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Show more Important UST now there American before the public than question the general Improvement of the highways to the standard of twentieth century requirements. The volume of traffic over the public highways 1b equal to or that of all the railways. The food products of the world pass over these roads to reach the market Had rouds interfere with the regular distribution of these products, resulting In an erratic and Inconstant supply for a fixed and regular demand. Had roads have necessitated the practice of rushing the crops to market all In a heap; taking but two or three months instead of spreading this delivery over six to ten months. Scientifically, farm products should be moved from producer to consumer as they are needed for consumption, but the farmer will find the roads In the winter and spring bad and at times practically impassable, and for this very reason he hurries his grain to market as soon as harvested. This causes congestion on the railroads and works havoc In business conditions. The "moving of the crops" requires an enormous amount of money, and a general upheaval in financial centers every fall is the result of this sudden drain. The hurried disposition of the year's crop has necessitated the building of largo storage houses in the grain centers to care for it. In Chicago the storage charge is nine cents per bushel per year; the carrying capacity of the elevators of that city alone Is about 85,000,000 bushels, representing a storage charge of over 15,000,000 per year. The passing of the food supply Into the control of the grain kings means a loss to the farmer and an additional and unnecessary cost to the consumer. The general Improvement of the highways of the country Is vastly more Important to the people as a whole than the building of the Panama canal, the Improvement of the Inland waterways.or the irrigation of the semi arid lands of the west. Those who have traveled know that the roads throughout Europe are good; the same Is true of more forcibly how great Is the burden, of bad rota than anything else can possibly do. The Clear Lake earth road leading Into Sprlntf Illinois, showed an average traffic for four day.il March, 1906 of 65V4 vehicles per day. Over the mJ road in June and July the average was 389 vehicu? On the same days In Peoria, 60 miles away, under same weather conditions but over a hard road, all traffic for March was 166, and the average for June ai! July 153. Observations at Champaign over an earth nj showed the average for January, February and to be 63, as against 200 for September and October, ft count at Decatur over a gravel road wag March m April, 240; July and August, 278. Over au earth ru leading Into Sullivan, the count for January, Februan and March was 54; August and September, 316. While delivering an address upon good roadi, writer was once interrupted and asked if he oth favor taxing the widows cottage to help bull tfc roads. He answered that lie certainly would, u annual tax would probably not exceed 10 or 15 emu and he gave the following Illustration of how bad A woman goes Into a grocery burden the people; store for a dozen eggs and a pound of butter. told the prices, she protests. The grocer In defrag says: "Well, you see, madam, the roads are so bad no very few farmers are coming to town, so butter nj She pays three cents more Is eggs are scarce." the eggs and four cents more for the butter, and thk seven cents represents her bad road tax paid that evening. This is repeated from time to time through out the year, not only in her case but In hundred! others In that town and In thousands of towny thro out the length and breadth of the land. There It s doubt that the woman In question would benefit throngh good roads by at least ten times the amount of the ta on her cottage. It wou'd be Interesting to take a concrete exampit of state aid, apply It to a typical farm la one of tk central western states and see exactly what state ti means so far as taxes upon that farm are concerted For the purpose of illustration, let us take an averagt farm of 160 acres In the corn belt of Illinois, andw wbat the effect upon the taxes on that farm would k if the state should undertake a very vigorous campilp Is no s i v I snzzz' -- IM' ? 4 iCy h!' iL, --XL E J? w V it it 7 k? tSOVTH 4 SC; !&& . DAKOTA 0AD && $ V :& -- V i V V i.V- v . 'a j A , h "MB 4T, ?v,-- "IMPROVE!? )ROAD NEAFL lARiCAWAJ ZAN , fi70 ,Crr, I r tk li Its Ta?.' n: 4, se. III i.; i r a v ; ! r' V, "!: i J - r . a 4 i.r ivJ' iVI X 'v- - '7: ?ht ' , - y v'. Vc V af $) n ?.' w v lsW; 4 rmr ryw'wawW'-v- :r rjj ?ci sens. u- Wlkjl T Z , c. I A BAD JSOAD IN 3- MICHIGAN Australia end New Zealand, countries newer than our ewn, less populous, and with nothing like our aggregate wealth. The fact that the rest of the world has good roads while we have bad ones'ls significant; it shows that the plan we have been pursuing has not been successful, la three hundred years less than eight per cent of the highways of our country have been permanently Improved and at the rate we are going It would require nearly four thousand years to complete tlio Job. So as roadbullders the people of the United States have been a failure. This Is all the more surprising when we consider that they are conspicuously successful in every other Millions upon millions of line of human endeavor. dollars have been wasted In every state In the union upon the public roads by 111 timed or misdirected effort and with really very little to show for the exIt is only within the last ten or fifteen penditure. years that any real progress has been made along the line of permanently Improving the conditions. The trouble is we have been endeavoring to untangle the enar! by pulling the wrong string. Without any reason for doing so, the farmers of the country, from Maine to California, from the very first assumed that the country roads belonged to them and it was their business to Improve them, and this misconception held sway for uearly 300 years. A few years ago a mao lu New Jersey made a discovery. It was that the highways are public property, as much so as the state house. This raised the question: "Why, If the highways are public property, should not the public take care of Its own; why should not the state and all property therein contribute to building the roads?" Everybody Is Interested In them, everybody Is affected through the markets by the road conditions; they ore benefited by good roads and Injured by bad ones. The new thought spread throughout the state and finally New Jersey led the way to better by passing a law by which the state should conthe money required to ImproVh the tribute roads. Other states followed. Increasing the proportion to one half and in one case, Massachusetts, to con-dltlo- one-thir- three-fourths- i"o - W . j. jp ' ,, wc , i WW. ; "WL ,s-- f t; jrt ;'V. , jt' - A 'SJ: " i Xj' v i 'ft v , -v "V v ' sum and then finally pay ofT the bonds will hardly be felt by the property owners of the Empire state owing to their Immense list of taxable property. Ohio, after 40 years of building roads by the old plan of local taxation and bond Issues, In which the farmer had to pay practically the whole bill, has passed a state aid law which will enable it to build three miles of improved roads where It has been building one, without any Increase whatever In taxation upon farm property. Virginia is the first southern state to Join the state aid column for good roads. Kentucky Is alive to the situation and is taking steps to change its constitution lu order to be In a position to spread the road tax over all the pioperty in the state. In certain parts of the country, notably In the Mississippi valley, there Is an entire misconception as to what the state aid plan of road building means. Some Imagine the state would take control of the highways, build expensive roads and tax the people to pay for them; dthers that It is a scheme to force road building against the wishes of the farmers. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The state does not in any manner, under a state aid law, interfere with the absolute local control of the highways. The voters of every township decide whether any roads shall be Improved, what roads, to what extent, when It shall be done, I! at all. The state has absolutely no voice In the matter. If, however, the township, by a majority vote, decides to build a road under the state aid plan, It makes application to the state for that purpose; the state engineer thereupon visits the locality, goes over the road proposed to be Improved with the local author Hies, and decides upon the character of the improvement best suited to the conditions. He then prepares plans and specifications and when these are approved by the highway commissioners or other properly constituted local authorities, the contract is let to the lowest responsible bidder and the work is then done under the supervision of the state engineer. This insures proper coustruction and that means durability and low cost to maintain the road afterward. . In many cases of the New England states farm property is only a very small portion of the total taxable property, In some cases not ton per cent., and when the cost of road Impiovetnent was distributed over all property of the etste, the burden was hardly felt, and yet nest Immense sume were raised for road purpose, of all, the roads were built under proper supervision, Instead of leaving It to the Inexperienced hands of the Joes', path master. Tt-years ago New York state began In n small way to aid and appropriated )50.000 to start the work. The plan grew In favor eo rapidly that within five years the state by sn overwhelming vote pasjed a constitutional amendment providing for an tssuo of 150,000,000 In bonds to help build the highways. What a record! In five years from fifty thousand to fifty millions! The rvesary to pay the Interest on this enormous -CJ -- VaTK a Under a state aid law not a rod of road could he built unless the residents of a township decided to do so. Not a dollar of state money could be expended unless the farmers who live in the rural township voted for improvements. If it should be alleged that state aid was a plan to compel railroads, corporations, merchants and manufacturers to help build the roads, It would not be far from the truth. Under state aid the farmers control the situation; if they decide to improve the roads the other people are obliged to help pay the bill. In order to build roads cheaply they should be built extensively. It costs a great deal more proportionately to build a half mile of road than It does to build ten half miles. No contractor cares for a small Job but for a large one competition is keen. It takes Just us much time and bother to get ready to build half a mile of road as it does to build ten miles, lly building In the latger quantities from 20 to 25 per cent. In cost of construction can ,be saved. As ronds properly built will last for a great many years they should be built as school houses and comt houses are built, viz: by a bond issue; thus a under state aid could build 10. 15 or 20 miles township ot roads In one year, have the roads to use, and spread the payment of the same over say 10 or 20 years. If this Is done and the state aid plan prevails, there will be very little. If any, Increase In taxation. Few people have any Idea to what extent bad roads Interfere with travel ami how they affect the business of the merchant In the country town. The Illinois highway commission has gutheted some very valuable data upon the effect or road and weather conditions upon highway traffic. Observations were made at 7" wen distributed points lu the state and an actual count was made by the vehicles passing upon different davs throughout each month of the year, covering nil kinds of weather and road conditions. The report shows that traffic over stone or gravel roads was fairly uniform throughout the year wh o U WU8 BUbJPCt tH ,he varla tlons. ThT T0'!" figures are significant and tetl The following table compiled from figures gathered by the eflncuitur.l department in 1904 ahowt the percentage of improved roadway. In each atatei 183 Nevada US Iowa Alabama W South C1 U 1 38 Dakota Kama New Hampshire Arlsona Tennessee 18 80 New Jersey Arkansas Kentucky ::::::::: .13 New Mexico ... California i-Colorado Connecticut lh'laware District of Columbia.. Florida Georgia Idaho Illinois Indiana ..........a....... . ..... , ., Maine Maryland Mueeacbuaetta Mlcblgnn Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska 1 10 SS 45,X 10.13 T X7 38 2.53 ,28 03 New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma ..... Oregon Pennsylvania .. Rhode Island .. South Carolina ::S 7 88 ll "fi Vermont Virginia ..33 ill "aahlngton ", 35 o. "'est Vliginla ..7 55 "'lnnsln 48 The United States state aid, one that contemplil an expenditure of the enormous sum of tj6.996.0t4k ten years enough money to Improve all the wk highways of the state, connect every community i the market town and county seat and give plete network of good roads from Galena to Cairo; tk the f plan being that the state should pay penae and the townships or road districts the otl If )50,000,000 were expended In ten year. 9 of It. The state would be required to Is In the stale property to the total assessed valmtl of 11.250,000,000. To raise $2,500,000 a year, or P 000,000 in ten years, would require a two mill I1 on this property; so a two-mil- l tax applied to H property of the state of Illinois at the present asses1 valuatloniand not taking Into account the possible k crease in value thereof) would produce the m qulred. The records show that the taxing value of average 160 acre farm In the corn belt of Illinois I little loss than $2,000, the actual value being IPP A two-mil- l mutely $10,000. Btate tax on this hr sessed on the value of $2,000 would be exactly H 9 y nr and no more, and in ten years the state w'ould be $10, which would be the farm's proportk the $23,000,000 total. Where this farm would pay vo8 one single corporation In the city of Chicago have to pay $370,000, another $190,000, and the 1,8 ways of the state over two millions of dollars. Thus see by a state levy of twomills for ten years, the $50,000,000 Is provided for. Tho other half c bo raised by local taxation or by a bond Issue. fM Let us assume that the In which the township In question Is located votes bonds to the full con tionnl limit, that la, goes Into dobt Just as far can go and pays the P highest Interest that the la mils It to pay. The limit of the bond Issue Is flvP cent, of tho assessed valuation, so the amount pf resting upon the farm would be five per cent of I8 or exactly $100, each year, with payable crest at five per cent. The total Interest on this ' Issue, so far as this farm Is concerned, for th years would bo $27.50. 100.00 Thus, if we add the bonds Interest on bunds 27. W . a t t And tho state tax of 49.04 of road building under one-hal- one--o- f one-tent- h We have a total tax on tho wh eh Is exactly the amount of farm of....$l MJ tho tax that would 'vied and collected upon this farm for both itat1 and to pay off the road bonds and Interest. Thle Wf about 10H cents per acre por year and tho charge against tho farm for the whole ten yea f( bo $1.05 per sere. This amount of money paid W arm under ihe state aid 0 plan would enable the 0 50.000.000 upon Its highways, and the pPnl pendlture of that sum would add to the value of property at least five and probably ton times oi ' "h1 ,reBp,ctlve fnnn would be taxed In order U 1(1 " " ..210 Wyoming ..43 28 A . 714 1 M fCoJ rtf hl.iM, l; Wrlif hi |