46 Missouri Agnelli htral Ixcjxirl. 



be the county superiuteiulcut oi' roads, and that lie shuLiltl \v<\\v eoiitrul 

 aud (supervisiou of tlic road work and the overseers of his respective 

 county. It is the law of the State and is mandatory upon each county 

 court to appoint an engineer, Init the office may be suspended in any 

 one county l)y a vote of the county. The local option feature went into 

 effect less than two years ago, since which time, from reports received, 

 twenty counties — every one where it was voted upon — have suspended 

 the act. From my information upon the question there are not over a 

 dozen counties in the State that would liot do tlie same thing if some- 

 one took the trouble to get the question put upon the ballots. The con- 

 trol and supervision of road affairs is going through the same fight 

 which tliat for the supervision of schools and other public affairs went 

 through. Close supervision of road work is ahead of the times, and 

 we have got to fight it out along these lines till it does eventually win. 

 Does the taxpayer want his road taxes spent in a loose, unbusinesslike 

 way, or does he prefer to feel that there is some effort being made to 

 properly supervise the expenditures? If any taxpayer wishes to get 

 a comparison between tlie old methods without county supervision or 

 those in vogue under tlie county highway engineer, let him investigate 

 for himself in any county which has complied witli the intent of the 

 law and provided a competent man. 



The law creating the office of county highway engineer is good, and 

 is sound in principle. If every man woidd acquaint himself with the 

 loose methods of the past forty years, namely, the condition of our 

 road records, the utter disregard for road laws and road regulations, 

 and the unsystematieal ways in vogue, he would certainly see the 

 necessity for a county highway department. 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 reduced it to 20 per cent and 30 per cent, re- 

 spectively. In one district in another county, it was costing 97 per cent 

 of the funds to get them on the road. With the same overseer the en- 

 gineer succeeded in reducing this to 40 per cent the first year and 30 

 per cent the second year. One other county showed 30 per cent saved in 

 the purchase price of road tools alone (and this is one county which 

 voted to do away with county supervsion), and in still another where 

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



