Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-07-28
CAUSE OF BAD ROADS.
Ex-Governor Beavers Sensible Words
on Highway Improvement.
ECONOMY In THE WRONG CHANNEL
The Present System Of Mud Workmanship
and Its Evil Results.
LEGISLATION THE NEEDED REMEDY

purse in order that he may share in the ben.
efits to be derived from the execution Of the
purpose. He surrenders the right to spend
his own money and to enjoy the results OF
this expenditure in order to spend the
money of other people as well as his own
and secure greater results.
The right to tax is based theoretically
upon the return to the taxpayer of more
and better results than he can secure by the
expenditure of his own money in his own
way; hence the argument for the contribu-
tion to the common fund. The purse is
usually easily filled by taxation. The pur-
pose is generally more or less clearly de-
fined and understood, but the income of the
purse and the outcome of the purpose are by
no means commensurate.
Between these two points there is, in or
binary municipal government a sad shortage.
In the ordinary application of the purse
to the purpose there is q sad failure, and
the contributor to the purse tails to receive
what is his due as citizen in the results
flowing from the attempt to execute the
purpose.
A Long Felt Want for Good Roads.
This is true of the revenue raised by taxa
tion for all specific objects in given muni-
cipalitv; it is especially true in regard to
the moneys raised for and the labor ex-
pended upon the ordinary public roads of
America.
There is undeniably a felt want in the
community for better public highways.
Nothing satisfactory has as yet been at
tanned. The main difficulty in the case is
perhaps to be found, not in the inherent de-
fects of present laws or in the inability of
Legislators to make better ones. but in the
Indifference of the general public. Unless
general interest can be awakened these re-
suits are not likely to be secured, and there
is little prospect of an improvement of pres
ent conditions.
1t is perhaps scarcely fair TO saw that there
is complete indifference upon the subject.
Most people are interested in securing
better condition of the common roads of the
country for their own convenience and
pleasure. But the disposition to antagonize
q forward movement in this respect, or to
retard an intelligent and comprehensive ad-
ministration of present laws, is based, per-
haps, upon the fear of the amount of money
necessary to be expended in securing, in
the first instance, thoroughly good road.
In all discussions of the subject this seems
to be the final resort of those who oppose
Improvements upon the present system.
The Taxation of Pennsylvania
Using Pennsylvania as an illustration,
because 1 am more familiar with the details
of management of its local municipal affairs,
we have in everv municipality three speci-
fc taxes-the school tax, the poor tax, and
the road tax. Few of the citizens of any
given municipality are directly interested
in the poor tax. Its imposition is based
upon the supposed duty of the community
to care for It's own citizens. Society is in
terested in securing the return of those who
are unfortunate and mere consumers of the
wealth of the community to self-support
and to the condition Of producers
We cheerfully pay the taxes levied for
the support of our schools. not because we
are personally or even directly interested in
the results, but because society in general
is interested in seeing that every member of
it is educated and fitted for an intelligent
and faithful discharge of the duties of citi-
zenship. In both of these cases we expend
large amounts of money for purposes other
than those which directly affect the classes
interested. We build our county homes,
our hospitals for the insane poor and for
those who are injured and unable to care
for themselves, at an immense expenditure
of money, that these increased comforts
may be secured at a less cost than can be
otherwise had.
Money Withheld From the Roads.
Out of the poor purse the MANY support
the few. Out of the school purse those
who have children and those who have not
alike make their contribution for the educa-
tion of the young. When we come to the
road purse, in the expenditure of which
everv member of society-voung and old,
male and female, stalwart and decrepit-is
personally interested, our policy and prac-
tice change entirely. We utterly refuse to
make such investments for substantial and
1ofs4 ,ola ant -
both poor and school funds. We are satis-
fed WITH. or, if not satisfied with,
endure, the system, or lack of
system, under which our forefathers
blazed their roads through the
primitive forests, and made their con-
tributon to their maintenance BY few
days' work in each year, which caused them
to be more impossible than they were the
year before.
the public road. At birth, at death, and at
all intermediate points during life it is
used, to greater or less degree, by or for
every individual member of tociety 1t
carries the doctor to the bedside of the sick,
the minister to administer consolation to
the dying. friends to the house of mourn
ing, and the dead to their graves
The Commercial Necessity of Roads.
1t brings purchaser and consumer to-
gether. 1t is the avenue alike of pleasure
and of traffic. The farmer seeking
mis- market, the commercial traveller look
ing for customers, the millionaire in search
OF enjoyment with his coach-and-four, the
wheelman in pursuit of health, the few
seeking pleasure or profit on wheels, and
the many in like pursuits on foot-all are
interested in the public roads
And yet, direct aud immediate as these
interests are, we are content to follow the
methods OF half a century or more ago, to
submit to inconvenience, to discomfort, and
TO the immense waste of money and patience;
not because we do not admit the advau-
tages of good road over bad one; not be-
cause we cannot see, in theory at least,
that solid, smooth, level road which al
lows the farmer to convey to market twice
as much with halt the power is adyan-
tageous to him; not because it can
not be clearly demonstrated that in the end
(because of the saving in annual repairs
and the saving of waste in vehicles, horse
flesh, harness, and the like) a good road is
cheaper than a poor one-tor all these
things are distinctly and fully admitted by
those who have given careful study to the
subject-but because prejudice, opposition
to change, and indifference control the
masses of our people and dictate the course
OF legislation.
Merely a Question of Common Sense.
In the discussion of the road question,
one of the most popular and oft-quoted re-
mark is that relating to the evidence of the
civilization of a country which its roads
exhibit. 1t is not question of civiliza-
tion, however 1t is a question of the SIM
plest, commonest, most practical business
sense. 1t reaches the everyday life of