The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-01-22
SILHOUETTES OF
 STATE CAPITAL
STATE CAPITAL nusEAu

MONTGOMERY, Ala, Jan. 21.- Senator John Rogers, chairman of the state highway commission, is philos- opher and student of history, in addi- ton to- being head of the road build ing machine of the state. When seen at his office today, Senator Rogers had just finished hearing the appeals of certain good citizens for a rosd located exactly opposite to where oth- CT good citizens and tax payers wished to have the highway routed. The chair man of the highway commission took the situation with his usual calm phil osophy, and referred the visitor to a sentence, in, a book which lay on his desk.
 .The history of man is the record of a. hungry creature in search of food" was the quotation to which he referred, in Hendrix Van Looms ''ztory of mankind" and the senator from Sumter commended the cxpres- sion as summing up splendidly the story of the race. s
 It is quite evident, to an observer around the state highway department that unless the chairman of the high way commission could understand and sympathize with the ambitions of the hungry creature in search of food, the job of highway commissioner would be al most disconsolate one. He has so many mouths to feed, figuratiysly speaking, and it is 50 ,patently im- possible to feed thems all at once. The 5,0OO, 600 bond issue, huge as it may seem at q superficial considera- tion, is really only a fraction of what will be required to build the ' roads which citizens of Alabama want built. And there is the additional factor, ire quently overlooked, it is present poli- cy of the state to build roads only as fast as the federal government ap- propriates money to match state funds, which greatly slows down the posE sible rate of road building.
 When prohibition was written into the national constitution, many citi- zens, it is reported, considered that the battle for nation-wide aridIty was won, and sought to rest on their laurels, only to find that though the saloon was gone, they still had with them the bootlegger. A somewhat similar feeling appears to have taken possession of some citizens of Alabama relative to the good roads problem, in the form of belief that once the $25,O00, 900 bond issue was put over, the state would be shortly thereafter taken out of the slush and ruts as though the mere moral effect of a pledge to spend twenty-five millions for roads would dry the mud.
 G.pan kha Macedonian cry for help has gone out from all over Alabama, directed at the state highway commission. The high most ~freauented of any at the capi- bama to the other, good citizens who pay taxes and who worked and voted for the bond issue, appear to seek roads which can be obtained only by delaying or, in some cases entirely sacrificing, the equally legitimate ann bitions of other equally good citizens who wishNto receive attention in their county first, or to see the road routed some other way.
 There. are inevitably problems pre- senetd in which someone must be dis appointed. The element which gets the IOau Iouteu us way cOnsiderS that It has obtained only what it justly de- serves, which may be accepted As true :; while the disappointed citizens who also have worked and striven for good roads apparently feel sometimes al- mostsas though they have been be- stray4d to see the highway go via a 'fivafsf sfoute. yThe job of highway com. missioner is undoubtedly one which re- quiresFa a philosopher as well as road builder.