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
the Nation? Why were we discriminated against when you were
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.
