WHY STATE AID FOR GOOD ROADS?
Brown, Edward E.
Why State Aid for Good Roads? "The Two Greatest Forces for the Advancement of Civilization are the School Master and Good Roads. "-—Charles Sumner By EDWARD E. BROWNE WISCONSIN "has 60,000 miles...
...The stimulus that will be given road improvement by road work being done in a scientific way under the supervision of skilled road builders in 900 different townships in the state, and the interest it will promote in all these localities will soon place Wisconsin among the foremost states in road improvement...
...State aid in Wisconsin has also had an influence in getting the towns and counties to abolish the old system of working out road taxes, and substituted in its place the cash payment of road taxes and with this a demand for a dollar's worth of road for every dollar paid in taxes...
...This means that eventually the township will only have to work the side roads or those leading to the main or trunk roads...
...at the other end is the city with its people waiting to be fed, with its merchants waiting for trade and its railways waiting for goods to transport To whoso advantage is it to have a road for the farmer to come to town...
...In order to pass a state aid road law in Wisconsin, we had to first amend our Constitution...
...The highest tax the public are paying is the mud or bad road tax...
...This will eventually mean the improvement of all main traveled roads in the state...
...The present Chairman of the Committee, Senator Hazelwood, is a Democrat and was appointed by a Republican Governor...
...we can lessen the cost of production very materially...
...Wisconsin, in establishing a state Highway Commission and giving state aid to roads and in her great educational system, recognizes the truth of what Charles Sumner said over half a century ago —"That the two greatest forces for the advancement of civilization are the school master and good roads...
...A Model System WISCONSIN'S state aid law is administered by an honorary commission, composed of five members, three of which are appointed by the Governor, and two, namely the Dean of the College of Engineering of the State University, and the State Geologist, are members of the Commission as ex-officio officers...
...State Aid is Justified ONE-THIRD of the cost of living is the cost of carrying the article produced to the consumer...
...Charles Sumner By EDWARD E. BROWNE WISCONSIN "has 60,000 miles of wagon roads...
...A Dollar's Worth for Every Dollar" THE county boards in the respective counties designate which shall be state aid roads and make a map of the same...
...This takes the highway department absolutely out of politics...
...When we consider that 3,000 miles of road will connect every city and village in this state of 2,000 Inhabitants or over, we can understand what 10,000 miles of permanent roads would mean to the people of this state...
...a change was at length effected, but not without much difficulty, for injustice and absurd taxation to which men are accustomed, is often borne more willingly than the more reasonable impost which is new...
...The principles of the law are quite similar to our state aid to schools...
...Forty-five out of the seventy-one counties in the state are now under the cash system while there was no entire county under the cash system prior to Che state aid law...
...The farmers and the farms are the great and abiding support oi the cities...
...Advancing Social Progress MANY states have made the mistake of constructing roads North and South and East and West through the state...
...The transportation problem is therefore one that the general public are interested in, and our national government annually appropriates large sums of money to facilitate and cheapen transportation...
...The counties under the law elect county highway commissioners...
...Good roads have a direct bearing upon the social, intellectual and economic welfare of the whole people...
...Macauley's History of England...
...Both the country and city districts feel this alike and in proportion to the character of their thoroughfares...
...The Commission is similar to a Board of Directors, have their monthly meetings, and oftener if required, elect a state highway engineer, who is given the power to appoint engineers under him, subject to the approval of the State Highway Commission...
...When any portion of a state aid road is accepted by the State Commission, the township has nothing further to do with that portion of the road and can turn its attention to its other roads...
...The state roads have to be maintained by the counties and unless they keep them in good repair, further state aid is with-held...
...Good roads point not only towards larger audiences but larger contributions and less donation parties...
...The whole food supply of the world passes annually over country roads...
...The members of the Highway Commission receive no compensation other than that their expenses are paid by the state while performing their duties...
...These have to be main traveled roads that lead to cities and villages and market places in the county and connect as well as may be with the state aid roads of adjoining counties, and their action is subject to the approval of the State Highway Commission...
...Heretofore, the farmer alone has been obliged to pay for the cost of the road to town...
...These free-holders have the right to specify what part of any state aid road in their township they wish the money to be expended upon...
...Wisconsin, after an agitation of a dozen years, has decided that the state and all its property should assist in building rural highways...
...land grants to railroads, appropriations for rivers and harbors by the general government have been justified for this reason...
...That the present rural highways in Wisconsin and in other states are wholly inadequate, no one can question...
...Those who deal in statistics claim that good roads everywhere would increase school attendance not less than 25 per cent...
...Preachers bear striking testimony as to the effect miserable roads have upon the attendance at the churches...
...The county is the unit for road construction and maintenance...
...Nor is it to be hoped that the horse will be employed to find his path along the treacherous road in order that the children may not miss their lessons...
...it has established a state highway department and is giving state aid in building rural highways...
...They can gauge it with accuracy and the percentage of decrease there is no less than in the schools...
...If there is a great and needless loss in the cost of transportation, every consumer shares this loss...
...With material as plentiful as it is in Wisconsin, we can easily build permanent macadam roads of a practical width, for $2,500 per mile, which will mean 1,000 miles of permanent roads per year for Wisconsin...
...To build and maintain these roads so as to meet the demands and requirements of our Twentieth Century civilization, is an enormous undertaking but one that will pay large dividends to the public The question is, who should stand this burden,—the farmer alone as he has in the past, or shall the city, state and nation assist in this great work...
...In ten years the state would have 10,000 miles of permanent highways besides the improved roads and towns and counties will build to connect with these trunk lines...
...There has been very little trouble in Wisconsin and comparatively no friction between the county boards and the State Highway Commission in the selection of state aid highways...
...After one year's trial of the state law, over 900 towns have asked in the aggregate for $820,000 from the state...
...Everybody's problem AT ONE END of every road is the farmer with his crop for sale...
...Thus they become a powerful agency for spiritual and educational growth.—From a recent report by James R. Marker, State Highway Commissioner of Ohio...
...Under Wisconsin's state aid law the first thought is to improve the roads to all market towns and second to have these roads connect with other main traveled roads of other counties...
...This innovation, however, excited many murmurs...
...It is not believed that the framers of our Constitution had in mind the state aiding in building wagon roads, but intended this as a prohibition to prevent other internal improvements such as many of the eastern states had engaged in...
...The initiative is taken by the towns raising a certan amount of money which compels the county and state to raise a similar amount If the township fails to take the initiative, any number of free-holders in the township can raise an amount of money and deposit it with the town treasurer, which will compel the township to raise an equal amount...
...The farmer could get along better without a road than city people and railways...
...It cannot be expected that children will be compelled to walk to school if a sea of mud furnishes the only footing and this is too frequently true in places outside the urban centers and often so in the latter...
...The first state aid that was given in the United States was about sixteen years ago when a New Jersey farmer by the name of Harrison made a protest to the townships making and maintaining all the roads, and New Jersey passed a state aid law...
...they would speedily starve while the farmer could get along fairly comfortably...
...Our state Constitution, like many of the state Constitutions, provided that the state should not engage in internal improvements...
...Every day our rural mail carriers in Wisconsin traverse over 40,000 miles of dirt roads before they return at night-fall...
...In England in the Seventeenth century, the boroughs, which answer to our townships, were bearing the whole expense of maintaining the country roads...
...The last Legislature appropriated $350,000 to state aid for roads...
...Decreased atten-dance during periods of inclement weather, when either to drive or walk imposes at the best a hardship and is often an impossibility over poor roads, cannot help but be the natural result...
...If this amount is appropriated by the state, the way it should be, if the state keeps faith with the towns and counties, it will mean the expenditure of two million four hundred thousand dollars in the making of permanent roads...
...Every parish was bound to repair the highway which passed through it...
...Macauley, in his history of England, says of the roads in 1685, "The highways appear to have been far worse than might have been expected from the degree of wealth and civilization which the nation had even then obtained...
...We can ship a ton of freight on our Great Lakes 2,000 miles for $1.25, and on our railroads on an average of 150 miles for $1.25, but on our wagon roads we can carry a ton of freight only 5 miles for $1.25...
...Every man's home faces on a road which connects with every other road and leads to every other boms throughout the whole land...
...the laboring man at his breakfast table in the city, who may be the ultimate consumer stands his share of it...
...The counties in the state by April, 1913, will own approximately $330,000 worth of the latest road machinery...
...If we can lessen the cost of wagon transportation 50 or more per cent...
...That a route connecting two great towns which have a large and thriving trade, should be maintained at the cost of the rural population scattered between them, is obviously unjust The injustice attracted the attention of Parliament and the act, the first of many turnpike acts, was passed...
...CHURCHES AND SCHOOLS, the two great agencies for the up-building of any citizenship are sufferers from the ills which come from thoroughfares of an inferior type...
...AH roads must be constructed under the supervision of the State Highway Commission and approved by them...
...Poor highways are a much more potent agency in keeping children at home than illness...
...The towns and counties each appropriated a like amount which, caused the expenditure of $1,005,000 on our State Aid roads, in the year 1912, 532 towns having applied for aid...
...There has been little improvement in the roads in Wisconsin in the last fifty years until comparatively a very recent date...
Vol. 5 • March 1913 • No. 9
