The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1915-11-18

Chief Engineer A. r. Hirst Of the
Wisconsin State Highway Commission,
late Tuesday afternoon settled the con-
test as to who was boss on the high
way work in Kenosha county, when he
upheld the contention of County High
way Commissioner Herzog in regard to
the work on the Geneva road and Con
tractor George Wade has yielded grace
fully to the decision Of the state com.
mission and this morning the work on
the road is being resumed with the un-
derstanding that the culverts in ques-
tion are to be put in at once and that
all work is to be completed as it goes
along. The chief engineer of the state
department. wholly upheld the position
taken by the county highway commits
sioner, holding that his demand for the
completion OF work was entirely sensi-
bic and entirely in keeping with the
demands of the state in the building
of all of the roads. Mr.. Hirst declined
to entertain any of the suggestions of
the contractor in regard to finishing up
the road surface and the building of
culverts later and let it be understood
that if the contractor expected to be
paid for his work following state in
speeton he must follow the orders of
Mr.. Herzog. The inspector was put
back on the road this morning and
everything is now lovely and the County
highway commissioner is fully sus-
tanned as "boss" of the road work
in the county.
Mr.. Hirst considered the question be-
tween the contractor and the commits
sioner as elementary and it took him
only a couple of minutes to decide it
when the facts were laid before him.
The decision on the Geneva road was
only part of the work of Engineer
Hirst in Kenosha on Tuesday. He APP
peared before the afternoon session Of
the county board and spoke at length
on the question of state roads. He
gave a splendid explanation of the new
laws relating to road work, but even of
greater interest to the members of the
local board he discussed and discussed
intelligently the employment Of con
Wet labor on the roads.
"Only few counties have adopted
this plan for road building" said Mr..
First, "and only few counties may
adopt It. The state board Of control
seems to be of the opinion that the two
hundred honor men they have available
are going to build all the roads in Wis
consin, but there were seventy-fve
hundred men working on roads this
year and the convict labor will be only
drop in the bucket next year. The
convict labor was satisfactory on the
road between Chester and Waupun.
We found that we got just as much
work out Of these men as we could get
out of any free labor. An interesting
fact was that when we had thirty-fve
men at work on Saturday nights they
all returned to work on Monday morn
ing The convicts are well taken care
of by the state and they are glad of
the chance to work and work honestly.
/ believe that the camps maintained
for the convict laborers were superior
to the average road camps maintained
in Wisconsin.
Mr. Hirst gave considerable of his
time to the discussion of building of
the roads and declared that no county
could hope for the maximum success
from ojlinp unless If 1oroyidad for +bo
sweeping of the roads before the oil
was applied He held that the sweep
ing was paramount to securing the best
results of road oiling. He also urged
the county board to instruct the high.
way committee to use heavier grade
of oil in work done in another year.
He spoke of the ACCESSIBILITY Of the
purchase of motor truck for road
work and urged that this truck be put
into service late in the fall arnd early
in the spring as a repair outfit to take
care of holes in improved roads. He
suggested the possibility Of saving a
lot of the country road money by this
timely attention to breaks in the road
Mr.. Hirst declared that while the
present year had been the most unsatis.
factory in road building on account Of
weather conditions, that throughout the
entire state there had been a great i'm.
provement in the sentiment favorable
the state highways and that with fav.
orable conditions in 1916 the year