 | University of Virginia record October 1, 1915 |  |
MATERIAL ON THE NEGATIVE.
FEDERAL APPROPRIATION—UNNECESSARY STRAIN ON
NATIONAL TREASURY.
By Congressman Ayres of New York.
Extracts from Congressional Record, April 29, 1912.
Mr. Chairman, pretty nearly every class of citizens in the United
States seem to want to dip their hands in the Federal Treasury and
pull them out with an appropriation sticking to them. One session
it is the shipowners who want subsidies for sailing their ships and
carrying their freight, and then next session it is little towns of two
or three hundred population who want $75,000 post-office buildings.
If it is not one thing, it is another. Anybody who finds it hard to
can not accomplish any particular work he has in hand wants to
turn it over to Uncle Sam to do for him. Last week I had a letter
from a valued constituent, who said that it was no longer profitable
to breed good horses in the State of New York now that betting on
races was illegal, and if I wanted to immortalize my name I should at
once introduce a bill to have the Federal Government breed horses
on a large scale, so that horse lovers in the different States could
have them cheap. Yesterday a telegram came from an enthusiast
who thought that Uncle Sam should send enough revenue cutters
or Dreadnoughts towards the Arctic regions to personally convoy
each iceberg that got loose till it melted into the Gulf Stream, firing
off blank cartridges during the night to warn off all ships in danger.
In every part of this land of the free there are men or classes of
men who do not want to do some kind of work they think ought to
be done and so they want Uncle Sam to do it.
In many parts of our glorious country at the present time there are men
or communities who have not good roads and who know they ought
to have them, but they do not want to spend the money, and so—
let Uncle Sam do it. And these communities get after their Congressmen
and say, "We ought to have these roads, and if you are
any good as Congressmen you will get them for us." And so the
poor Congressmen, who know better all the time, come here and
introduce bills and argue gravely that, having given the rural communities
free postal carriers, it is now our duty to provide the roads
for the carriers to travel on, or to keep them up. I tell you, gentlemen,
it is not "conscience that doth make cowards of us all," but
our constituents.
Fifteen years ago, when the Rural Free Delivery Service was proposed,
it was talked of as a boon to the rural population, as a gift
which would cost the rest of the country many millions. No one
ever supposed the time would come when the country would be
asked to pay for the privilege of making this annual gift.
What are the facts? For the fiscal year ending June 30, 1911, the
Rural Delivery Service cost a little more than $37,000,000 and the
total postal revenue that originated on these routes was just over
$14,000,000. And now, what does this bill propose? That for the
first year the United States shall pay for the privilege of using the
roads the carriers travel on—$25 a mile for one class of macadam
roads, $20 a mile for another class of roads, and $15 a mile for another
and poorer class. It was estimated by one of the gentlemen in
favor of the bill that the cost the first year would be $16,000,000.
Now, the cost of constructing good macadam road varies from $3,000
to $15,000 per mile, according to the character of the soil, the grades,
and the thickness and width of stone surface. It might be safe to
say that the average cost is $5,000 per mile. The interest on an
investment of that much is $300 per year, and it costs at least that
amount to keep a macadam road in repair.
That is the cost in the State of New York.
How many communities will be led to expend $5,000 a mile in
order to secure a vearly rental of $25 a mile? We all know how
these things go. If this bill should by any unfortunate chance become
a law, the next year the gentlemen who now favor this bill
would come in with an amendment asking $50 a mile on macadam
roads and argue gravely that even that would not be Uncle Sam's
rightful share to pay. And the next year they would come in with
another amendment asking that 50 per cent of the upkeep of these
roads be given them by Congress. And then after this had been in
would show that long usage proved that it was the duty of Congress
to keep up these roads and that if any accident happened to a traveler
on account of their imperfect condition he should have a right
for damages. If this bill shall pass, in 15 years the Federal Government
will be paying a hundred million dollars a year on account
of it.
Advocates of this bill have argued that inasmuch as the Post Office
Department paid for the use of the railroads that it should therefore
pay for the use of rural post roads. But the department does
not pay for the use of the railroad right of way or the use of the
rails. It pays the railroads for a service performed, for transporting
the mails over the rails and right of way. And it now pays the
rural carriers for a similar service, the transporting the mails over
the rural roads. If the railroads came here with a bill like this and
asked $15 per mile for any kind of rusty old track, and $20 per mile
for fairly good standard-gauge track, and $25 a mile for first-class
two-track road, and argued that if we paid them these bonuses it
would be an incentive to them to improve their tracks, what gentlemen
in this House would be the first to howl? If the department
is to pay for keeping rural roads in shape, over which it is already
paying to have the mails transported, just as it pays the railroads,
why could not the superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railway come
in here with equal justice and say, "We are thinking of putting in
new ties and ballast between Philadelphia and Baltimore, and if you
give us $25 a mile we will do it."
We are all in favor of good roads. There is no more important
subject before the American people to-day. But let us go at the
problem in an honest and square fashion. Let each State that desires
good roads build them for itself. That is good Democratic
policy. We are awake to this matter in the State of New York, and
we who live in that great State have just enough pride in our State
to want to build our own roads. We do not ask your aid in our road
building, and we do not want to pay for doing in any other State
what it ought to do for itself.
FUNCTION OF COUNTY AND STATE.
By Congressman Slayden of Texas.
Congressional Record, April 29, 1912.
M. Chairman, if the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Langley]
was right, I am now proceeding to align myself with the minority
of this House, but conscious of the rectitude of my position, entirely
confident that it is not only rational, but soundly Democratic and
soundly patriotic, I cheerfully take the hazard of such a position.
Mr. Chairman, I do not believe that there is a Member of this
House who has a higher appreciation of the advantages of good
roads than I have. Now and then for years I have shared humbly in
the effort to arouse the people to a better understanding of the economic
and social importance of good highways. I have worked and
in a small way I have spent my own means in an effort to promote
the good-roads movement. My interest in it can not be questioned.
I want to see the roads improved just as fast as the people who
must pay for them can afford the expense of their construction.
I also want to see the best roads that can be built running through
every neighborhood in each of the 48 States. This much it is proper
to say, because an effort has been made—and, no doubt, will be made
again—to create the impression that those who do not sympathize
with this bill are against improved highways.
If the subdivisions of the Federal Government—the States and
the counties—have any proper function whatever, it would seem to
be the construction and maintenance of roads. If there is any reason
for the existence of States and counties, certainly the maintenance
of the means of transportation between counties and neighborhoods
is an obligation, a responsibility, and one that should not
be shunted off on the Federal Government.
This is a proposition to have the Federal Government assume
those obligations.
Supporters of the measure seem to think that the Government of
the United States is an association of individuals altogether different
and apart from those who reside in their congressional districts.
They seem to be under the impression that contributions from
the Federal Treasury are not paid by the people themselves, but
are drawn from some mysterious outside source or deposit. At
least that is the impression that is sought to be made, that must be
made if gentlemen are to reap the political advantage from this ill-considered
measure that they have maneuvered for. I can not so
understand it. I can not, to save me, separate the citizen who is a
taxpayer in the counties and States from the citizen who pays taxes
to the Federal Government. The vast expense of all our governments—National,
State, and local—must be borne by the citizen.
The question that should most concern him is an economical and
wise administration of his public contributions. Whether it filters
through the hands of Federal or State or local agents, he must pay,
and what he ought to do is to see to it that his tax money goes
to its allotted work with the least possible expense. Now, I believe
that whatever is done through Federal agents is apt to be
more expensively done than if handled by a local agent. I believe
that when the public treasure is collected through a system of indirect
taxation more is taken from the people than is absolutely
necessary, and that is spent with less regard for their interests. That
is one of the evils of the indirect or customs-tax system. People seem
to think more of the dollars that they pay directly into the hands
of the tax-gatherers than of the dollars that they pay by a concealed
additional charge on the tobacco they use or the clothes they wear.
Increases Tariff and Customs Taxes.
Pass this bill and customs taxes can never be reduced. All pretense
of economy will be abandoned when a majority of this House
says by its vote that they mean to commit the General Government
to the policy of building highways, conducting a freight express
business, and, ultimately, the ownership and operation of railways.
It makes one skeptical as to the sincerity of those gentlemen who
say they want a simpler and cheaper Government, but invariably
vote for extravagances that compel higher and higher taxes.
I also oppose this measure because it is not needed to secure good
roads. Where the people have the intelligence to understand their
advantages and the energy to do something for themselves they are
getting them.
Vast sums are now being spent for highway development. There
is an enthusiastic and general movement in that direction which is
most encouraging to every advocate of the policy of better highways.
and proud to beg the Federal Government to do what she
can do better for herself, and ought to do for herself, has, I understand,
just finished the expenditure of $50,000,000 on her public
roads and is about to undertake the further investment of fifty millions
more in the extension of her highway system. Pennsylvania
and other States have spent or are now spending proportionately
large sums. It is, I am afraid, those States that are laggards in the
discharge of their plain duty that are behind this measure. They
seem to prefer mendicancy to independence.
I further oppose this bill because, in my opinion, it means increasing
appropriations in the future by you, or by more complacent
Members who will follow you here, and, finally, Federal jurisdiction
over State roads. The tendency to concentrate power in the Federal
Government is now almost resistless. Certainly we can not expect
that the Federal power will not follow large Federal appropriations.
Jefferson, who sought to magnify the importance of the States and
to preserve local self-government, had the best of Hamilton in theory,
but in practice, when associated with the temptation of large appropriations,
it begins to appear that the latter will win. We are bartering
away the dignity of the States and exchanging a great constitutional
birthright for a Federal mess of pottage.
To me it appears perfectly plain that the States can not retain
dignity and importance while they avoid all the responsibility of
that position.
Method Not Adequate to Promote Good Roads.
I also object to this bill because, although it will cost an enormous
amount, it is wholly inadequate for the purposes for which it
was designed. When you apply the maximum rental per mile to the
whole of any particular rural postal delivery route it will not be
discoverable. To spend $25 per mile per year will be, in my judgment,
sheer and inexcusable waste. It will cost the General Government
dear, but is not enough to tempt any locality to the development
of a better road system. It would be a mere suggestion to
the local authorities to apply for more, and would, I feel sure, lead
to a complete abandonment of local or State effort.
Mr. Chairman, that, to me, is one of the most deplorable features
of this bill. I believe it will paralyze the good-roads movement. I
believe that no State not yet equipped with an admirable and excellent
system of highways will undertake to do anything for itself,
can be inspired to do anything for itself, because, when they turn
their eyes toward Washington, they will see gentlemen here clamoring
for appropriations out of the Federal Treasury to do for them
locally what the obligation in honor and decency rests upon them
to do for themselves.
FINANCIAL BURDEN.
By Representative Fitzgerald of New York.
Extracts from Congressional Record, April 29, 1912.
I made the statement, that States are building a system of State
highways. I intend to discuss it more fully. It illustrates the tendency
and the desire of localities to escape the burden they should
assume. In 1899, if I recall correctly, a law was enacted in New
was extended to localities. The law provided that 50 per cent of
the cost of construction should be paid by the State, 35 per cent
by the county, and 15 per cent by the town. Very soon it was
ascertained that to some of these communities the burden was irksome,
or in excess of what the people desired to contribute. Good
roads were desired and the wish was equally strong that the cost
should be borne other than by the localities benefited. An amendment
was enacted by which it was provided that the contribution
of the counties and towns should be 2 per cent on the assessed valuation
of real property in the county and 1 per cent in the town,
but in no instance should the county or town pay in excess of the
35 and 15 per cent proportion. The result is that in some instances
the State is expending 91 per cent of the cost of the roads and the
localities 9 per cent. The tendency is natural; it is human. The
desire to make some one else pay is overpowering. Shift the burden
from locality to the State, from the State to the Federal Government.
It is as effective to avoid the eventual burden as the ostrich
in escaping danger by hiding its head in the sand. The State
of New York is expending $6,000,000 annually on its roads, and with
this enormous expenditure it has not enough roads, if all used by
the postal service were of class A, to receive, under this bill, 20
per cent of what it is itself expending.
But my objection to this legislation is fundamental. It is not
predicated upon expenditure alone. It is aimed chiefly at the theory
upon which the legislation is based. It introduces a new, a novel,
a curious principle into our government system. It purports to
require the Federal Government to pay localities for the privilege
of furnishing some service to the people which is legitimately within
the proper functions of the Federal Government. It is based on
the theory that the Federal Government is something distinct, separate,
apart from, superior to, and superimposed upon the people of
the country; that it has some means of acquiring wealth or resources
or moneys other than by obtaining them by taxation from the people,
to be distributed for their benefit. The gentleman from Missouri
[Mr. Shackelford] spoke of the Federal Government being
liberal in its treatment of the people. This is a strange doctrine to
be enunciated by a Democrat. It is a peculiar notion that seems to
be spreading. The Government should be liberal in its treatment
of the people! Such a statement is strange to men who have
been brought up to believe and to realize and who know what
our Government is and means. Free institutions are organized by
the people in order to maintain order and permit them to live in
the most orderly, free, and happy manner possible consistent with
the rights of others, and are predicated upon the theory that all
men have certain inalienable rights, and that to preserve them governments
are organized.
Not Function of National Government.
This idea that the Federal Government is something like the Government
of the Russias, or some other imperial government, in which
the people are subjects, beneficiaries, supplicants, and mendicants,
who beg and plead as if some great father would be persuaded to
scatter his resources with generous hand and give to the people
something apparently not belonging to them is a new and unheard-of
and astonishing doctrine in our land. Mr. Chairman, why not charge
the Federal Government for the privilege of conducting Federal
troops over country roads and through city streets? If the Federal
of existence? It would be simple for the people to punish the Government
by imposing burdens it could not bear. Under the Constitution
exclusive jurisdiction is placed in the Congress over all
places purchased by the consent of the legislatures of the States
required for forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful
buildings. Under section 355 of the Revised Statutes no money
can be expended upon any site or land for the erection of any public
building, fortification, or similar work unless the consent of the
State is first obtained to the acquisition of the property. Why not
abandon the policy heretofore followed and consent that the Federal
Government shall pay taxes upon its Federal buildings, taxes upon
the land occupied for fortifications, and other public purposes? It
is the same principle underlying this bill carried to the logical conclusion.
It is something new and novel. It is merely a cloak or a
cover to get the hands of the various localities into the Federal
Treasury.
People shut their eyes and dream that the money they take is
to be obtained from some place else than from their own pockets,
but it will come from there eventually and no other place. There
seems to be a widespread notion that the resources of the Federal
Government are boundless, that the Treasury is overflowing. The
methods by which the Federal Government obtains money are indirect
and remote from the people. Its gathering hand is invisible;
yet it takes its mite from every article, from every commodity that
is of use to the people. It may be difficult to trace the tax; that
makes some people the more ready to have it imposed. To enter
this new policy means additional taxes, additional burdens, It is
futile to talk of reducing taxation, of relieving the people from grievous
burdens, of reducing the cost of living, if at every turn we are
to be confronted with some new scheme to filch money from the
Federal Treasury.
Great Expense to National Government.
There is one source of expense to which no one has given much
attention but which is a very important matter. The compensation
for these roads, if there be dispute, is to be fixed by the Department
of Agriculture.
The condition in which the roads are to be maintained is to be
determined by the Department of Agriculture. How is the Department
of Agriculture to obtain the information necessary to discharge
the obligation imposed? Only by the maintenance of a force
of inspectors that shall continuously keep under supervision and observation
all of the roads which will be entitled to compensation
because of their use by the Federal Government. It will require an
army of new employees to swarm through the country. It will be
inevitable that crying abuses will result from such surveillance. Congress
has consistently heretofore refused to pave streets in front,
of public buildings and it has refused to make any contribution for
the construction of sidewalks about its property, and yet gentlemen
now seriously propose to compel the Government to pay the people
of the various localities for the privilege of rendering an important
public service to them. Why not charge the Government for every
public service rendered, in the hope that in some providential manner,
like manna from heaven, funds will come into the Public Treasury?
[Applause.] Mr Chairman, this legislation should not be enacted.
It can not be justified upon any sound theory. It is unwise. It will
lead to evils that will be deplored. It cultivates among the thoughtless
it subjects the Federal Treasury to burdens for nothing
essential to the discharge of its legitimate functions. It is an idle
attempt to get something for nothing. Whatever is expended upon
our roads will be paid for by the people. It will be better if they
keep the work and the expenditure close to home. They may yet
succeed in frittering away rights and privileges of inestimable value,
obtained only by the expenditure of vast quantities of blood and
treasure, for the unsatisfactory boon of a Federal appropriation and a
dominant and irresponsive and unsympathetic Federal Government.
CLASS LEGISLATION.
By Congressman Madden of Illinois.
Extracts from Congressional Record, April 29, 1912.
Mr. Chairman, the gentlemen who designate themselves as statesmen
of the mud roads, in nearly every instance represent constituencies
of not only farmers but of people living in villages and cities.
There is no district in this country that does not contain within its
borders some village or some city, and I ask those men who are
warbling in the name of the mud lark, in the name of the farmer,
whether they propose to represent all of their constituents or only
50 per cent of them. This amendment which I have just proposed
gives to every community an equal distribution of the funds that
are paid out of the Federal Treasury. My friend from Iowa [Mr.
Prouty] just a moment ago said that he believed in an equal distribution
of the Federal funds. If he does he will vote for this
amendment, because this amendment proposes that men who live
in municipalities as well as those who live on farms shall participate
in the improvements that are to be made as a result of the expenditures
proposed under this bill. I want to ask you gentlemen
who represent rural communities whether you want to go back to your
people and say that you are in favor of spending money out of the
Federal Treasury for the purpose of maintaining roads throughout
the rural districts and against the payment of money out of the Federal
Treasury for the purpose of maintaining roads in the villages
and cities of your district. You will have an opportunity here by
this amendment to say by your vote whether you are really a representative
of your district or whether you simply represent that
part of your district in which the farmer lives. The men who live
in the villages and cities of the United States are equally entitled to
the consideration which this bill proposes along with the farmer.
Is there any reason why the post roads running through a town or
village or city should be discriminated against?
Is there any reason why these eight, ten, fifteen, twenty, or fifty
million dollars proposed to be expended on public highways should
be paid wholly to the farmer? Is there any reason why the city
dweller, who has an equal vote with the farmer, should not have
equal rights and equal treatment under this bill? I ask you men
who come from country sections of the Nation, are you willing to
go back home and say to the men who live in the villages and the
cities that we do not recognize them as any part of our constituency?
Are you willing to go back home and have them say to you, How
did you deport yourself on the question of the payment of money
taken out of the Federal Treasury for the rent of the highways of
voting for this bill?
States Able to Build Roads.
I assume that the gentlemen who come here favoring the enactment
of this legislation believe—because they would not act as they
do unless they did believe—that the mail distributed to the rural constituency
is simply done as a matter of accommodation to the Government
or to the post office authorities. I do not believe, Mr. Chairman,
that any dollar of the public money should be paid out of the
Federal Treasury for the upbuilding of any road now in the United
States, I am frank to say.
I do not believe that any Federal money should be paid to aid
the States in the construction of highways. The States of the Union
are amply able to build their roads for themselves. The people who
live in those States are patriotic, they are willing to pay their taxes,
they have paid them in most of the Northern States of the land,
and their roads are being constructed and will continue to be constructed
out of the pockets of the local taxpayers.
CONFLICTING JURISDICTION.
By Congressman Kent of California.
Extract from Congressional Record, April 23, 1912.
Mr. Chairman, the next matter of peculiar interest to me, not in
the bill but in the discussion, is the bill suggested with the intent
of granting Federal pay for improving country roads. That proposition,
in the form it takes, is one with which I must disagree. The
bill contemplates turning over sums of money to counties scattered
throughout the country which can produce evidence that roads over
which rural postal deliveries pass have been of a specified quality.
There are a million miles of such roads now, and the immediate
subsidy would amount to about $20,000,000. There would be necessitated
an enormous expense for inspection on the part of the
Government and to my mind the expense would not lead to anything
coherent or systematic in the way of road building. It would
be a case of easy money and therefore of wasted money. While I
believe thoroughly and fully in Federal help for great national highways,
I can not conceive of proper expenditure in such scattering
through innumerable counties. The counties in my California district
have supervisors, who have very little to do except look after
roads. I do not think the Government would be satisfied with the
uniformity of roads they build. If the Government went into the
inspection business and saw to it that these roads were properly
built, Congress could next take over the rest of the local governments,
and we could have county day in this House, as many county
days as there are counties, just as we now waste our time on District
of Columbia Day, when 5 commissioners with authority could
govern Washington better than 400 Congressmen and 90 Senators.
This bill is a piecemeal, patchwork sort of scheme, and much as I
believe in the necessity of improving the highways of the country,
I do not believe that the Federal Government should chop up its
efforts into small, incoherent fragments, that must necessarily result
in waste. Moreover, if a given road in a given county receives
Government help on account of its being used for rural postal transportation,
from every direction to shift the rural routes to other roads or to
get as many rural routes in each county as possible, just for the
sake of the subsidy, whether or not such additional routes are justified.
In the way this bill is drawn it is a tremendous temptation,
and I am afraid that at least some few supervisors scattered here
and there throughout the Nation might get into trouble. I once
heard of a man who was an exile in Canada because, as he said,
he had forgotten to build a church.
The question has arisen as to how taxes ought to be raised to
construct roads. To my mind the Government might well help in
the construction of great national highways where the work should
be uniform in character and where there would be a chance for
pride in the thoroughness with which the great arteries were built.
The States may properly play their part, and in many cases are so
doing by aiding with State highways. The little rural route is a
local affair, a matter for the counties and the minor districts. The
expense can and will be properly borne by these communities by
whatever system of taxation they may choose. It is impossible to
have a just system of pay for roads based on a frontage tax. There
is no question about the iniquity of that as a final scheme. A frontage
tax to support a great highway which passes a farm upon which
the owner has trouble in subsisting is an obvious injustice. On the
other hand, when we find cases where land for profit is subdivided
for speculation owners certainly ought to pay all the primary cost
of roads on a frontage basis. The question of taxation for road
purposes, as well as for other purposes, will probably be best worked
out under the Oregon system of giving counties the right to determine
the nature of their own taxation. The Federal treasure never
ought to be scattered in the heedless way this bill would scatter it.
If the bill is a bona fide attempt to create national highways, it ought
to provide for national highways; but if it is an attempt to scatter
Federal money throughout the country for the popularization of
reelectable Congressmen, that result could be much better attained
by paying a subsidy on eggs, 30 cents a dozen for strictly fresh, 15
cents a dozen for fresh, and 10 cents for plain eggs.
GOVERNMENT COMMITTED TO A SOCIALISTIC POLICY.
By Congressman Driscoll of New York.
Extracts from Congressional Record, April 29, 1912.
Mr. Chairman, efforts have been made nearly all the time since I
have been in this House, by a certain gentleman and certain sections
of this country to commit the Federal Government to the construction
of the ordinary roads throughout the country. And those agitations
and efforts to commit the Federal Government to the policy of
construction of ordinary country highways have come largely from
Southern and Western States of the Union. Because these States
are large in territory and sparse in population and taxing power they
would like to have the Federal Government to build their roads.
I will not assume to discuss the constitutional aspect of this question.
I do not think it is constitutional, but I certainly believe if it
is within the limits of the Constitutional power for the Federal Government
to go into the State of New York and build common, ordinary
highways, then it is within the same power to go into the
concrete sidewalks.
I analyzed a batch of bills introduced into this House for the
construction of roads several years ago. I found there were then
eighteen of them, nearly all by Democrats and the great majority
Southern Democrats, although there were some Republicans from
Kentucky who had introduced bills. I do not know but that the
late Mr. Brownlow of Tennessee was the father of these good road
bills. These bills were of two or three classes. Some provided
that the surplus in the treasury every year be divided among the
States pro rata for the construction of roads, the money to be spent
by the executive officers of the State. Those bills were introduced
by the State-rights Statesman of the House. But none of
them were fair, because they all provided that in the distribution of
these funds among the States the cities would not be counted in
the population in order to determine the proportion of the money
to be given to the several States.
Some of them provide that cities of fifty thousand should be excluded
from the count, and some provide that cities of thirty-thousand,
and some that cities as low as ten thousand, should
be excluded. Everybody who introduced a bill figured up the
cities in his own State, and estimated the proportion that his
State would receive, by the exclusion from the count of cities above
the figured population in order to give his State the greatest possible
advantage. I opposed those bills then and I have opposed them
in every possible form in which they have come up since, because
a law providing for the distribution of money according to the
population and excluding cities would exclude eighty per cent of
the population of New York State, and that State would get only
one fifth of what it would be entitled to according to its population,
because New York is a State of cities, although it is a splendid
agricultural State as well. Those bills were introduced by States-rights
Democrats who did not want, in theory at all events, the
United States of America government to send its agents into the
States and build the roads. They wanted the money delivered to
the officers of the State and the roads built by them. There was
another class of gentlemen who introduced bills providing that the
Federal Government send its agents into the several States and
construct the roads and maintain them.
States Fully Able to Build Roads.
I shall attempt to analyze in a few minutes the bills introduced
in this House, and I think there are thirty-nine such bills and resolutions
providing for the construction of such roads by the Government.
Twenty-nine have been introduced by the Democrats and
ten by the Republicans, but not one from an Eastern State, not
one from a middle State, very few from the Mississippi Valley, but
all from the great broad States of the South and West, of large areas,
long roads and sparse population and small taxing power.
The farmers in those States have been unusually prosperous during
the last ten or twenty years, and there prosperity has been increasing
from year to year. The mortgages and other encumbrances
which were on their farms a few years ago have been lifted. Many
of them have deposits in the savings banks and many others are
able to afford automobiles. I saw a statement a short time ago that
there were 76,000 automobiles owned by farmers west of the Mississippi
River. Those machines are luxuries; and usually automobiles
a cheap wagon would do their necessary business quite as well,
whereas those are used for comfort and pleasure, because the farmers
are so prosperous that they can enjoy the luxuries of life. But
they are not satisfied. They are jealous of the manufacturers and
business people of the East, who they think have been getting more
than their share of the country's wealth. This jealousy, envy and
antagonism have been manifestly developing during the several years
past, and while they were not in a nebulous condition they were
constantly developing and organizing for a general assault on what
they considered concentrated wealth in the East, and just now it
is in the form of a wave of national socialism, sweeping up the great
West and Southwest. It is very largely the same spirit and motive
which is back of this proposition to buy up all the express companies
of the country. They want to commit the Federal Government,
not only to build the country's roads, but to the policy of
buying up all the old junk of the many express companies of the
country—the old wagons, horses, trucks, and old stuff of every kind
—which will be of no use to the Post Office Department when once
acquired.
The Federal Government did not authorize or encourage the organization
of the express companies, and the Federal Government
is under no obligation to them in any possible way. It can develop
its parcel post or postal express if it seems wise to do so, and if
they act on that proposition the Government tends to reduce the
profits of the express companies or drive some of them out of business,
they have no cause for complaint against the Government or
against the people, whose agent the Government is, for they have
taken advantage of their opportunities and have made all the profits
their business would stand without regard to the complaints of the
people who were obliged to patronize them.
Paternalism Would Be the Outcome of Federal Aid.
What next? Why if the Government goes into the business of
postal express it will need the use of many cars in order to handle
the express business. The railroad companies are now charging the
Post Office Department very much higher rates for transporting
its mail matter than they are charging the express companies for
transporting express matter; and if the Department can not make
what the people or Congress consider satisfactory rates, will the
railroad companies? In the future the people will demand that the
Government buy its own cars and fit them up for express business,
which will be more commodious, and it will be claimed that they
will be cheaper. Then if the Government buys one car, why not
two? Why not ten? Why not the whole train? The express company
will be very large if carried out according to the conceptions
of the gentlemen who agitated this measure. This means the nationalization
of all railways and also all the ships and steamboats in
this country, and it means national socialism.
Your people from the South and West who have been agitating
for the construction of the country roads by the Federal Government
are bent on getting money into the treasury with one hand
and drawing it out with the other to build your roads, and do many
other things in the way of domestic improvements which the States
or the municipal divisions thereof should do for themselves.
The people in this country have got the idea into their heads that
with a parcel post or postal express the express wagon will come
apples, berries, grapes, chicken, hens and turkeys, and that they can
put a two-cent postage stamp on the box and that the express
agent will haul them away.
That may be the next step in this comprehensive scheme of paternalism.
They think that for that stamp they will send these
things to the consumer in New York City or Chicago or St. Louis
or San Francisco. Then they expect to buy everything they want,
from a piano to a paper of pins from the catalogue department house,
and that all those things will come back and be delivered in nice
packages, and set on their front porch, all for a two-cent stamp.
They are going to eliminate the small merchant, not only in the
village but in the city. They are going to save all the expense and the
farmer is going to get all that the consumer pays, less the two-cent
stamp. That is the idea some people have now, and that is what
has been drummed into some farmers' heads by the champions of
this measure, who are putting before us this first step in socialism.
Can these dreamers expect to persuade any considerable part of
either the city or county residents that this service can be done
without being paid for by somebody; and if done by the Government,
do they not know that it will cost very much more than if
done by a private concern? Do they not know that all work done
by the Government costs at least fifty per cent more than if done
by private concerns or individuals? This service will be paid for
out of one pocket or the other; either by the people who patronize
the Government express or by the people at large in making up the
deficit in the Post Office Department, and I am one of those who believe
that a service of this kind, either in the form of parcel post
or parcel express, should be paid for by the people who patronize
it; in the transportation and distribution of merchandise the people
for whose benefit it is done should pay the necessary expense of the
service, and not shift the burden on the body of the people.
Now, Mr. Chairman, I want to say a word to those thirty-nine gentlemen
who prepared those thirty-nine separate bills. Some of you
who in theory are States-righters would prefer to have the money
sent to your State and there spent by your own officials. But you
can not always have your own way in this regard, and when an appropriation
is before you by which your district or State may get
some advantage it is then a condition and not a theory that confronts
you. You are human, and yield to the demands of your people at
home who are constantly looking for help from the Federal Government,
and you waived your academic views and grabbed for the
appropriation. This is your practical notion of States' rights, to
dip into the Federal treasury as deep and as often as possible.
You came together, you thirty-nine gentlemen, and made up this
composite bill. You have reduced thirty-nine to one. You think it
looks mild and harmless and that it will appeal to one State as
much as to another and thus commit the Congress to a policy of
giving Federal aid to country roads. But let us not be deceived;
when you get this bill into law on the statute books you will demand
more. You will then demand that the Federal Government
build your roads in some States, and send the money into others for
that purpose.
I have been watching the development of this Federal aid for ordinary
highways movement for some years, and I think I understand
the motive of the gentlemen who are back of it. There is a
National Good Roads Association of which some years ago Mr.
![illustration](https://iiif.lib.virginia.edu/iiif/uva-lib:113116/full/!1600,1600/0/default.jpg")
Final Contestants in Reading
MISS ATKINSON
MISS ELIZABETH RICE
KEYSVILLE HIGH SCHOOL
NEW LONDON ACADEMY
KEYSVILLE HIGH SCHOOL, WINNER
1914-1915
in that organization. He went into the State of New York, as I
was informed, and made some speeches and circulated some literature and
persuaded some New York Grangers to submit to this policy. I
made a speech here in Congress against it and the Grange of my
county sent for me to come home and explain my position. I did
so and discussed the matter before them for two or three hours and
explained to them that it was to their advantage to stay in partnership
with New York and other great cities of the empire State for
the construction of country roads in our State rather than go in
pool with North Dakota, Montana and other large States with long
roads for the construction of country roads out of the Federal treasure
and at the common expense, and I think they saw it that way.
ROAD CONSTRUCTION NOT FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
FUNCTION.
By Congressman Madden of Illinois.
Extract from Congressional Record, April 22, 1912.
Now, I wish to call to the attention of the House another matter
that is proposed to be inserted in the bill, but which was not recommended
by the committee, and that is the provision which calls
for expenditures from the Federal Treasury for the construction of
highways in the rural districts of the country. In the State from
which I come the people gladly contribute of their own funds for
the construction of highways, and I may say that this is true of
almost every other Northern State. I believe that we ought to
have good highways. I am a believer in good roads. I believe that
everything ought to be done that ingenuity can devise to make the roads
of the country the best that can be had. But I believe that this
is strictly a State function, and that it ought to be done by the States
themselves. As a property owner in the State where I live, I have
gladly contributed of what means I have had to help build the roads
in my neighborhood. Illinois levies a tax on the abutting property.
This tax is paid into the treasury of the township.
The township trustees or the highway commissioners have jurisdiction
over the expenditure of this money. They expend it wisely.
We are getting good roads. We are meeting the conditions. We
are abreast of the times. We are moving forward. We
are making progress. We have no complaint to make. We make
no complaint because we are called upon to pay out of our own
pockets for the construction of the roads that we use. Why should
not every community throughout the land pay for the improvements
that the community requires? Why should the Government of the
United States be called upon to build the highways of the country?
Oh, the gentleman is technically correct; but we ought not to
be dealing in technicalities. We ought to face the measure squarely.
It does not matter whether you use the language that this money
is to be paid out of the Federal Treasury for the purpose of paying
the State for the use of highways used as post roads or whether
the money is to be taken out of the Federal Treasury to put the
foundations into these roads and put the surface on the foundations.
It amounts to the same thing. Now, of course the people of the
United States are not taxed directly for the maintenance of the
that the expenditure of money from the Federal Treasury does not
take it out of their pockets; but the truth is that it comes out of
their pockets just the same; and if they were called upon to pay
a direct tax, out of which should be paid the money for the construction
of highways, they would object to it; and I, who have already
been paying a direct tax for the purpose of constructing roads
in my neighborhood, object seriously to it.
Mr. Byrnes of South Carolina. I understood the gentleman to
say that he favored taxing the adjoining landowners, as is the system
in his State?
And then I wish to say, in addition to that, if the highways in
the rural districts are to be considered as post roads, the highways
known as the streets in the great cities of the country are also to
be considered as post roads, and that if the highways in the country
are to be paid for because of the fact that the mails go over them,
then the men who live in the great cities of the country will demand
that payment shall be made out of the Federal Treasury for the
construction of the streets in the great cities which are also used
as post roads. I see no distinction. I see no justice in the contention
that the man who lives in a city and owns property abutting
on a street should be taxed for the construction of that street while
the man who lives in the country and owns property abutting on
a highway is to be relieved from such a tax. The same rule ought
to apply everywhere. If country roads are post roads, then city
streets are post roads. The Government of the United States has
the power to come into the city of Chicago and tear up any street
in that city without asking the consent of the local authorities.
They can tear the streets up, they can build their pneumatic tubes,
they can operate these tubes without regulations from the local authorities.
If that be true, why should not the Government of the
United States be placed in the same position toward the citizens of
the great centers that you seek to make with relation to the people who
live in the more sparsely settled sections of the country? We are asking
for no appropriation for any purpose out of the Federal Treasury that is
not justified under the Constitution of the United States. The people
who live in these cities are making no demands to put their hands into
the Treasury of the United States for the construction of their
streets. The people of the country districts are coming here and
making demands that the Federal Treasury shall be used to construct
their roads, and we object unless we are placed on an equality
with the men that make those demands. We are citizens of the
United States and our rights are equal to theirs. We have every
right to make complaint, and the Constitution never intended that
one class of citizens should do one thing and another class do another.
The Constitution of the United States never contemplated the
expenditure of money for the construction of highways in one place
that it did not accord to every other place, and as a representative
from one of the great cities of this Union I solemnly protest on
behalf of the people of that city to the expenditure of one dollar
of public money out of the Federal Treasury for the construction
of any highway, anywhere, that does not give equal justice to the
people of the territory from which I hail.
COUNTRY ROADS VERSUS CITY STREETS.
By Congressman Moore of Pennsylvania.
Extract from Congressional Record, April 23, 1912.
You are preaching economy by introducing a proposition which
proposes to saddle upon the taxpayers of this country the business
of the express companies and their pay roll of 50,000 men, together
with all their equipment, contracts, and damage claims, all of the
risks, and labor conditions, and all those other conditions that are
incident to Government control. Preaching economy! Yet you propose
by this bill to make the Government of the United States, whose
money are sent here to justly and wisely appropriate, take this money
out of the Treasury, the people's money, under the guise of an appropriation
bill for the benefit of clerks and free rural delivery carriers,
and to do what? Expend it on three classes of roads, to be
supported by the Government of the United States, upon the pretense
that somewhere, at some time, they are to be used by a wagon
carrying the mail of the United States, or are to be footed by some
one who has a mail sack upon his back. If you want to be fair in
your proposition, why do you not make provision for another class
of roads to be paid for by the Government of the United States,
namely, the highways of the city, within the limits of the various
congested centers, where the people have already paid for them, and
where the heels of the carriers and the wheels of the wagons do as
much damage as they do upon any country road in the United States?
Are you going to make provision for the sidewalks used by the
letter carriers in carrying the mails of the United States, or are you
going to continue by your policy of economy to provide only for
one section of the United States and leave the others entirely out
of consideration?
Oh, in this bill you propose another radical change in regard to
the parcel post. You propose that those of us who live in the cities
shall pay 12 cents a pound upon packages which we deliver through
the mails, and that that rate shall be fixed and uniform with regard
to us, but so far as the residents of the country upon rural routes
are concerned, you provide a sliding scale of rates which means, in
the last analysis, that if we move out of a city and live in the country
we can have our packages carried in the mails on Government-built
roads by rural carriers at 5 cents a pound. In other words, you
are specializing as between the city and the country—we pay 12
cents and you pay 5—and you are violating the very essence of the
Constitution of the United States.
We might as well be frank about these matters. Why do your
States not go and build your own county roads? Why do you come
to the Government of the United States and ask us to use the money
of the people, the money of your people, the money of my people,
to build the roads that you ought to build yourselves? You ask, Do
we build our roads? I answer, Yes; we do, because we are industrious,
because we are saving and because we want to thrive and
prosper. The great Commonwealth of New York has appropriated
millions and millions of money to provide roads which are used by
every farmer who wants to use them, by every man who wants to
carry the mails, by any man, whether he comes from California or
whether he comes from New Mexico or whether he comes from
Austria. Why do not you build roads in order that the rest of the
roads for ourselves accord to others? The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
has just made provision for the construction of roads to
the extent of $50,000,000 and yet my good friend from Iowa comes
into this House, along with others who are now preaching this good-roads
doctrine, because it carries an appropriation and because it
pleases the farmers and because it pleases the rural-delivery men,
and says that he wants the Federal Treasury to build roads in Iowa.
Some other gentleman wants the Treasury to build roads in his State.
What are you doing for yourselves?
| University of Virginia record October 1, 1915 | |