Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 May 1916 — WILL INDIANA USE FEDERAL AID? [ARTICLE]

WILL INDIANA USE FEDERAL AID?

Indiana Delegation at Capital Urges Hoosiers to change Road System—s2,lo9,ooo Available. (By M. E. Noblet, Secretary Hoosier State Automobile Association.) .Washington, D. C., May 22.—The delegates of the Hoosier State Automobile association who were in attendance at the annual corivention of the American Automobile aswciation found Indiana is very much behind the times. While jndiana is considering the question of whether or hot she wants federal aid, federal aid practically has become.:! ..ssiired fact, the Bankhead bill having passed in the senate and the Shackleford bill haying been accepted by (he house. Now the two measures are in the hand-- oi the con both branches of congress, with indications of a Certain agreement. The Bankhead bill provides for s7s,Wt'.mb) to be distributed during the next five years among the states on a basis of area, population and rural delivery ami star routes. Indiana would receive $2,109,000, but in order to accept this money she niust first create a state highway department. While Indiana is considering the question of creating a roads department the 4 3 other states in the Union having departments are preparing now for federal co-operation. Judging from the results obtained in other states, Indiana’s greatest disadvantage and economic loss is the plan whereby the townships are the units in building roads and the country is the unit of maintenance. Our cost of materials, construction and maintenance is not handled in such a manner that one county can benefit from the work of the other counties. Even if the accounts were kept in such manner, there is no head or state department to gather this information, assimilate and disseminate it.

Furthermore, everybody knows that road officials are selected according to politics and not engineering and road building ability, and after the county supervisor or county commissioners are elected, their assistants are named according to politics and family connections rather than according to efficiency or workmanship. ' Y So bad is our lack of system and so influential are our politicians and certain other forces that in Howard county, during the month of April, national government engineers were forced to leave the county, for the simple reason that local officials would not co-operate with them. The complete story of this incident is enough to make any taxpayer's blood boil, when he considers that the government men came to Howard county at the signed request of the county commissioners and the county supervisor. W. H. Arnett, secretary of the Howard County Motor club and secretary of the Kokomo Chamber of Commerce, made a trip to Washington, D. C., to interview the United States office of public roads and rural engineering, for the purpose of securing these government engineers. It would appear from this procedure that some of the local Indiana road officials and others who are financially interested in the present program of road building and bridge construction do not care to have national government experts correct the faults in our system which, have been pointed out from time to time. The Hoosier State Automobile association, with its 45 affiliated clubs and rapidly developing organizations, is tremendously interested in seeing that the truth of these matters is presented to the people of the commonwealth, for sdrely iUcan only be a matter of education to give Indiana at the next legislature a state department of roads, which means that our main artery roads at least would be placed under state control, as is being done in state after state. A competent state engineer, selected by a non-political commission, will give cohesiveness in Indiana and bring about an economical uniformity which is the urgent need of the moment to obtain real results.

While here in Washington, calling on our senators and representatives, the officials of the U. S. office of public roads and rural engineering, and the officers of the American Automobile association, we can see our faults more clearly than before we came, and this article is being sent out from the national capital in the hope that it will be read by thousands of our fellow taxpayers, and cause them to make a renewed effort to take Indiana from the five backward states which have yet to get at the roads problem from an established fundamental.