The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-08-30
PEOPLES FORUM
John Craft on State Highways

John Craft on State Highways To the Editor of The Age-Herald:
 noticed recently some of the criticism in your editorials on the highway department. Before the management of your great paper was taken over by MT. F. l.. Thompson I wrote your paper and requested that you send some one to check every branch of the high way department and get the in formation and facts at first hand I believe it is the policy of your paper to get the facts before the public.
 On the Fist of April. 1921, there was some criticism that the high way department of Alabama was doing too much surveying and not enough road building. When you stop to consider that this is the biggest undertaking in the history of Alabama, and naturally has in- cidental delays, due to conditions over which the highway commits sion and its engineering depart ment has no control. The follow ing cause was the reason for the failure to follow surveys more promptly with construction in the fall and winter of 1920 and 1921. When the bond issue was declared invalid there was no money avail able to match federal aid already available. and likely to be lost to Alabama, the highway commission had MT. Keller go to Washington to save the S4,000,000 of federal money that was allotted to Ala bama, and MT. Keller, after being there a few days. succeeded with | the secretary of agriculture. MT. | Mcdonald. the. director of the bu- reau of public roads, instructed MT. Keller to return to Alabama and have surveys made, covering projects that would absorb the four million dollars. and the de- partment at Washington would set this money aside until we could get another election 10 amend the constitution. All of this required considerable work | first. to get the governor to call an extra session of the legislature, to get our friends, the press, to promote sentiment, and to get the commercial organization to im- press upon the governor the im- portance of this extra session, that | it should be called to permit the election for another bond issue. | This caused most of the criticism of so much surveying and no road | building. 1 think the commission and the engineering department were doing their whole duty to the people of the state when they saved this four million dollars by l these endeavors. Out of this some | criticism came that the highway commission and it's engineering | departments were not efficient. nor were they economical and that they were not functioning, as they should do in handling the biggest 1 piece of construction work in the history of Alabama
 The writer, a member of the state highway commission, on April 21, 1921, introduced reso- lution requesting the director of the bureau of public roads at l Washington. MT. Thomas H. Nc Donald, to send a corps of expert engineers from his department to check over every detail of the en- gineering department of the high way commission; the various sur veys and the work they had ac- complished, the drafting depart ment and the other mechanical de- partments of the state highway commission, and also send experts to check over the financial side and how the accounts of the de- parment were kept. At this re- quest, the bureau of public roads at Washington, being very much