Arizona republican., 1914-10-23

use any experience or judgment he
 may have in solving the problem pre- Isented. As a rule, the cities Tn (which the public improvements are | just beginning, present a very seri ous problem in their engineering
 features. There are many reasons for this, the principal one of which | IS the fact that the town or city l has, through d succession of years, since it's beginning, had for city en- gineer or city surveyor, a miscel- laneous assortment of men, some competent, some hopelessly incompe- tent, and as a rule none of them have preserved records or kept ac- curate data from which future work could be intelligently handled. Nun jicipal contractors are frequently criticized severely for the engineer ing features of their work. As above stated, they should be held blame- | less. There has been a noticeable ! improvement in the character of the average city engineer in the last ten years This is the result of the po- i sitions being held more and more each year by graduates of good 1 technica! institutions. Phoenix, in my judgment, was extremely forum ate, in that practically all of it's paV- | ing operations, until the recent change of administration, were en- gineered by MT. F. N. Holmquist, T graduate of the University of Illi- nois, one of the best engineering schools in the country. Property 1 owners and the public generally should not be too quick to censure the engineer for the engineering features of a paving job, such as i shape of intersections, crown of | roadway, size of culVertS, etc. He is 1 frequently handicapped by fixed
 conditions over which he has little,
 if any, control. As to culverts, for | instance. if they were to be made big enough to entirely take care of
 the water which falls in this country
 in heavy rain they would neces
 sarily have to be as wide as the
 street itself
 Before passing on to construction
 the remaining division of the subject
 would like to discuss briefly the frequently mentioned accusation of graft. Many people are of the opin ion that contractors, especially pav- 1 ing contractors, are necessarily
 grafters, and that their means of doing business is usually to brlbe
 city officials so that they may be
 favored in so far as it lies in the ability of the official to favor them.
 Years ago the paving business. as well as many other lines of corporate activity, was replete with fragrant evidences of graft and dishonesty, d. though even then there were notable exceptions. For a number of years the pitiless force of public condem- nation has been leveled at public and semi public service corporations. It ! has had it's effect and 1 am firmly of the opinion that the public and emi-public service corporations need far less today the scrutiny of the public than many private enterprises. It is perhaps a novel point of view
 to some of you to realize that the corporations in our line of business
 today are fighting earnestly against kraft which approaches them in many forms; seldom, nowadays. I am
 glad to say, from the public officials themselves; occasionally, however,
 from individuals who advance propo-
 sitions which the paving companies, leven in the heyday of their iniquity.
 would have blushed to suggest.
 There has been not a dollar spent
 Il any dishonest way in the paving
 business in Arizona since we came
 to this state. We challenge a sue
 cessful contradiction of this state
 ment.
 Pavements are primarily divided
 into two classes. The first class in
 cludes granite block, wood block,
 brick. sheet asphalt and bitulithic,
 They are known as standard pave
 ments, and when properly laid will
 carry traffic for many years and un-
 der practically all conditions. The
 second class of pavements includes
 many winch were, and are,
 being designed largely for the pur-
 pose of selling to a man who re- , fuses to pay the price for a standard
 pavement, or else has been convinced lIdl lne tO-De- prOl1lOltu dTllCle IS just as good' and at 'two-thirds
 the price, The pavements princ:- pally worthy of mention in this class
 are oil macadam, which if laid with
 exactness and carefully maintained,
 on a road of light traffic, will last
 9 number of years. Concrete has of
 recent years been laid to some eX . , tent throughout various sections of
 the country. It is really. however, in ' an experimental stage, as each year ) new specifications for it's construc- l tion are being adopted by the cement manufacturers association, who have 7 been active in the promotion of this l type of pavement in order that they ; might increase their cement sales. l They, themselves, however, do not : claim concrete to be suitable for city , pavement and urge it's use as a country road, where materials md ) conditions make it possible to lay is oheaply Needless to say such con- ditions do not obtain in this state and good concrete pavement can not be laid for less than about s15O per square yard. Its great rigidity 5 permits it to be cracked by the shat
 tering force of iron-tired vehiculal l traffic. When cracked it is almost r impossible of repair and starts te