CHAPTER II
GOVERNMENT COÖPERATION IN
OBJECT-LESSON ROAD WORK[5]
In a government having a composite nature like that of the United States it is not always easy to determine just what share the General Government, the state government, and the local government should respectively take in carrying out highway work, though it is generally admitted that there should be coöperation among them all.
In the early history of the Republic the National Government itself laid out and partially completed a great national system of highways connecting the East with the West, and the capital of the nation with its then most distant possessions. Fourteen million dollars in all was appropriated by acts of Congress to be devoted to this purpose, an amount almost equal to that paid for the Louisiana Purchase. In other words, it cost the government substantially as much to make that territory accessible as to purchase it; and what is true of that territory in its larger sense is also true in a small way of nearly every tract of land that is opened up and used for the purposes of civilization; that is to say, it will cost as much to build up, improve, and maintain the roads of any given section of the country as the land in its primitive condition is worth; and the same rule will apply in most cases after the land value has advanced considerably beyond that of its primitive condition. It is a general rule that the suitable improvement of a highway within reasonable limitations will double the value of the land adjacent to it. Seven million dollars, half of the total sum appropriated by acts of Congress for the national road system, was devoted to building the Cumberland Road from Cumberland, Maryland, to St. Louis, Missouri, the most central point in the great Louisiana Purchase, and seven hundred miles west of Cumberland. The total cost of this great road was wholly paid out of the United States Treasury, and though never fully completed on the western end, it is the longest straight road ever built by any government. It passes through the capitals of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and the cost per mile was, approximately, ten thousand dollars. It furnishes the only important instance the country has ever had of the General Government providing a highway at its own expense. The plan, however, was never carried to completion, and since its abandonment two generations ago, the people of the different states have provided their own highways. For the most part they have delegated their powers either to individuals, companies, or corporations to build toll roads, or to the minor political subdivisions and municipalities to build free roads.
With the passing of the toll-road system, the withdrawal of the General Government from the field of actual road construction, and the various state governments doing little or nothing, the only remaining active agent occupying the entire great field is the local government in each community; and while these various local governments have done and are still doing the best they can under the circumstances, there is great need that their efforts should be supplemented, their revenues enlarged, and their skill in the art of road construction increased.
The skill of the local supervisor was sufficient in primitive times, so long as his principal duties consisted in clearing the way of trees, logs, stumps, and other obstructions, and shaping the earth of which the roadbed was composed into a little better form than nature had left it; and the resources at his command were sufficient so long as he was authorized to call on every able-bodied male citizen between twenty-one and forty-five years of age to do ten days' labor annually on the road, especially when the only labor expected was that of dealing with the material found on the spot. But with the changed conditions brought about by the more advanced state of civilization, after the rights of way have been cleared of their obstructions and the earth roads graded into the form of turnpikes, it became necessary to harden their surfaces with material which often must be brought from distant places. In order to accomplish this, expert skill is required in the selection of materials, money instead of labor is required to pay for the cost of transportation, and machinery must be substituted for the hand processes and primitive methods heretofore employed in order to crush the rock and distribute it in the most economical manner on the roadbed. Skill and machinery are also required to roll and consolidate the material so as to form a smooth, hard surface and a homogeneous mass impervious to water.
The local road officer now not only finds himself deficient in skill and the proper kind of resources, but he discovers in many cases that the number of persons subject to his call for road work has greatly diminished. The great cities of the North have absorbed half of the population in all the states north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi, and those living in these great cities are not subject to the former duties of working the roads, nor do they pay any compensation in money in lieu thereof. So the statute labor has not only become unsuitable for the service to be performed, but it is, as stated, greatly diminished. In the former generations substantially all the people contributed to the construction of the highways under the statute labor system, but at the present time not more than half the population is subject to this service, and this, too, at a time when the need for highway improvement is greatest.
While the former ways and means are inadequate or inapplicable to present needs and conditions, there are other means more suitable for the service, and existing in ample proportion for every need. The tollgate-keeper cannot be called upon to restore the ancient system of turnpikes and plank roads to be maintained by a tax upon vehicles passing over them, but there can be provided a general fund in each county sufficient to build up free roads better than the toll roads and with a smaller burden of cost upon the people. The statute labor in the rural districts cannot be depended upon, because it is unsuitable to the service now required and spasmodic in its application, when it should be perennial; but this statute labor can be commuted to a money tax, with no hardships upon the citizens and with great benefit to the highway system.