GOVERNMENT COOPERATION IN OBJECT-LESSON ROAD WORK[5]
In a government having a composite nature like that of the United States
it is not always easy to determine just what share the General
Government, the state government, and the local government should
respectively take in carrying out highway work, though it is generally
admitted that there should be cooperation among them all.
In the early history of the Republic the National Government itself laid
out and partially completed a great national system of highways
connecting the East with the West, and the capital of the nation with
its then most distant possessions. Fourteen million dollars in all was
appropriated by acts of Congress to be devoted to this purpose, an
amount almost equal to that paid for the Louisiana Purchase. In other
words, it cost the government substantially as much to make that
territory accessible as to purchase it; and what is true of that
territory in its larger sense is also true in a small way of nearly
every tract of land that is opened up and used for the purposes of
civilization; that is to say, it will cost as much to build up, improve,
and maintain the roads of any given section of the country as the land
in its primitive condition is worth; and the same rule will apply in
most cases after the land value has advanced considerably beyond that of
its primitive condition. It is a general rule that the suitable
improvement of a highway within reasonable limitations will double the
value of the land adjacent to it. Seven million dollars, half of the
total sum appropriated by acts of Congress for the national road system,
was devoted to building the Cumberland Road from Cumberland, Maryland,
to St. Louis, Missouri, the most central point in the great Louisiana
Purchase, and seven hundred miles west of Cumberland. The total cost of
this great road was wholly paid out of the United States Treasury, and
though never fully completed on the western end, it is the longest
straight road ever built by any government. It passes through the
capitals of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and the cost per mile was,
approximately, ten thousand dollars. It furnishes the only important
instance the country has ever had of the General Government providing a
highway at its own expense. The plan, however, was never carried to
completion, and since its abandonment two generations ago, the people of
the different states have provided their own highways. For the most part
they have delegated their powers either to individuals, companies, or
corporations to build toll roads, or to the minor political subdivisions
and municipalities to build free roads.
With the passing of the toll-road system, the withdrawal of the General
Government from the field of actual road construction, and the various
state governments doing little or nothing, the only remaining active
agent occupying the entire great field is the local government in each
community; and while these various local governments have done and are
still doing the best they can under the circumstances, there is great
need that their efforts should be supplemented, their revenues enlarged,
and their skill in the art of road construction increased.
The skill of the local supervisor was sufficient in primitive times, so
long as his principal duties consisted in clearing the way of trees,
logs, stumps, and other obstructions, and shaping the earth of which the
roadbed was composed into a little better form than nature had left it;
and the resources at his command were sufficient so long as he was
authorized to call on every able-bodied male citizen between twenty-one
and forty-five years of age to do ten days' labor annually on the road,
especially when the only labor expected was that of dealing with the
material found on the spot. But with the changed conditions brought
about by the more advanced state of civilization, after the rights of
way have been cleared of their obstructions and the earth roads graded
into the form of turnpikes, it became necessary to harden their
surfaces with material which often must be brought from distant places.
In order to accomplish this, expert skill is required in the selection
of materials, money instead of labor is required to pay for the cost of
transportation, and machinery must be substituted for the hand processes
and primitive methods heretofore employed in order to crush the rock and
distribute it in the most economical manner on the roadbed. Skill and
machinery are also required to roll and consolidate the material so as
to form a smooth, hard surface and a homogeneous mass impervious to
water.
The local road officer now not only finds himself deficient in skill and
the proper kind of resources, but he discovers in many cases that the
number of persons subject to his call for road work has greatly
diminished. The great cities of the North have absorbed half of the
population in all the states north of the Ohio and east of the
Mississippi, and those living in these great cities are not subject to
the former duties of working the roads, nor do they pay any compensation
in money in lieu thereof. So the statute labor has not only become
unsuitable for the service to be performed, but it is, as stated,
greatly diminished. In the former generations substantially all the
people contributed to the construction of the highways under the statute
labor system, but at the present time not more than half the population
is subject to this service, and this, too, at a time when the need for
highway improvement is greatest.
While the former ways and means are inadequate or inapplicable to
present needs and conditions, there are other means more suitable for
the service, and existing in ample proportion for every need. The
tollgate-keeper cannot be called upon to restore the ancient system of
turnpikes and plank roads to be maintained by a tax upon vehicles
passing over them, but there can be provided a general fund in each
county sufficient to build up free roads better than the toll roads and
with a smaller burden of cost upon the people. The statute labor in the
rural districts cannot be depended upon, because it is unsuitable to the
service now required and spasmodic in its application, when it should be
perennial; but this statute labor can be commuted to a money tax, with
no hardships upon the citizens and with great benefit to the highway
system.
Former inhabitants of the abandoned farms or the deserted villages
cannot be followed to the great cities and the road tax which they
formerly paid be collected from them again to improve the country roads;
but it can be provided that all the property owners in every city, as
well as in every county, shall pay a money tax into a general fund,
which shall be devoted exclusively to the improvement of highways in the
rural districts. The state itself can maintain a general fund out of
which a portion of the cost of every principal highway in the state
shall be paid, and by so doing all the people of the state will
contribute to improving the highways, as they once did in the early
history of the nation, when substantially all the wealth and population
was distributed almost equally throughout the settled portions of the
country.
Having a general fund of money instead of statute labor, it would be
possible to introduce more scientific and more economical methods of
construction with cooperation. This cooperation, formerly applied with
good results to the primitive conditions, but which has been partially
lost by the diminution in the number and skill of the co-workers, would
be restored again in a great measure by drawing the money with which to
improve the roads out of a general fund to which all had contributed.
In many countries the army has been used to advantage in time of peace
in building up and maintaining the highways. There is no army in this
country for such a purpose, but there is an army of prisoners in every
state, whose labor is so directed, and has been so directed for
generations past, that it adds little or nothing to the common wealth.
The labor of these prisoners, properly applied and directed, would be of
great benefit and improvement to the highways, and would add greatly to
the national wealth, while at the same time it would lighten the
pressure of competition with free labor by withdrawing the prison labor
from the manufacture of commercial articles and applying it to work not
now performed, that is, the building of highways or preparing material
to be used therefor.
The General Government, having withdrawn from the field of road
construction in 1832, has since done little in that line until very
recently. Eight years ago Congress appropriated a small sum of money for
the purpose of instituting a sort of inquiry into the prevailing
condition of things pertaining to road matters. This appropriation has
been continued from year to year and increased during the last two years
with a view of cooperating to a limited extent with other efforts in
road construction.
The General Government can perform certain duties pertaining to
scientific road improvement better than any other agency. Scientific
facts ascertained at one time by the General Government will serve for
the enlightenment of the people of all the states, and with no more cost
than would be required for each single state to make the investigation
and ascertain the facts for itself.
With a view to securing scientific facts in reference to the value of
road-building materials, the Secretary of Agriculture has established at
Washington, D. C., a mechanical and chemical laboratory for testing such
material from all parts of the country. Professor L. W. Page, late of
Harvard University, is in charge of this laboratory, and has tested many
samples of rock without charge to those having the test made. There is,
however, no test equal to the actual application of the material to the
road itself.
With a view to making more extensive tests than could be done by
laboratory work alone, the Director of the Office of Public Road
Inquiries has, during the past two years, cooperated with the local
authorities in many different states in building short sections of
object-lesson roads. In this work it is intended not only to contribute
something by way of cooperation on the part of the General Government,
but also to secure cooperation on the part of as many different
interests connected with the road question as possible. The local
community having the road built is most largely interested, and is
expected to furnish the common labor and domestic material. The
railroad companies generally cooperate, because they are interested in
having better roads to and from their railroad stations. They therefore
contribute by transporting free or at very low rates the machinery and
such foreign material as is needed in the construction of the road. The
manufacturers of earth-handling and road-building machinery cooperate by
furnishing all needed machinery for the most economical construction of
the road, and in many cases prison labor is used in preparing material
which finally goes into the completed roadbed. The contribution which
the General Government makes in this scheme of cooperation is both
actually and relatively small, but it is by means of this limited
cooperation that it has been possible to produce a large number of
object-lesson roads in different states. These have proved very
beneficial, not only in showing the scientific side of the question, but
the economical side as well.
In the year 1900 object-lesson roads were built under the direction of
the Office of Public Road Inquiries near Port Huron, Saginaw, and
Traverse City, Michigan; Springfield, Illinois; and Topeka, Kansas.
Since that time the object-lesson roads so built have been extended and
duplicated by the local authorities without further aid from the
government. The people are so well pleased with the results of these
experiments that they are making preparations for additional extensions,
aggregating many miles.
During the year 1901 sample object-lesson roads were built on a larger
scale in cooperation with the Illinois Central, Lake Shore, and Southern
railroad companies, and the National Association for Good Roads in the
states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, New
York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, and Georgia. In all of
these cases the cooperation has been very hearty on the part of the
state, the county, and the municipality in which the work has been done,
and the results have been very satisfactory and beneficial.
Hon. A. H. Longino, governor of Mississippi, in his speech made at the
International Good Roads Congress at Buffalo, September 17, 1901, said:
"My friends, the importance of good roads seems to me to be
so apparent, so self-evident, that the discussion thereof is
but a discussion of truisms. Much as we appreciate
railroads, rivers, and canals as means for transportation of
the commerce of the country, they are, in my judgment, of
less importance to mankind, to the masses of the people, and
to all classes of people, than are good country roads.
"I live in a section of the country where that important
subject has found at the hands of the people apparently less
appreciation and less effort toward improvement than in many
others. In behalf of the Good Roads Association, headed by
Colonel Moore and Mr. Richardson, which recently met in the
state of Mississippi, I want to say that more interest has
been aroused by their efforts concerning this important
subject among the people there than perhaps ever existed
before in the history of the state. By their work,
demonstrating what could be done by the methods which they
employed, and by their agitation of the question, the
people have become aroused as they never were before; and
since their departure from the state a large number of
counties which were not already working under the contract
system have provided for public highways, worked by
contract, requiring the contractor to give a good and
sufficient bond, a bond broad enough in its provisions and
large enough in amount to compel faithful service; and
Mississippi is today starting out on a higher plane than
ever before."
FOOTNOTES:
[5] By Hon. Martin Dodge, Director of the Office of Public Road
Inquiries.