The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1920-03-10

The reaction from insertion of these
Emunifcient subsidies in the Federal
tax levy. is indicated by the situation
in New York. That state has had
1.-TWO bond issues, s50,000,000 each, for
road construction through a system Of
state aid TO counties. One wealthy
county declined to bear its share of
the cost and Therefore lacks the good
roads with which its neighbors are
favored. But this county has lately
resolved that there should be another
state bond issue for 100000 900 that
| 1t may get its share of paved roads.
| The new line OF reasoning by the
New York State Commissioner of
| Highways may indicate typical view
point. He is reported to have said
on August a. 1919; ''Of course it is
not conceivable that after the $4,000
miles of improved highways now call
ed for are completed that this great
state will stop building roads. 1t is
economically necessary for US to con-
tinue to meet all Federal aid appro-
priations, even if we. do no more No
one doubts that after 1921 there Will
be further Federal aid appropriations,
so we could not stop highway con
struction without losing our portion OF
this Federal money. In view of this.
| believe it is better to go to the PEG,
pie once for large bond issue than to
them from time to time for several
small ones
The wise propaganda on behalf of
la particular plan for futhering land
trllf nh Il L..
been conducted at large cost to tax
payers rs too recent to require de-
scription The land settlement bill
now pending in Congress is popularity
referred to as a plan for soldier set
Element, but it really has no special
relation to the returned soldiers ques.
ton. II is nothing more nor less than
an appropriation at once of 100000
600 to be spent in the United States
where and as the Secretary of
the Interior may wish for reclamation
projects and social experiments, the
act requiring neither Congressional
approval Of expenditures nor effective
report or audit.
The Federal aid" involved in this
bill is on basis of rs to 25. In adj |
vance of its enactment, model law |
has been recommended by Federal |
officials for state enactment and |
about half of the states have made |
appropriations continl hnt upon the
granting OF this Federal .hand-out.' |
Furthermore 1t is important to con. |
slider the relation of this munificent |
scheme to our twenty-year old reclaim
alton service which is fed by vicious
continuing appropriations. which has
never been the subject of an audit.
or even OF thorough report on re-
suits. 1t is alleged by a land nation
alist, who recently resigned his Fed
eral sinecure to head a Bolsheyist
that on one of the United
States reclamation projects of the
west $50 out of S9S settlers abandon
ed their purchases, and that such a
condition is the rule rather than the
many settlers being unable
to meet their instruments.
The state educational systems are
also the objects of $3.50 Federal
aid bill which the school teachers
are fayoring Is a Federal bureau
cracy so certain of efficiency, is the
ledcnerS union so SOUND IN the social
and political doctrines wirfch IT
breaches to the young that one politi-
cal appointee is to be allowed to
mould the plastic minds of the child
rem of the entire nation?
The argument of Charles II. Judd
in the Yale Review for nationalist
ton of education is based on frequent
local incomDefenre On the otha,
hand, as said by the N. Y Evening
Sun, salvation may well lie rather
In curing local troubles than in flying
10 the certain inepitudes of Federal
rule" resulting in dead lever of stan I
dardization. The samepaper prey i
iously had stated editorially that this
Federal aid project>is but further
step toward paternalism, in line with
the desire to hand everything over to