The weekly times-record. (Valley City, N.D.) 1912-1922, 1915-12-16

arguments in opposition and will say
make the county the unit, or the COM
mercial club, or the road club, per-
haps.
In Carthage, Mo-, they have what is
called "The 365 Day Road Club" 1t
has been a great factor in constructing
the road system around that city, due
wholly to the fact that the members
contributed IS per month, making
from $4,000 to $500 per year avail
able for real improvement, or that the
highway commission and state engin-
eer could not consistently control or
develop.
The conditions as they exist in
each locality, and the factors as sug,
gested, are the proper medium for ex,
tensive road Improvement. The facts.
however, do not bear it out. The
American method of curing social, po-
litical and economic evils is to pass
a law and join something. Following
this custom there is scarcely COM
munity in the United States in which
there has not been at some time or an
other a good roads club organized
These road clubs as an auxiliary are
fine in cooperating with the state and
county and insisting on continuous
and systematic work. and in Minnesota
they have been largely instrumental
in bringing about that sentiment, but
no road club, no matter how patriotic,
can take the place of thorough con,
tinuous service provided by law A,
times there has been criticism OF the
highway commission. Critics thought
there was too much responsibility
vested in the state engineer. Now
most people believe, and it is univer-
sally conceded, that any work of i'm
portance, if it is to be success, must
have responsible head. The trouble
with systems Of local control and local
construction and maintenance has
everywhere been that even where
piece of road was well built or we'll
maintained, there was no guarantee
that the next mile or road would not be
utterly bad and the usefulness of the
good piece almost wholly lost. Or a
township or county might do good
work and the adjoining towns or coun
ties destroy the full effect by a policy
of masterful inactivity or an even
worse policy of masterless activity,
and the principal reason why state
aid laws have been adopted lies in the
fact that only in this one manner has
any state found it possible to insure
the construction of a continuous mile
age of road of anything like the same
character and adequacy.
In order to produce this continuity
of improvements, no course has ap-
peared feasible except policy of
state aid under the direction of a
state road commission, and limited to
certain of the principal highways of
the state, and where state aid is not
a free gift or something for nothing.
Nor is it distributed alone by the state
There is we'll defined spirit Of CO.
operation between the counties and
state and the commission could not go
into the counties and arbitrarily spend
the counties money without the appro-
val Of the county commissioners. On
the other hand the county board could
not 90 ahead with this work without
the approval Of the highway commits
sion. At first, that was the criticism,
but this year, on account of a short
ened legislative appropriation for en-
gineers, the counties have been obliged
to employ the engineers themselves
and pay their expenses, and they have
done SO willingly.
The services of a trained superin-
tendent Of highways are now as much
a part of the local county government
as the auditor, in fact, are an adjunct
to his office in all that pertains to
roads and the proper keeping of road
records and accounts. There is no
friction between state or county and
so far not the slightest political breath
has arisen to disturb the serenity of
the organization.
Anoher important factor in spread
ing the state aid idea is the fact that
it causes incorporated cities and vii
lagos to pay a portion of the cost of
rural highways, consequently reducing
! the cost Of rural units of government
to point where they feel encouraged
to take up a better class Of construc-
ton on the most imr2!'tInt roads, the
result being that thecv reads are made
capable of serving adequately, not only
the rural population, but also the
cities and villages, who are Indirectly,
if not directly, interested in the condi-
tons of these principal arteries
through which they must draw their
rural trade.