The Muddy Season – An 1874 Request for Sidewalks in Brattleboro

I found this letter in an 1874 edition of the Phoenix, and it struck me as being somewhat familiar to contemporary opinion pieces.

This letter has it all – citizen concerns, a question of taxes, a call for protest if needed, and a request to do public improvements. Substitute any current town project for the sidewalks mentioned here and it could, with minor edits, be recycled and re-used in 2014.
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April 3, 1874, The Phoenix

Mr. Editor,

Will you permit me – an indignant citizen – to express through your columns what I believe to be the unanimous sentiment of this entire community upon the execrable condition of the sidewalks throughout the village? Except on a small portion of Main street, where good walks have been provided at private expense, there are not, in the muddy season, a dozen rods of suitable side walk in the whole village; and all through the late winter and this spring our citizens, of all ages and sexes, have been wading through slush and mud ankle deep, inwardly, and too often I fear audibly, cursing those who are responsible for this disgraceful state of things.

Why, sir, I venture the assertion that there is not another village in New England of its size – no, not one – that has such an abominable lack of decent accommodations in this respect as Brattleboro.

Why is this, and who is responsible for it? What becomes of the highway tax-money that is annually paid by the citizens of this village? Is the larger portion of it, as is asserted by some, expended, or squandered, in remote parts of the town, while our own streets and side-walks, at our very doors, are left in the condition described?

If this is the case, I for one earnestly protest against diverting another dollar of the taxes collected within our village limits to outside uses, until our own streets and sidewalks are suitably repaired; and I call upon all good citizens to join me in making this protest effective.

If this is not the case, and the taxes we pay are expended in our own vicinity, then no time should be lost in providing the means, in proper and legal manner, to make the needed improvements. At whatever cost, good and substantial side-walks, which may be passed over dry shod at all seasons of the year and in all weather, should be provided on all the principal streets of the village.

Let us take this matter in hand promptly and energetically, so that another muddy season shall not find us in the miserable plight from which the spring sun is just now beginning to extricate us. Mr. Editor, will you keep this subject before the people?

H.

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(Note that the paper allows this opinion piece to be signed by a single initial – H.)