The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-08-26
INQUIRE INTO ROAD BUILDING

able demands in every particular
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 INQUIRE INTO ROAD BUILDING
 The state highway engineer has re- quested a legislative investigation of the highway department. That request is seconded by thousands of citizens. The engineers request >may be in spired by the desire for vindication. The peoples request is prompted by the desire to learn the facts regarding highway administration and to bring about reform and the application of business efficiency. The engineer seeks to disparage those who criticize the department by calling them dis gruntled," but let the legislature make no such mistake. There are thousands of citizens in Alabama who honestly believe and who have reason to believe that the great hope of this population for real state system of highways is being defeated. Let the legislature turn no deaf ear to the appeal for an inquiry such as will be searching and exhaustive.
 There is not so much disposition to question the letting of contracts and the character of roads constructed with the approval of federal engineers, as there is to look into the program of constructing highways in such dis united segments as add materially and prohibitively to the cost of mainte- nance and which utterly fail to make the real union between communities called for by the people in their ap- proval of the highway amendment It is believed that the large commits sion, earnest and sincere though it may be, has neither the mobility no.' the organization to follow the bust ness details of highway development as it should, nor to envision the high way program as a statewide rather than political affair. Some individuals on the commission are perhaps good business men, but the fact that they are chosen as to political districts and hampered by the inertia of numbers nullifies their usefulness. There is a measure providing for an able and efficient commission of three men, who shall devote their time to following every dollar of state funds through to it's final destination and to appraise the results in terms of public benefit There is reason to believe that the state is not getting half what it should of the dollars value.
 The time for the inquiry is growing short. The legislature has no time to lose, if it would act in this matter before it is too late to serve the pub lie good. By the time another legis- lature meets the funds may have been hopelessly committed and the highway program may have become hopelessly muddled. The engineer says that the facts are all in the records. The rec ords may be and doubtless are kept straight, but the public desire is to investigate the judgment with which the plans have been decided, and the added prohibitive maintenance costs which character of material and dis united and isolated construction en- tail. The people have voted for a state highway system, and the people do not believe that they are going to get such system as affairs are now be- ing administered. There are plenty of sources whence the legislature may obtain information pertinent and il- luminating. To confine the inquiry to interrogatories directed to members of the commission and the engineer, who declines to discuss the art of road construction" would be to defeat the very purpose of the inquiry. Ex parte evidence is not in itself reliable or Illuminating.
 And in the meantime, let the legis- lature have no hesitation in replacing the unwieldly, inefficient political commission of many members, with the small commission of three, chosen be- cause of successful business expe- rience and who are not to be bluffed, by show of technical aloofness, into refraining from inquiry into every pertinent detail, whether technical or non-technical. The engineer should be the servant and not the master of the commission. This is an extremely important undertaking, that of state highway building, and the legislature would be recreant in it's duty did it fail to give it the consideration its significance to the states prosperity and welfare demands. 
 THE GASOLINE TAX