University of Virginia Library

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,

we can rest assured that there will be pulling and hauling
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.