Bond Issue, not only to understand all about it for themselves, but also to be able to explain the facts to others at every opportunity.  It will do you no good the day after the election, to wish that you had helped.  So begin now and help.  Talk it and explain it, and get others to do the same, and keep it up to the day of the election.



New Motor Law
The new motor law provides for the following rates to take effect January 1, 1918 and January 1, 1920.




1917
1918
1920


10 hp. and less
$3.00
$4.50
$6.00


25 hp. and more than 10
4.00
6.00
8.00


35 hp. and more than 25
6.00
9.00
12.00


50 hp. and more than 35
8.00
16.00
20.00


More than 50 hp
10.00
20.00
25.00


Motor bicycle
2.00
3.00
4.00


Electric vehicles to and including 2 tons
5.00
10.00
12.00


Electric vehicles over 2 tons
10.00
20.00
25.00






Pull Illinois out of the Mud
The Election
on the $60,000,000 Bond Issue will take place
November 5, 1918

Failure to vote on the proposition is equivalent to voting against it
Vote
Yes




Illinois Highway Improvement Association
Officers 1917-1918

PRESIDENT
William G. Edens, 125 West Monroe St., Chicago



VICE PRESIDENTS


Richard J. Finnegan
Chicago


John A. Logan
Elgin


C. A. Kiler
Champaign


W. F. Crosley
Cairo


Arthur R. Hall
Danville





TREASURER


Thomas Sudduth
Springfield





SECRETARY AND GENERAL COUNSEL
Robert W. Dunn 10 South La Salle St., Chicago



Executive Committee

Wm. G. Edens, Chicago
Samuel E. Bradt, DeKalb
Hon. Richard R. Meents Ashkum
J. W. Kirkton, Gridley
Hon. Homer J. Tice Greenview
Henry Paulman, Chicago
Richard J. Finnegan Chicago
Mrs. Frank O. Lowden, Springfield
Mrs. Richard J. Oglesby Elkhart
Mrs. Charles C. Craig Galesburg
Mrs. Jacob Baur Chicago



Honorary Vice Presidents


Ex-Governor Edward F. Dunne
Chicago


Dr. Edmund J. James
Urbana-Champaign


Lafayette Funk
Bloomington


Joseph Fulkerson
Jerseyville


James P. Wilson,
Polo


A. D. Gash,
Chicago





Directors

W. E. Hull, Peoria
L. H. Bissell, Effingham
Eugene Funk Bloomington
E. W. Hilker, Granite City
Fred W. Jencks, Elgin
Henry Paulman, Chicago
E. D. Landwehr Shermerville
Dr. W. E. Taylor, Moline
O. M. Jones, Danville
C. H. Way, East St. Louis
Col. E. A. Smith Morrison
W. P. Graham, Rochelle
F. W. Cushing Highland Park
H. G. Wright, DeKalb
August Geweke Des Plaines




bw Co





ILLINOIS STATE BOND ISSUE ROAD SYSTEM