Report of State Highway Engineer. 47 



proportioned between the community, county and State, a creditable 

 showing would soon be made without working a hardship upon anyone. 

 Examples can be cited in the counties of Johnson, Cass, Boone, Cooper, 

 Clay, Platte, Montgomery, Nodaway, Holt, Callaway, Pettis, Saline, Jef- 

 ferson, Scott, Douglas, Greene, where the communities or districts de- 

 siring to build, felt that the total cost was too much for them, but with 

 a little financial assistance would have gone ahead with the work. This, 

 in turn, would bring further improvements. Missouri will succeed in 

 road work whenever she acquires State aid for public roads. 



THE COUNTY HIGHWAY ENGINEER. 



There is a great deal of talk against the office of County Highway 

 Engineer. Under the last legislative action, petitions are being circu- 

 lated in a few counties for the purpose of suspending the County High- 

 way Engineer act, while one county has already voted in favor of the 

 suspension clause. 



The law creating the office of County Highway Engineer is good 

 and is sound in principle. If any county does not improve road con- 

 ditions under it, it is the fault of the county, and not of the law. If 

 every man would acquaint himself with the loose methods of the past 

 forty years, namely, the condition of our road records, the utter disre- 

 gard for road laws and road regulations, the counties' mercy at the hands 

 of the unscrupulous contractors, and the imsystematical ways in vogue, 

 he would certainly see the necessity for the office of County Highway 

 Engineer. The county engineer can, in many places, collect more of the 

 poll-tax than was collected before him, get the funds upon the road at a 

 less percentage for overseeing, and can gradually bring order out of 

 chaos. 



Take, for example, the cases of Lawrence and Moniteau counties, 

 where the cost of overseeing was formerly about 50 per cent, of the 

 funds; the engineers have reduced it to 20 i^er cent, and 30 per cent., 

 respectively. In one district in another coimty, it was costing 97 per 

 cent, of the funds to get them on the road. With the same overseer, the 

 engineer succeeded in reducing this to 40 per cent, the first year, and 

 to 30 per cent, this year. One other county shows 30 per cent, saved in 

 the purchase price of road tools alone, and in still another, where only 

 50 per cent, of the poll-taxes were ever collected, through the attention 

 and spur given the road interests by the engineer, 90 per cent, of these 

 taxes are now collected. 



The amount of work for which the engineer is called upon, is evi- 

 dence enough of the need for such an official. The county court of 



