University of Virginia Library

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

Federal Government, and it may be that they think in many cases
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.