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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.