Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 February 1915 — BILL INTRODUCED FOR STATE HIGHWAY BOARD [ARTICLE]

BILL INTRODUCED FOR STATE HIGHWAY BOARD

Provides For Engineer to Visit and Advise With Local Officials to Secure Uniformity. Senator Faber, of Wabash, has in traduced the administration bill for better roads. It is the offspring of the highway commission appointed by the governor, which during the summer and fall held public meetings in. every congerssional district. The bill would establish a state highway board to serve without pay, which would elect a state highway engineer with a salary of $4,000 yearly. The state highway engineer, in addition to keeping the records of road work of the state, would investigate and determine methods of road constroction best adapted ra different parts of the state. He would offer county and township officers advice. He and the county highway superintendents would have the right to take options for the state for the purchase of suitable buildings and materials lor certain experimental work. An interesting feature is that the state highway board woul<J have power on behalf of the state to co-operate with the national government in the improvement and maintenance of public highways. The board would divide the state into districts, and would provide for annual meetings in each of these districts which the county and township officials would be required to attend and at which instruction in road building would be given for two days. Theer would also be an annual road school of one week at Purdue.

Before any county or township official could undertake construction or repairs to- cost more than SI,OOO he would have to submit his plans to the state highway, engineer. The state highway board would also issue certificates for the position of county highway superintendent, showing their fitness. The bill provides that all money derived from licensing of automobiles and chauffeurs shall be set apart in the state treasury as a road fund for- use.by the state highway department. After the expenses of the department are paid the remainder would be apportioned among the counties much as it is now.

-The last clause in the proposed measure is the one it is most sought to avoid, that of taxing the counties or any persons in the counties for building up the state. The Republican believes this matter of state road supervision should be conducted through one of the offices already existing and without ■the expenditure of any additional money or the" creation of any new fat jobs. By the time the state highway department got through with the auto license money there wouldn’t be enough left for the counties to buy a sack of flour. We need a uniform road laiw, in all probability, but we could get one that didn’t provide central authority in Indianapolis and a big expense for maintenance. The salary of the engineer is only a starter. He would have assistants and clerks, railroad travel and hotel bills and little if any good would result. The Faber measure had better be passed up until another session. Two years’ delay won’t prove very seribus on top of the many years under the old method of construction.