390 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



but the smaller and more distant ones, even smallest and most 

 distant ones, those which supply the constant needs of the skin, hair, 

 nails, away at the outermost boundaries of the frame, are equally 

 important with the larger ones to the welfare of the whole body; 

 and if they are permitted to get out of order or fail in any degree 

 to perform their functions, to that same degree the whole system 

 suffers. So with the township dirt road; it is quite as important 

 to the welfare and prosperity of the whole State as is the inter-county 

 highway, and must be maintained in the same relative degree of ex- 

 cellence. It must be smooth, dry and hard for at least ten months 

 of the year, excepting only the periods of Spring thaws and excessive 

 rains. How shall this be done? By road laws? Witness the 

 failure of the hundreds and hundreds of laws enacted during the 

 dead century, and now reposing deservedly in the scrap heap. By 

 the autocracy of the unequipped supervisor? His inefficiency has 

 been fully demonstrated. By "working out the road tax?" Enough 

 has already been wasted in Pennsylvania by this egregious folly to 

 duplicate the Appian Way from Philadelphia to Erie. 



State aid, in science, skill and money, properly understood, 

 broadly interpreted, liberally applied, is at this time the best avail- 

 able instrumentality in sight. State aid, I say, not State assumption 

 nor substitution. The local forces of men and means must be aided, 

 not cut out. The township unit should remain: it is the best road 

 district, under present conditions that can be made; and all its in- 

 herent powers be utilized to the best possible advantage. The old 

 time supervisor, too often unqualified and always independent in 

 action, has already been superceded by the act of April 12, 1905, by 

 an organized Board of Supervisors, three in number. This body is 

 continuous in its structure by the election of one at a time, acts as 

 a board, and, usually one or more of the best qualified citizens of 

 the township in its membership serves as a most valuable agency for 

 connecting up the Department of Highways and its organized 

 science, skill and funds with the township road. 



By the act of July 22, 1913, a suzerainty over the township super- 

 visors by the Department of Highways, which makes the direct con- 

 nections referred to above, and re-enacts the act of April 12, 1905, 

 with such modifications and amplifications as establish a work- 

 ability between the State and township authorities was authorized. 

 To some of the provisions of this act exceptions might be taken by 

 those disposed to be critical. Your Committee is not so disposed, 

 because it establishes the principle of unity of purpose, action and 

 forces between all the road authorities and powers of the State, and 

 provides the legal machinery, under centralized and intelligent con- 

 trol, your Committee ignores its defects — which may be many but 

 are remediable by amendatory legislation — and gives it full com- 

 mendation. As a matter of fact the act has already been amended 

 as to sections 5, 9 and 15, by the present legislature. 



Your Committee is not unaware that this view of the interelation 

 of State and local authorities and laws is diametrically contravened 

 by some of our thoughtful citizens; and it acknowledges with very 

 high appreciation the receipt of letters from a prominent citizen 

 and distinguished lawyer in the southwestern part of the State, whose 

 opinions upon the subject are the more particularly entitled to the 



