Bemidji Daily Pioneer Newspaper, March 22, 1912, Page 7

rond administration which is universal- Iy conceded to he the very acme of in- ed. When all the roads of the country of .','i‘uliliv:ltimx that the toll road sys. are classified according to traffic re- i number of officials is morve difficult to remedy than the incompetence of a sin- tion to justify them in devoting their L_ FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 1912, THE BEMIDJI DAILY PIONEER 7 | ——— — i \ -In " Road Making V.—Basic Principles of | Road Administration. i By LOGAN WALLER PAGE, Director Office of Public Roads, United States Department of Agriculture. Copyright by American Press Asso- ciation, 1912, HE roads of the United States are worse than the roads of any other civilized country on the face of the globe, and our . systems of road administration are for the most part extravagantly wasteful and totally inefficient and inadequate. Until within the past few years the policy of extreme localization prevail THIS ROAD WAS LOCATED AND CONSTRUCT- , ED BY A COMPETENT HIGHWAY ENGF NEER. ed in all the states in the administra- tion of the public roads, and today this . policy prevails in a great majority of !.he states. It places upon the county and in most cases upon the road dis- tricts or townships the entire burden of constructing and maintaining roads and leaves to it the initiative as well as the final determination as to the pol- lcy which shall be pursued in cartylng on the work. Our road laws for the most part do wot contemplate the necessity for skill- ed supervision in road work: hence most of the work is done under the direction of men who have no knowl- edge of road building and who have only a passing interest in-it. - This is a situation which is truly amarging, for akilled supervision is demanded in practically every line of work. To the trained road buildeér it is evident that mo more prolific source of waste can be found than in unskillea supervision. There are, including county and township officials, at least a bundred thousand road officials in the United States, each exercising a practically independent authority. Can we ex- L pect efficiency in an army in which all are officers and none Is the rank and file? In nearly every public or private en- terprise some measure of skill is re- quired of the men who are expected to earry on the work. When a building I8 to be erected a number of men, each skilled in his own craft. are employ- el One does not find that this man is employed hecause he nexds the mon- ey and that one because he is a good fellow and the other because he has political influence. but because he is a skilled carpenter. competent bricklay- er, a trained and capable painter, etec., e e grudgingly because they think they are being imposed upon. They do it poorly because it is a work which they know but little about. They render the least possible amount of service be- cause it seems to be the general un- derstanding that the object of the statute laborer should be to shirk work rather than to perform it. There is scarcely any attempt at diseipline, and it I1s obvions that discipline with such an assemblage of workmen would be impossible. Many of the states provide for work- ing out the property road tax, and this has grown to be an even greater source of weakness than statute labor, for in 1904 about ,500,000 of the property tax was paid in labor, or. in other ‘words, W practically wasted. Opposition on the part of ultra con- servatives to the general improvement of the public roads is frequently based on the belief that the advocates of road improvement contemplate sur- facing with hard material the entire 2,000,000 miles of earth road in the United States. 'Chey point to the fact that to macadamize 2,000,000 miles at $5,000 per mile would cost $10,000,000,- 000. That this is a mistaken view of the subject can be easily demonstrat- ness. more thousands of miles by relocation, straightening of curves and various other expedients. Careful investigations have been car- ried on in various parts of the country which prove that about 20 per cent of the roads accommodate about 90 per cent of the traffic, so that if the roads are to be improved in such a way as to do the greatest good to the great- est number it will be necessary to im- prove only about one-fifth of the totil mileage with stone and other hard ma- terials, leaving the rest to be taken care of as earth roads. The whole subject of road improve- ment in the United States is now ing through a trausitory stage. We are striving unot onlg to meet the new conditions of traflic with uew forms of comstruction. but our various sfafe legislatnres are actively engaged in endeavoring to meet the demand for road improvement by (he enactment of i suitable legislation and by the appro- | priation of the necessary funds. We have tried many expedic the administration of our public road among them the toll road system. involves private co utility. This a public enterpr still under local control. Year by year TRIS ROAD WAS EEPAIHED UNDER THE STATUTE EABUR SYSTEM. we have been Trittering away our mil- Hons maintaining the roads in their primitive condition until the yearly tribute of road taxes in the United States now amounts to over $140,000,- 000 and onr petty road officials have grown to an army more than 100,000 strong. 'The incompetence of a large in uul it is a < vice and supervision of a high grade engineer, whereas in a centralized sys- tem the cost is so widely distributed as to impose but a slight burden on each of the smaller units. In the pur- chase of . supplies and equipment a large saving can be effected by cen- tralization, while in. the reduction of personnel and in standardization of methods and equipment still greater economy results. It cannot fail to im- press eve thinking man that a sys- tem of extreme localization" will ‘mean an entirely unnecessary multitude of officials and irregular and ill directed road improvement. It is apparent that the smallest unit for effective control in the administra- tlon of road affairs is the state, al- though cxcellent results have been ob- tained under county systems where all the roads are placed under the jurisdic- tion of a’ competent and skilled high- [ with th ‘way engineer or superintendent. Our highway departments, both eoun- ty and state, should be entirely free and away from political influences. All road work should be placed in the hands of trained and experienced road dutl@ers, and al road taxes should be paid in cash. Road officlals and care- takers should have sufficient compensn- Best at Al Times It 1s the Big Department Store of Bemidji. of the masses. The Store That Serves You It 1s the store There 1s no season of the year when this store is not full of interesting things at interesting prices. A good store is known by its dealings. ‘We do not claim - perfection, but where mistakes occur we are anxious to rectify them. If you are a Troppman customer, be fair and expect fair- If you are dissatisfied, do not tell others--tell us. are at fault a remedy will be provided. What We Sell If we dollar’s worth of work for every, dollur expended, which s certainly not the case at the present time. except where this plan bas “.iready been adopted. Tubbs White Pine Cough Cure is pleasant to take. Soothes and satis- fies. City Drug Store. - PROPOSALS I'OR FRAME SCHOOL- HOUSE AND BRICK LAUNDRY. Department of the Interior, Office of {Indian_Affairs, Washington, D. C., Feb- ruary 13, 1912. Sealed proposals, plain- ly marked on the outside of the Seale¢ envelope: ‘‘Proposals for Frame School- house and Brick Laundry for the Leeck Lake Indian School, Minnesota,” 'and addressed to _the Comm!ssioner of I dian Affairs, Washington, D. C., will be received at the Indian Office until % o'clock p. m., April 8, 1912, for fur- nishing materials and labor for the erec- tion of a frame schoolhouse and brick laundry at the - Leech Lake Indiarn School, Minnesota, in strict accordanc e plans, . specifications -and i structions to -bidders, which may be-ex- amined at this office, ‘the offices of, the Supervisor of Construction, Denver, ‘Col- orado, the Improvement Bulletin, neapolis, Minn., the Pioneer, Bemidji Minn,, the News Tribune, Duluth, Minn., the U. S. Indian Warehouses at Chicago. I, St. Louis, Mo., and Omaha, Nebr.. The Builders and Traders Exchange a- St. Paul, Minn.,, and at the school. For further information apply to the Super- intendent of the Leech Lake Indiar School, Onigum, Minnesota. C. F. Hau- ke, Acting Commissioner. 0 tem has been largely abandoned. entire time and attention to the work ‘ Home Course efliciency—namely, statute labor and | quirements it will result in the elimi-| “gyen in the states which have fol- | gle official. It is manifestly impossible Under such a system properly admin the working out of property taxes. | nation of many thousands of miles of lowed a progressive policy during the | for a district or township with limited istered it will be possible to"secure a o Men who work out” their tax do it | totally unnecessary road and of many | last few years most of the roads ave | Fevenues to secure the assistance, ad- | i | 4 throughout the entire transaction. The civil service of the United States is made up of people selected after ex- amination. Our public schools are in charge of teachers who have been awarded certificates after proper pre- Hminary training and examination. Is it not surprising, therefore, that 4 ‘we are willing to intrust the expendi- ture of $140,000,000 annually in the , building and care of our public roads, ®o essential to our welfare and even ounr happiness to 100,000 men, most of whom are selected without any regard whatever for their technical and prae- | tical experience? In order to have skilled supervision =1 its entirety. Everything that an D r y GOOdS- up-to-date store may have. =m verything right up tothe Su lts and Coats minute at popular prices. Sh OeS==for both men and women. Perhaps no larger v stock in Northern Minnesota. Ch[ldren (3 Weanng Apparel This is truly the store for ““the little ones. We have however, is a very erroneous idea. An engineer, by reason of ‘histechnical knowledge, can secure the. easlest grade, for a roadway consistent with * the traffic for which it is designed. By. determining the drainage areas he is able to compute the proper size for culverts, he 1is. able to design the bridges to suit the needs of traffic, to estimate the quantities and cost of ma- terials, select proper road building ma- terials and prepare plans and estl- mates. Furthermore, he stands be- tween the community .and the con- . tmctor and is able to give impartial Justice to both. ‘There is one element in American ‘ the_technical training and experlence what you,as_k for. u of the highway engineer are necessary. b " [ There is a popular idea prevailing 1in ¥ . AR } fi : | ' mome-gsections that engineers are mot \ S Y gosentlal to road tmprovement. This, If'there’s anything you want in any of the A — aboye lines always remember that it can be bought here cheaper than elsewhere.