Grand Rapids Herald-Review Newspaper, August 21, 1912, Page 5

Each sel Every Onea Speed Shell The speed that breaks your targets nearer the trap. That’s why Remington-UMC Steel Lined Shells have won 13 out of the 15 Handicaps held in the last three years. The speed that gets that mile-a-minute ‘‘duck’’ with a shorter lead—that’s why it takes over 50,000 dealers to handle the demand for Remington- UMC Steel Lined Shells. They know loose : The Shooting fraternity are speed wise. smokeless powder won’t drive shot. They know that the drive depends on the compression. The powder charge in Remington-UMC shells is gripped in steel. This lining is designed to give the exact compression necessary to send the load to the mark quickest. speed—the same speed in every shell. The steel lining is moisture proof—no dampness can get through. Jar proof—no powder can get out. Waste proof—no energy is lost. Shoot Remington-UMC Arrow and Nitro Club Stee! Lined Expert factory loaded shells for Speed plus Pattern in any make of shotgun It insures Remington Arms-Union Metallic Cartridge Co. 299 Broadway 6 New York City ‘SPECIAL SALE Of Children’s Undermusilns A lot of Children’s and Misses’ Undermuslins will % be put on sale this week at prices that will surprise you. Every garment substantially made and bears the sanitary label. In some cases will cost you less than the price of the laces and embroidery that trim them. Call and look them over. Boys’ Wash Suits $1.25, $1.50, $1.75 Suits in White, Tan and Tan and Blue. These garments are especially well made and just the thing for summer wear. A NEW SHIPMENT OF Ladies’ One-Piece Dresses Just Arrived. Call, Look Them Over _ |PIONEER STORE JOHN BECKFELT | GRAND RAPIDS, MINN. SPECIAL onver Buyers You can’t be blamed for getting the most you can for your money—but be sure you get it. Before you order a "mail order" separator write to the concern and tell them that you want to try their machine out against a De Laval, with the privi- lege of sending their machine back if you decide that the De Laval is better worth what we ask you for it than their machine what they ask. That's absolutely fair, isn’t it? We'll be glad to furnish you a De Laval for such a trial any time you like and let you be the judge. We are glad to make this offer because we know that the De Laval will give you better service and cost you less in the long run than any other machine you can buy, no matter SOONER OR LATER YOU WILL BUYA DE LAVAL ITASCA MERC. CO. GRAND RAPIDS Easiest to turn, easiest to wash, skims the cleanest lasts the longest Home Course Road Making V.—Basic Principles of Road Administration. 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 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 | pelicy of extreme localization prevail- | | ' THIS ROAD WAS LOCATED AND CONSTRUCT- ED BY A COMPETENT HIGHWAY ENGI- NEER. ed in all the states in the administra- tion of the public roads, and today this policy prevails in a great majority of the 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 weil as the final determination as to the pol- icy which shall be ee in carrying | | on the work. om Our road luws for the most part do | not 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 amazing, for skilled supervision is demanded in practically every line of work. To the | trained road builder it is evident that | no more prolific source of waste Can be found than in unskilled supervision. ! There are, including county and township Officials, at least a hundred thousand road officials in the United States. each exercising a practically independent authority. Can we ex- 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 carry on the work. When a building is to be erected a number of men, eacli skilled in his own craft, are employ- ed. One does not find that this man is employed because he needs 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, etc., { 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- liminary training and examination. Is it not surprising, therefore, that we are willing to intrust the expendi- ture of $140,000,000 annually in the building and care of our public roads, 80 essential to our welfare and even our happiness to 100,000 men, most of whom are selected without any regard whatever for their technical and prac- tical experience? In order to have skilled supervision the technical training and experience of the highway engineer are necessary. There is a popular idea prevailing in some sections that engineers are not essential to road improvement. This, however, is a very erroneous idea. An | engineer, by reason of his technical | knowledge, can secure the easiest grade for a roadway consistent with the traffic for which it is designed. By #etermining the drainage areas he is able to compute the proper size for culverts, he is 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- | tractor and is able to give impartial Justice to both. There is one element in American any other civilized country on | toad administration which is universe! | ly conceded to be the very acme of fr efficiency—namely, statute labor and the working out of property taxes. Men who work out their tax do it grudgingly because they think they are being imposed upon. They do it Doorly because it is a work which they know but little about. They render the least possible amount of service be- |gause 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 discipline, and it is obvious that discipline with such | impossible. Many of the states provide for work- jing out the property road tax, and this | has grown to be an even greater source |of weakness than statute labor, for in 1904 about $26,500,000 of the property | tax was paid in labor, or, in other words, was 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. They 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- ed. When all the roads of the country are classified according to traffic re- quirements it will result in the elimi- nation of many thousands of miles of totally unnecessary road and of many 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- lest number it will be necessary to im- prove only about one-fifth of the total 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 Stat ing through a transitory stage. We are striving not only to meet the new conditions of traffic with new forms of construction, but our various state legislatures are actively engaged in endeavoring to meet the demand for road improvement by the enactment of suitable legislation and by the appro- priation of the necessary funds. We have tried many expedients in the administration of our public roads, among them the toll road system, which | involves private control over a public utility, This is manifestly unsound in a public enterprise, and it is a source of gratification that the toll road sys- tem has been largely abandoned. Even in the states which have fol- lowed a progressive policy during the last few years most of the roads are still under local control. Year by year | we have been frittering away our mil- ‘fions thaintaining ‘the toads in their primitive condition until the yearly tribute of road taxes in the United States now amounts to over $140,000,- 000 and our petty road officials have |grown to an army more thgp 100,000 strong. The incompetence of a ‘large number of officials is more difficult to | remedy than the incompetence of a sin- | gle official. It is manifestly impossible | for a district or township with limited revenues to secure the assistance, ad- 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 THIS’ ROAD WAS REPAIRED UNDER THF STATUTE LABOR SYSTEM. |each of the smaller units. In the pur- chase of supplies and equipment 2 jlarge saving can be effected by cen- ' tralization, while in the reduction ot personne! and in standardization of methods and equipment still greater (economy results. It cannot fail to im- press every 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- |tion of road affairs is the state, al- {though excellent results have been ob- | tained under county systems where al) | the roads are placed under the jurisdic- | tion of a competent and skilled high- way engineer or superintendent. Our highway departments, both coun- jty and state, should be entirely free | |and away from political influences. | All road work should be placed in the | bands of trained and experienced road builders, and all road taxes should be | paid in cash. Road officials and care- | takers should have sufficient compensa- | tion to justify them in devoting their entire time and attention to the work. | Under such a system properly admin- istered it will be possible to secure a dollar’s worth of work for every dollar expended, which is certainly not the ease at the present time. except wherv this plan bas ready been adopted. an assemblage of workmen would be | Home Course Road Making Final Article. —Road Main- tenance and Repair. By LOGAN WALLER PAGE, Director Office of Public Roads, | United States Department of Agnculture. Copyright by American Press Asso- ciation, 1912. HERE is no phase of the subject of road improvement so impor- tant and which is so often neg- lected as that of maintenance. Roads may be constructed in a most | | scientific manner and out of the best materials available, but unless they are properly maintained they will soon- er or later go to pieces. On the other | hand, roads may be never so poor, but | with systematic repair and mainte- at all seasons of the year for ordinary | traffic. constructed that it did not need to be maintained. Even the tremendously most disappeared, largely for lack of maintenance. The terms maintenance and repair |are very frequently used as synonyms, | but there is a wide distinction between | these two operations. To maintain a |road means to keep it always in good | condition, while to repair it means to | |make it good only occasionally. In CARETAKER MAINTAINING A STATE HIGH- WAY IN CONNECTICUT. | other words, repair sets in after main- | tenance fails to keep the road in proper | condition. | No state or community has ever built |or kept in repair a system of first class }improved roads under the personal | service or labor tax system. In fact, this system is not applicable to any class of id construction or Mainte- jmance, iol éven to earth toads. Tts ‘principles are unsound, its operations | unjust, its practice wasteful, and the | results obtained under it are unsatis- ; factory in every pa cular. Undoubtedly the best system of main- tenance is that which provides for the |permanent employment of skilled la- borers or caretakers who may have charge of particular sections of road or who may be assigned to any part of | the county where the work is most needed. Men employed in this way be- | come experts in their particular line of | work, and if they make mistakes one | year they: are pretty apt to correct them the next; but. under the labor tax system, these mistakes are repeated | from time to time. If one man is em- | ployed to look after a particular stretch |of road or to do a particular class of | work he will soon learn to take pride and interest in his work. While it would be manifestly impos- sible to adopt this system throughout the entire country on account of limit- ed resources and sparse population, still it is believed that there are 1 places where it might be used great success. It would be difficult to find a county which is so poor that it could not afford to employ continuously | eight or ten laborers and three or four teams to maintain and repair its roads There are many counties, however. which could well afford to employ ten times such a force. That such a plan would be more effective than the labor tax system would appear to be self evident. Of all our roads the earth roads are | probably the most neglected. Experi- ence has shown that by proper main- tenance earth roads may be transform- | ed into something better than elongat- ed mudholes. The first and last com- mandment in the maintenance of earth roads is to keep the surface well drain ed. Water is the great enemy to our clay or soil roads and must be removed immediately or much mud and very bad roads are the result. To insure good drainage the ditches must be attended | to and obstructions removed and a smooth, raised crown of the road main- tained. For this purpose the split tog | \drag or some similar device is very useful and at the same time inex- pensive. The drag can be used on a sand-ciay or gravel road just as effec- tively as on an earth road. The following points should be borne in mind in dragging an earth, gravel or sand-clay road: The drag should be | Ught and should be hauled over the road at an angie of about forty-five de- grees in such a way that only a small | amount of earth is pushed to the cen- ter of the road. The driver should ride on the drag and never drive faster than a walk. The dragging should begin on the side of the road, or wheel track. nance they may be rendered passable | No road has ever been so well | massive roads of the Romans have al- | PACE Five returning on the opposite side. Unless the road is already iv good condition Ig should be dragged after every heavy rain, when the mud is in such condi- tion as to puddle well and still not ad- here too much to the drag. A few trips over the road will give the operator a clew as to the best time to drag. Drag at all seasons of the year, but do not drag a dry road. If a road is dragged immediately before a coid spell the foad will freeze smooth. | Always drag a little toward the cen- ter with the aim of keening the slope of the crown about an inch to the foot. | If the drag cuts too much shorten the hitch or change your position on the drag. The best results from dragging | are obtained only by repeated applica- | tions. A good system of dragging is that which is practiced in Kansas and Iowa, where road authorities are au- | thorized to let contracts to farmers for | dragging the roads abutting on their | lands. in the maintenance of hard roads, | such as gravel and macadam, different Methods must be pursued. The causes | of wear on hard roads are the we: jthe wheels of vehicles and hor es? | shoes. The weather acts to some ex- | tent directly on the materials, but to a | much greater degree indirectly. Frost is one of the most active of the destrue- tive agencies. The expansion and con- | @raction caused by frost sometimes lead to a general disintegration of the | surface. This is especially true where clay is used as a biuder and where the road surface is porous or the drainage | poor. When such a road thaws out | after a hard frost the macadam will | practically be a layer of loose stones, into which the traffic will cut, forming |ruts. Frost has but little if any effect on a dry, well kept road. Look after the drainage very careful- ly in the fall and be sure that the sur- face is as nearly waterproof as pos- sible, so that the road will go into the winter dry and not full of water. Vio- lent rains often wash out the binder and sometimes the smaller stones as well, leaving the surface both rough and porous. The amount of material lost from the road by this means is j often larger than the toll exacted by | traffic. The following hints may be found useful in the maintenance and repair of gravel and macadam roads: Never allow a rut or hole to remain jon the road, but fill it at once with | ehips from the stone heap. When the | road is built the contractor should be | required to place at least 100 tons of surface material and screenings at a | convenient place for each mile of road ; constructed. Always use chips for | patching and for all repairs during the stone on the road if a king and raking the sur. face can be kept in the proper condi- tion and cross section. The rake is the most useful tool used in road ; Maintenance. Large patches of stone should not be spread over the whole width of the road at one time. The bulk of all repairs should be made be- fore Christmas, so that the road will |go through the winter in good condi- tion. aiden, In moderately dary weather always. pick up the old surface into ridges six inches apart and remove all large and projecting stones before applying new material. “Never Apply stones more than one stone deep, but add a second layer when the first is worn in if one layer is not sufficient. Never crack stones on the road, for if you do a smooth surface will be out of the ques- tion. Never leave the stones in ridges. All large stones, blocks of wood and | other obstructions used for diverting traffic should be removed at nightfall, or the consequences may be serious. Never put a stone on the road for re pairing purposes that will not pass freely in every direction through a two inch ring. Smaller stones should be used for patching. Macadam’s advice was that no stone should be placed in a@ macadam road which the wor! could not get in his mouth. Traproc granite and other hard stone sh be broken finer for re the limestones and othe Use screenings if pos: together newly laid sweepings, horse drop other rubbish when used for pose will ruin the best road structed. Water worn or rounded stones r work t softer ro ble for bi erial CARETAKER WHO MAINTAINS FIVE MILES OF KOAD 1N ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PA. THERE ABE NINETY-FIVE IN THE COUNTY. | should not ve used for repairs, as they will not bind. Never allow dust or mud to lie on the surface of a mac- | adam or gravel road, for either of these } will increase the cost of maintenance. The middle of the road should al Ways be maintained a little higher than the sides so that the rains may run into the side gutters at once. Water tables, culverts, gutters and ditches should never be allowed to clog up. The caretaker or patrolman should al- Ways be on his road, particularly in ‘wet weather. and shofid fill up at once with fine stone or screenings any holes or ruts where the water may lie. —s 3