394 ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



On motion, the piivileges of tlic floor were extended to Hon. W, T. 

 Creasy. 



MR. CREASY: Mr. Chairman, the report that has just been read, 

 I think is one of the best reports that I ever heard on this ques- 

 tion. I have been a member of the Legishiture for several sessions 

 and have given this road question a great deal of study, and the act 

 of 1903, it seems to me, does not meet the requirements at all. I 

 had a talk with a number of our common pleas judges, and every 

 one seems to be of the same opinion. There is too much red tape 

 about it to start with. The road legislation of 1903 was, to some 

 extent, forced on the country people against their wishes, and it 

 has worked out just as some of the country members said it would 

 do. It is impossible in the poorer sections of the State, when it 

 costs from ten to fifteen hundred dollars a mile, to build a road. I 

 want to state to you that not many miles of road have been built 

 in many townships in this State. 



The law, as it seems to me, that meets our condition better than 

 any, is the law of the State of Massachusetts. The state takes 

 charge of her main thoroughfares; that is the idea of our com- 

 mon pleas judges in this State. In the State of Massachusetts 

 that is done; the state pays the vyhole bill for the construction of 

 the road, and then after the road is built, the counties are expected 

 to pay one-fourth. The state takes the county's bonds and holds 

 them until the county can pay them off, covering one-fourth of the 

 cost of the road. As it is now under our law, as hundreds of these 

 townships are to build these roads, we would have a kind of patch- 

 work business; and as matters now stand I do not know when we 

 shall have a system of roads throughout the State such as we 

 ought to have. 



The conclusion that the Grange has arrived at is, that the word 

 "township" be stricken out of the act entirely, and drop that one- 

 sixth that the townships are expected to pay, and let the counties 

 pay in accordance with the provisions of the law in Massachusetts. 

 You who come from these agricultural sections^ imrely agricultural, 

 know that it is impossible for these districts to make these roads 

 as they should be made. The average price of road building in the 

 State of New York is |7,500 a mile; in the county of Allegheny I 

 think the average cost is |12,000 a mile. Now these roads cost 

 money, and it is impossible for the townships to properly take care 

 of them. Then after you have these roads built, if you allow these 

 narrow tires to go on, they will not last fifteen years. I have seen 

 that tried in some sections of our county, because they are bound 

 to cut up the roads. Unless they are kept in repair all the time, 

 new roads built will soon be as full of holes as the old roads are. It 

 seems to me that the farmers ought to try to agree on some plan. It 

 seems to me that to wipe out the method of road-building by town- 

 ships would be a good idea, and then let each county follow its pleas- 

 ure according to the public road mileage in each county, then let 

 the State build in each county. If you can't do that every year, let 

 the fund accumulate and do it every two years. If the county can't 

 put up the one-sixth, which is the case with a few counties in Penn- 

 sylvania, then let the State take those bonds. That, it seems to me, 

 would be a plan on which we can act and succeed in establishing a 



