664 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



sertion is erroneous and very misleading and should not be tol 

 erated. A law that provides for the payment of two-thirds of the 

 cost of a substantial and permanent improvement that will greatly 

 benefit the farmer and further provides 50 per cent, of the cost of 

 keeping said improvement in repair, is no gold brick nor snare. No 

 taxpayer is asked to contribute to such improvement against his 

 will except in the very small percentage of possible increase in his 

 county tax, and probably the amount that most counties would 

 have to pay for the reconstruction of a mile or two miles of a town- 

 ship road would not increase the count}- tax rate at all. Even 

 should he have to pay a trifle more in taxes for having a good, per- 

 manent road over which to travel, he has something tangible to 

 show for the expenditure. The farmers of this State furnish a 

 capital of about |5,00(),000 a year for the supervisors to go into 

 business in the way of making so-called road repairs, and this sum 

 is actually tbrov.n away, and again subscribed for the following 

 year. 



Again, it is asserted that the act casts a grave reflection on the 

 township and greatly disparages the abilities of its citizens to man- 

 age its own internal afl'airs, when it centralizes the expenditures of 

 the money appropriated and puts the construction of good roads in 

 the hands of an individual or under a department. This assertion is 

 also wrong. There would be no general system of road improvement. 

 There would be as many systems, standards and methods as we have 

 supervisors in the State and the same would be liable to change each 

 year. Just imagine turning the public school system over to the 

 various township school boards. It would soon be ''confusion worse 

 confounded." 



It is true, to a certain extent, that the farmers have been at the 

 expense of keeping the township roads in repair for the benefit of 

 travel that pays no part of the expense. But who uses these i-oads 

 the m.ost? The farmer; and unless he keeps them in repair, how is 

 he to get to market to dispose of his produce? How is the merchant 

 who sells him goods going to deliver them unless he has a means of 

 access to the farmer's house? Why should the citizen or purchaser 

 of the farmer's products be asked to or be required to pay for main- 

 taining the roads that enable the farmer to get his goods to m.'irket 

 and dispose of them at marlvot price, any more than the farmer 

 should be asked or compelled to help pay for the improved streets or 

 roads in the city or borough in which lie markets his wares, which 

 he can do more quickly and to better advantage than if had mud 

 roads or streets to haul through. The taxpayers of a city or bor- 

 ough can with as much propriety say: **We will not improve our 

 streets because the farmers with their teams use them so much on 

 market days and cut them up, keeping them in bad condition," as the 



