112 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1900. 



to the rural population to have good roads carried into all 

 sections of the country as quickly as possible. 



The people of this Commonwealth cannot afford to checker the 

 State with roads costing ten or twelve thousand dollars a mile : 

 but they can afford and it is for their interest to build good roads 

 everywhere. And it is for their interest also to have these 

 roads under the care and control of the people who live where 

 the roads are located. Under the present system nobody nearer 

 than the State officials in Boston are responsible for the care and 

 management of our State roads. In case of a defect therein it is 

 nobody's business to notify these officials of such defect and no- 

 body except them can repair the defect. If they are covered 

 with snow four feet deep neither these officials nor anybody else 

 are required to remove the snow or to make the roads passable 

 in any other way. If the people of a town in which a State road 

 is located desire to build a cross walk over or a sewer under the 

 same they can only do so by permission of these State officials. 

 The law relative to the matter is contrary to our theory of local 

 self government and is in accord with the opinions of those who 

 think it would be wise to have our schools, jails and poor-farms 

 managed and controlled from the State House. The most intelli- 

 gent and philosophic foreigners who have visited our country 

 like DeTocqueville and James Bryce, as well as our great think- 

 ers and statesmen, have claimed that our township government 

 is the glory of New England and the basic principles on which 

 our republican government rests. If this is so, then we should 

 resist with jealous vigilance every encroachment upon the domain 

 of our local self government. 



Hence would it not be best for our roads to be under the care 

 and control of our local communities? And would it not be best 

 for the State to aid the towns by a reasonable contribution towards 

 the expense of every mile of highway built by such towns in ac- 

 cordance with the requirements of law? When the present high- 

 way act was passed it was thought that a piece of State road in 

 a town would be such an object lesson in good road building that 

 the town would immediately proceed to make all the other roads 

 in the town similar to it, but as a matter of fact it fails to induce 



