i \TH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART X 



Governor Carroll, in his inaugural address, put it at $4,000,000 or $40,000 

 to the county. Our own county expends about $70,000 annually. We ob- 

 serve in the second place that the country roads of Iowa have, within 

 the last twenty-five years, made no improvement worth mentioning; the 

 same poor drainage; the same period of impassible roads in the spring, 

 the same tearing up of smooth roads in the fall. 



AN EXCEPTIONAL COUNTY. 



It is possible that this arraignment is too sweeping, for during the last 

 legislative session a representative from one of the interior counties ex- 

 pressed himself as well pleased with the operation of the present road law, 

 stating that in his county the township levy only was devoted to repair 

 work, while the county levy of one mill was entirely laid aside and used 

 solely for permanent road building, that in this way their county roads 

 had grown better yearly. But this case, so far as the speaker knows, is an 

 isolated one. It remains true in a broad and general sense that the county 

 roads are from year to year making no improvement. 



FUNDS SHOULD BE USED EFFECTIVELY. 



Now if this view be correct, if our county roads at the rate of expendi- 

 tures are failing to improve, then there are in the nature of the case only 

 two ways left by which an improvement may be brought about and by 

 which our ideal may be obtained. One is to pay out more money on our 

 highways, viz.: To expend more than $4,000,000 in the state and more 

 than $70,000 in this county. The other way is to spend the money we do 

 raise differently. This matter let us now look into. 



EOAD FUNDS — HOW EXPENDED. 



It is in no spirit of disparagement to the road officials of the state that 

 we inquire whether our road funds are judiciously expended. Yet in this 

 great affair it will not do to mince matters. The building and maintain- 

 ance of roads and bridges call for men of special equipment. We shall 

 not enumerate the qualifications but it is evident that in deciding for in- 

 stance, the location of a highway, in deciding the question of highway 

 drainage or in figuring out a gradient that would be permissible in a high- 

 way, and in like matters qualifications of no common order are in demand. 

 Likewise when it comes to bridge work the men who have an independent 

 judgment as to what constitutes a suitable superstructure, or what con- 

 stitutes a suitable foundation or what constitutes a suitable and safe 

 water space are rare indeed. One qualification especially deserves special 

 mention. No man should be entrusted with the work of gradience and 

 bridge construction who is incapable of using mathematical instruments, 

 he should be able to set a theodolite and do other mathematical work. 

 The great question, perhaps the greatest question which the legislature 

 had to consider or has in the future to consider, is whether the state as 

 such, is today equipped to expend its road funds wisely and effectively, 



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