Evening star., 1921-09-18
SEEK ARMY TRACTORS
| FOR STATE ROAD WORK
Highway officials Will Urge Pass.
age Of Phipps Bill Transferring
Surplus Euuipment.

The executive committee of the Ma
tional Association Of State Highway
Omcials. representing all the states.
Is to meet here September 20.
It Is understood that road building
officials among the state highway de-
partments all over the country In
tend to appeal to members of the
Senate and House to pass the bill in
troduced by Senator Phipps of Colo
RADIO, which would turn over to the
states a quantity of road building
equipment in the possession of the
War Department
The bodybuilding equipment ordered
to be turned over to the states by the
War Department, under the Phipps
bill. consists of 1900 hve-ton cater
pillar tractors and 200 mobile ma
chine shop units. for repairing and
In road building. The War Depart
ment has on hand. left over from the
war. 1000 such tractors, alone. in
addition to many of the machine shop
units. 1t Is stated. The tractors are
valued vsa. at between $500 osa and a. 5000
it is said. the expenditure of this
amount Of money or a large part of
it In state taxes for road-building
machinery could be saved to the tax
payers OF the states il the Phipps bill
could be passed and and the War Depart. e. n.
states. Almost all of the states have
large road building programa In
only few Of them is It impossible to
work on the roads in the winter.
Many Of the state. are thSs Ss fsaaual
issue Of $50, ,o0o, 900, for that purpose.
and West Virginia and other states
are following a similar policy. it is
reported. This does not take into
a hVvI knRS< NJ
which there are about 5000 In the
United States, and does not embrace
the so-cailed "federal-aid'' roads.
which may be built partly with fed
eral and partly with state and county
The 1000 War Department tractors.
of which the states wan. l,5o0. are
admitted by many Army officers to
be on the road to obsolescence. and II
another war were to occur now 1t Ia
said that few. If any, of these trac-
tors on hand would be used. in view
by using the latest type tractor for
purely military purposes. The trac-
tors and machine shop units are
stored at Camp HolabIrd. Nd. out
side Of Baltimore: at the Erie Prov
ing Ground at Fort Clinton. Ohio; at
vannah Proving Ground; At Camp
Pike. Ark: at Fort Sill. Okla: at
Camp Jessup, Ga, and at Camp Nor
moyle. Tex.
State highway of,cials. governors
Of states, and others. hope to inter-
est Gen. Dawes. the director general
Of the budget. and Col. Smithers, the
chief co-ordinator Of the new general
supply system, which will dispose of
government property left over from
the war which Is not needed. They
expect to get Gen. Dawes and Col.
Smithers to use their influence to
have the War Department designate
as unnecessary surplus at least 1.500
Of the 1000 tractors on hand.
State highway officials have been
informed that because of one or two
ment turned over to states by the
War Department had been sold.
charges have been made that the
states have all sold equipment fur
nished by the War Department State
officials declare these charges unsub-
stantiated and easily disproven on
application to the federal bureau of
public roads in Washington:
This situation. 1t 10 said by high
way officials, is particularly empha-
sized in the case Of the state of Ne
braska The state now finds ii nec-
essary to have about 100 of the five
ton caterpillar tractors. Her citizens
are said to have bought liberty bonds
enough to pay for 100 still in the pos
session of the War Department, but
she cannot get them from the War
Department. even though they are
idle 1t is stated that all of the states
collectively, now have plans to buy
nearly 1000 similar tractors. in or
der to carry out their road building
programs and put their unemployed
labor to work.