Ogden Standard-Examiner | 1920-04-11 | Page 24 | State Passes the Buck

oo STATE PASSES THE BUCK. When the Federal Aid Road Act was passed hy Congress in 1916, it was the hope of those vho favored this legislation legis-lation that it would resn't in the establishment estab-lishment in all of the states of effi-jclent effi-jclent highway department and that the states themselves would.be .enpr-Iglzed .enpr-Iglzed into taking an active part In' financing road construction and maintenance. main-tenance. ThiB is the observation of M. 0. -Eldridge, director of roads for the A. A. A writing in the current .number of American Mot-rist. I ! Continuing, Mr. Eldridge says: "Highway departments of one Kind and another have now bee established in all states, but unfortunately certain cer-tain commonwealths are providing little or no state money to meet F d-oral d-oral Aid dollars. In these states tho highway departments have bec:roo merely clearing houses through which the federal government carries on itfi road activities with teh various counties. coun-ties. "States which fail to provide ade-jquate ade-jquate state funds In a measure are ! falling to function ' as tsates. Thus ' their highway departments have become be-come merely paper organizations created cre-ated by legislative action in order to comply with tho letter of the Fedfrai. Aid law. Certainly If the federal government gov-ernment can appropriate money to them it follows theso states should In all fairness be willing to appropriate appro-priate stain money to help the po;rer jcoynties meet tplo federal hflp Jn-I Jn-I stead of 'papains the buck' to the rich IcountleB."