556 ANNUAL KEPORT OP^ I'HE Oft. Doc. 



best aud luusl cuijable citizcus I'oi* foad officials, we would have a 

 corps of supervisors in Penusjlvauia equal, if not superior, to that 

 of any other State in the Union. 



This law of lSi)7, of which [ speak, provides just that. It it not a 

 good roads law; it is simply a supervisor's law. Tt provides, that 

 there shall be three supervisors elected in each county in the State, 

 aud they shall form a board and serve three years, one man going 

 out each year and leaving two of the old members in. It is a con- 

 tinuous board; it never closes its account; is always in existence, 

 and always on duty. [Applause.] Thus the nuijority of these men 

 will be men having at least one year's experience. 



1 have tried to educate supervisors. That is what they said I 

 should do, and that is right. But j'ou must have some person that 

 you can educate to begin with, then you must have a little time in 

 which to educate him, and then you must have the services of the 

 man after he is educated. We have over 3,000 supervisors in our 

 State, and I secured the names of every one of them and sent 

 literature to them. At the close of the year, in most 

 of the districts, the supervisors go out of office and a new 

 set of men come in, so that the work you have done with the previ- 

 ous board is practically lost, and you have a new set to deal with, 

 more ignorant perhaps than the others, at least less informed 

 on road matters, and you begin over again. The board provided for 

 under the act has this advantage, that its information is hereditary; 

 it is transmitted from year to year, and it is cumulative in its char- 

 acter. You educate a board of supervisors, and although a man 

 goes out, the information is retained, and in the course of a few years 

 the board is fairly well educated. Instead of having a system of 

 retrogression you have one of progression aud accumulation. That 

 is what we need in road matters. We have not yet reached the per- 

 fection of road improvement and road instruction. Until within 

 the last twenty years our engineers did not know how to build 

 a good road; now they are beginning to learn how a road can be built. 

 But we must teach the supervisors, in all the districts, how to con- 

 struct a good road, and after it is constructed, how to maintain it, 

 which is of equal importance. 



I believe that we must have in every locality a board of intelligent 

 men, educated in road matters, which will have charge of the roads 

 in that community and look after them; a board that is continued 

 and can be instructed, and which will secure the best information 

 that is to be had on the subject. Then State aid should follow. Give 

 State aid to such a board, and the money of the State will be spent 

 intelligently. Instead of wasting millions of dollars, as is done 

 to-day, without improving the roads at all, every dollar expended 

 in the future will bring a dollar's worth of service, and after it is 



