Belding banner. (Belding, Mich.) 1889-1918, 1917-02-21
Good Roads Department
Conducted Especially for the Banner by Hon. P.
T.. Colgrove, President of the Michigan
Good Roads Association.


however, Uncle Sam does not intend
to do blessed thing without the CO.
operation of the States. He stands
ready to take $75,000,000 from the
general fund in the next five years
wherewith to build good roads in the
States if the States will put up the
same amount for the building of good
within their own borders during the
same period. 1t is case of match
ing" highway money with the States.
The States that will not play the
game will not "share in the pot"
whatever that is. But neither Uncle
Sam nor any of his relatives would
be justified in any such undertaking
IL there were not ample security in
the law to maintain the work after it
has been done. This is why the dis
tribution and expenditure of the
money appropriated by Congress for
good roads have been placed in the
hands of the Secretary of Agricul-
ture and why he will depend in large
measure upon the efficiency and ex-
perience of the United States Office
of Good Roads and Rural Engineer
ing, which has evoluted out of the old
Office Of Road Inquiry, in justifying
Federal participation in the con-
struction of good roads. The Office
of Public Roads is under the direction
of Logan Waller Page, who has de-
voted his life to this work and who
was described in the course of re-
cent discussion in the Senate as "the
ablest road engineer in the world"
With his corps of competent engi-
neers, his accurate knowledge of the
conditions and necessities of traffic
in the country at large, he will be the
Secretary's right bower, so to say,
in this effort to euchre the elements
and the politicians. Thank Heaven!
there is no politics in the good roads
bill just passed by Congress.
Construction and maintenance
these are the twin elements in any
practical good roads undertaking; it
is worse than folly to build if the
building is not to be maintained. How
this can be done in the most effective
and practical way, how there can be
continuous maintenance of the public
roads is one of the problems now re-
ceiving the careful study of the Office
Of Public Roads, the experimental
road work done under its direction at
Washington and elsewhere affording
the opportunity of judging "the COM
parative economy" of several types
of road with reference to the traffic
handled. For the last six years the
Office of Good Roads has been con-
Quoting Investigations to determine
the economic results of road improve
ment on the prosperity and develop
ment of the country. 1t has also
been studying the methods of man.
agement, construction and mainten-
ance of roads under local control; but
it has found everywhere and in all
conditions that there must be a sys-
tenn of maintenance for all roads if
the work that is done in building is
to have anything like permanent
value. There is a very definite and
distinct difference between mainten-
ance and repair; filling up a few
holes in an improved highway is re-
pairing; keeping the whole road in
what may be called in the language
of the day "a state of preparedness"
by constant vigilance and intelligent
service is maintenance. The best
system of maintenance for all roads
is that which provides for the per-
manent and some times continuous
employment of skilled laborers who
have charge of particular sections of
road, or who may be assigned to any
part of the county or other road unit
where there is work needed" The
continuous maintenance system has
been adopted in this country only to
limited extent; but wherever it has
been adopted it demonstrated its
high economic value. 1t might not
be possible to maintain such a sys-
tenn in all parts of the country be-
cause of sparse population and limit
ed resources; but, as the Year Book
of the American Highway Associa-
ton says on this subject, cit would be
difficult to find a county which is so
poor that it could not afford to en-
ploy continuously eight or ten labor
ers and three or four teams to main
tain and repair its principal roads,
That would be far cheaper than the
labor tax system and it would be
vastly more practical than the hit or
miss policy which has distinguished
the work in the past.
The largest proportion Of the public
roads in the United States are the
earth roads and they are the most
neglected, inadequately drained, bad
ly placed often times. and generally
left to take care of themselves after
they have been constructed they are
constant and increasing expense to
the people they are designed to serve,
in socalled repairs, in their unfitness
Continued on Page Eight)