The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1910-06-29

and his remarks were so ably pre-
sented that The Forum publishes
them in full. His subject was Some
Hints from the Experience of, other
States, He said:
desire at the outset to remove or
prevent any incorrect impressions that
the title of my remarks might create
in your minds. I do not come with a
cut and dried plan or system copied
I'm detail or even in outline from any
state or states, pretending to believe
that 1t should be adopted by North
Dakota. / shall, therefore. only lay
before you few principles which ex-
perience elsewhere has uniformly
found to be fundamental, which in
spite of different local conditions are
and must be at the basis of all true
progress in the improving of wagon
roads. Perhaps no system, be it ever
so satisfactory at home, would be best
for us here. No sane man would Son
tend that North Dakota can or should
adopt bodily legislation of such char
acter without due regard to our pc
|culiar situation, without first consult
ing our financial condition, the vary
ing degrees of development attained
by different sections of our state, and
all the other factors that must be
reckoned with before any adequate or
appropriate plan can be devised
Running through the hedlam of
seemingly opposing provisions in the
laws of the states who have seriously
undertaken to improve their highways,
you find a recognition of the techni-
cal difficulties that lie at the root of
the problem. No state grants state
aid without much hesitation, and the
primary reason for this Is easily as
certained. 1t has been generally true
that up to within a few years, no state
has had an efficient administrative
system under which its road funds
have been expended. Therefore, as
one prerequisite to state aid, we find
in the methods of road building. Mr..
Wilson, secretary of agriculture and
labor, says that the one objection to
national aid in highway Improvement
is the want of competent and skilled
supervision of the work and of proper
administration. Similarly John F..
Stevens, formerly OF the Panama
canal, once said that while he would
not hesitate to build 1000 miles of
railroad, he would not and could not
undertake to build one mile of mod
ern highway. The statements of these
high authorities show that road build
ing is a science as well as an art not
comprehended in all its details by the
average man. It is, therefore, the
universal practice for the state not to
invest single dollar in highway inn
provement without also supervising
the work and seeing that the plans,
specifications and execution thereof
are of the highest order That the
state is justified In insisting upon ex-
pert supervision is clearly shown by
a hundred years of experimenting in
this country under the old hit and
miss methods and the present condi-
ton of our highways.
All Not Road Builders.
1t was once believed, and is so yet
in many quarters, that every person
was born with a perfect understand
ing of all the details of road building. |
1t is even possible that you will find
county commissioners in some parts
of North Dakota who are convinced
that they understand all about high
way construction, though these off, |
Gals as rule are exceedingly mod
est men. Thousands of dollars were
spent in building macadam, gravel or
other roads that should have been |
permanent, but which season or two |
saw completely ruined. The student, |
the scholar and the civil engineer |
proved beyond the peradventure of a |
doubt that SO long as the first essen |
tial of all road construction was ig- |
1ored, namely proper drainage, just |
so long would we have abominab1e |
roads and the taxpayers money would |
be wasted. Experiments were made |
and this theory still further estab- |
ished still further experiments were
made and it was discovered that to
drain a road properly and economi- |
cally under all sorts of conditions, in
nilly or nearly level country, required /
skill, experience apd study in all OF |
which the ordinary road oVerseer, as
we know him, was seriously lacking.
This was the situation confronting the
states, from the Atlantic to the Pa
,iffc,@ when agitation for state aid in
'oad construction was first made and |
upon this principle, that road build
ng is science as well as an art,
tests the step first taken, namely that
If providing efficient, skilled admins
rative machine to do the work in the
state and county. In short, then, re
nay lay this fact down as fundamen-
al and as a truth of universal .appli-
,ation, emphasized by experience in
his country as well as in the old
world, that before permanent road Inn
1rovement can be successfully made,
Ind state or county funds in aid
hereof properly expended, skilled SUI
oervision of the worksin all its steps
must be provided and well organized
administrative system, from the state
Town tc the smallest political unit,
Many States Give Aid.
AT the present time more than one
lalf of the states of the union pro-
tide state aid for the construction
md maintenance of roads. The usual +
,lan requires the county and its local
to bear a stated portion
II the expense of the work, while the
tate contributes, from a fund raised
or that purpose, either by a special
ak or by general appropriation, the
mount necessary to pay the balance.
n some instances. however. the state
rays all the cost. as is the case in
Ohio, Vermont, New York,
Colorado and New Mexico. Washing
on, Vermont and New York, how
'ver, also have plan whereby the !
tate pays half and the county half
Washington has stil another plan
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