Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1921-07-15
FIGHT TOKEEP
HIGHWAY DEPT.
IS Counties Tell Com
mittee Work Is
O. K.

ATLANTA, July 15.-Declaring
that the state highway commission is
doing the greatest woork for the
good of the state of Georgia that has
ever been done for her and urging
that the commission be left alone to
continue in its good work, represen-
tatlvcs of the county comm ssiOnS of
35 Georgia counties appeared before
a joint session of the house commit
tees on highways and agriculture
Thursday afternoon to oppose the
bills that are now pending in the
house that propose to distribute the
automobile tax money among the
counties according to postroad mile
age.
Five bills were before the commit
tees. All propose to take the money
derVide from the sale of automobile
tags out of the hands of the state
highway commission distribute it
between the counties according to
post road mileage for the counties to
use on their roads as they see fit.
All of the county commissioners
appearing declared that any move
to prevent the highway commission
from having the right to supcrIntend
the spending of money on the roads
of the state would absolutely Iuin
the pdogram for great system of
state highways that the commission
has mapped out.
35 Countie sHeard.
Representative of the following
thirty-five counties stated that their
counties were absolutely satisfied
with the work of the commission AMI
urged that the bills be killed -
Brooks, Ebert, Barlow, Worth, Cow
eta, Fannin, Bibb, Pulaski, Baldwin,
Pickens, Early, Wilcox, Stephens,
Spaulding Wayne, Walton, Lumpkin,
Floyd Bullock, Jeff Davis, Upson,
Thomas, Mitchell, Laurens, Lowndes,
Cherokee, Mcintosh, Milton, Troup,
Clayton, Glynn, Liberty, Richmond,
Forsyth and Randolph.
Judge Kinds, of Milledgeville,
strongly opposed the attempt to take
the highway money out of the hands
of the commission. He declared,
eve are told that the highway COM
mission has a large overhead eXpendi-
ture but | am glad to hear that it
is large for only by paying good sal
aries can we get good men to do
our road work. If the overhead were
small we would of necessity have to
have poorly paid men on our road
ork and this would Of course result
in poor roads.
Attacking the system Of permit
ting the county commissioners to
expcnd the automiblc tax money
upon their roads he declared, pet
ty politics is prevalent among coun-
ty commissioners. They cannot get
results. They have not accomplished
results in the past and so why should
we now throw them millions OF dol
lars of state money for them to In
efficiently spend"
One Big State.
Going on he said, Eve are all one
big state. We have a highway COM
mission to improve the roads through
out the state We are not number
of counties and should not consider
ourselves a ssuch and have internal
dissention."
Representative Davis, of Ogle-
thorpe, urged that the tax money
be distributed among the counties by
passing the bills. He stated that the
motor vehicle bill was only passed
in 1919 with the distinct understand
ing that the tax would be distributed
among the counties according to post
road mileage and that this under
standing had not been lived up to. Il
demand that we be given our due
promises now and that the counties
of the state be given the money that
is due Them" he said.
He stated that about $3,OOe,0oo
has gone into theahands of the state