Evening star., 1935-01-20
Auto Show Ends in Glory;
Road Exhibit Soon Begins
5000 Highway Engineers and Officials Here
Tuesday for Convention of Interest
to All Motorists.
BY G. ADAMS HOWARD.

Is HOWARD.
'bile show has concluded, and, 1t
blaze of glory. Tuesday, another
rists, comes to Washington--the
.ssociation convention. Problems
i'll be discussed and plans for bet
formulated.
a great success. Members of the
ssociation, under whose auspices
d. Greatest crowds in the history
the startling array of the shining
,omobile industry is indicated and
tier cars never, have been manu-
quickly demonstrated by the follow
ing facts: The first P. w. A. expendi-
lures on unemployment were. felt in
August, 1888. The total employment
on P. W. A. pay rolls for that month
was 1900 of which 4,018, or Sc per
cent was on highway work. In Sep
tember, 1888, highways accounted for
80 per cent of the $4,000 employed;
in october, IA per cent; November,
So per cent, and December, 56 per
cent. This In spite of the fact that
highway appropriations were only a
small percentage of the national re-
covery appropriations.
The total P. w. A. pay roll for a
period ending October IA, 1884, was
$3.50, ,649,3 ,309. OF this $125,517,850 was
spent on highways and $l65, ,13l ,469
was spent on all other construction.
The highway expenditure was only
43 per cent of the total, yet high
ways furnished an average of 81 per
cent of the total employment for the
whole period.
For every dollar expended in street
and highway improvement as much as
80 per cent is ultimately paid out as
wages and salaries.
Another problem that will form the
basis Of great deal of the conven-
ton program will be that of using
highway revenues for highway pur-
poses only-or in other words using
the gasoline tax and motor license
revenues for the construction and
maintenance of highways.
Gas Tax History.
The gasoline tax was originally
created by one of the Western States
for the purpose of completing and
extending its highway system. Very
soon every State in the United States
adopted such tax and for period o1
some 10 years the highway programs
were increasing on an average OF
from 10 to 20 per cent annually. II
was during this period that the
States made the greatest progress in
lifting the traffic out of the mud
In 1927 one of the States decided
that inasmuch as the gasoline tax
had become SO popular and that since
the people were willing to pay this
tax-that it would be possible to take
some of this money to use for pur-
poses other than the construction and
maintenance Of highways This was
the beginning of the diversion of the
gasoline tax. Since that time 81
States have diverted their gasoline
tax in some form or other until al
the present nearly $200,000,000 Is
being taken from the gasoline tax
each year and used for purposes fol
which it was not originally intended
This diversion has meant that the
motorist of the country today is being
subjected to class taxation and Is
paying special class tax that is put
to uses which should be cared for by
general taxation.
During the past few years there has
been wonderful development in the
, automobile resulting in increased
speeds of the vehicle. Many Of ouI
highways were constructed at a time
when the speed of automobiles was
80 and IS miles per hour. At the
present time the speed is greatly in
excess of that and necessitates the
undermining and changing many of oul
highways The increase in the death
toll on the highways shows the
necessity for this modernization pro-
gram, but with the diversion of the
gasoline tax it will be impossible for
the States to secure sufficient money
to adequately modernize and widen
their highway systems. This means
that those that are advocating the
diversion of the gasoline tax are &C
tually blocking the modernizing OF
our highway systems, which in turn,
may mean that they are directly con-
tributing toward the increasing num-
ber of accidents that are resulting in
so many deaths on Our highways.
There is a direct relation between
gasoline tax diversion and highway
safety and this subject will form the
basis of much discussion and i'm
portant resolutions at the convention.
U. S. Appropriations Study.
Another part of the convention
program will deal with the continua-
ton of the Federal Government ap-
preparations. There is every juStifl-
cation for the United States Govern
ment to take an active part in the
highway program of the country.
Each day $4,000 mail carriers use
1,250,0O0 miles of our highways for
the delivery of mail. bringing into
close contact with the rest of the
Nation the 30,000,000 rural popula-
ton.
A large part of this mileage over
which the mail is carried is not even
maintained
In addition to the mail and many
other services there Is one of par
ticular Importance national defense.
National legislation will form an
important subject on the convention
program.
For the past few years the Federal
Government has been making direct
grants to the States for the construc-
ton Of highways. This has been
mainly for the purpose of creating
work for the unemployed-which 1t
has so well done.
These grants for highway con-