The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1912-01-18
SYSTEM TO BRING REFORM
State Roads Are Expected to Be Great
ly Improved by Operation of New
State Highway Tax System Effec-
tive in all Counties of the State.

ton IN Wisconsin can proceed tar with
out convincing the investigator of the
woeful waste Of money in the past on
roads of the state.
The accounting OF the old road sys-
tenn days was so inadequate that any
comparison of the cost of road build
| ing in different parts of the state is
almost wholly impossible. 1t is figured
that the people of the state have been
spending 100000 annually on their
roads for years, yet no one driving
over the average country road would
hesitate to declare that the greater
part of this vast sum had been vast
ed.
In the replies received by Prof. W.
o. Hotchkiss, state geologist, when he
was preparing his monograph on the
rural highways of Wisconsin, this
waste was estimated all the way from
so to 80 per cent. Of the total highway
tax, his average estimate being So per
cent.
The lowest and most conservative es-
innate of the annual loss to the far.
mers of the stale was more than ST..
100000. Most of this was waste due
to the fact that under the old township
system OF road building and mainte
nance the expenditure of road funds
was entrusted to men who had nc
training for their work and whose term
of Office was so short that the good
work done by one man was too often
undone by his successor.
Highway building requires high or,
der of skill. Such men as Macadam and
Telford made a worldwide reputation by
their road building and yet it is hard
to find a farmer who does not hold
himself capable of laying out and
building highway in his town.
1t was to overcome this lack of sys
TEN, to insure the securing of trained
road engineers and to provide for the
expenditure of this road fund of the
state on a business basis and some well
devised plan that the agitation was
started which resulted in passage OF
the constitutional amendment permit
ting Wisconsin to engage as state in
the improvement of it's highways and
which stimulated Frof. Hotchkiss, as
head of the highway division of the
state geological and natural history
survey, to conduct an educational cam
|paign which would insure the passage
by the legislature of good roads bill
That result has been accomplished
and Prof. Hotchkiss has yielded tht
work to other hands, satisfied that the
coming year will bear witness to the
value of the years of hard work put
into the good roads movement in Wis
consin.
The old road system of Wisconsin,
was fundamentally wrong in that there
was no public interest in the general
condition of highways.
The state was divided into small
road districts and the people of each
were too busy with their own problems
to profit by the experience of Others
or to emulate good example when it
was set before them. They proceeded
on the lines of the old adage that the
way in which the streets of Jerusalem
were kept open was by every man
sweeping in front of his own door and
they heaped gravel on their old roads
and turned weeds and sod in to give q
crown with cheerful disregard of the
outcome or Of what their neighbors
might be doing.
The plan of working out the road
taxes was also responsible for much OF
the waste. Every man wanted to work
where it suited him and the authority
of the road overseer, if not set al
naught completely, was little regarded
Road work was too often regarded as
an annual picnic and in other cases
work on the road was deferred until
the farmer had leisure from all
other duties.
Another thing which interfered ma
terially with good road work in Wis
consin or in any other state working
under the old system was the fact that
too much politics was mixed with the
dirt put on the roads, a very large mum
Der Of the 1000 replies to requests for
information sent out by Prof. Hotch
kiss indicating that politics and roads
were very intimately mixed.
The office of highway commissioner
with its opportunities for favoritism
was regarded as one of the strongest
means of working politics in the towr
and was too often given to the strong
est political worker for the man who
ruled the politics of the town.
But lack of care in maintenance was
responsible for most of the mileage OF
Ipoor roads in the state.
Poor drainage stands at the head OF
the causes of poor roads and the chief
Function of maintenance should be te