Sj. STUDY OF ROAD MAINTENANCE 



some state system of highway construction. Frequently, 

 however, when we ask the individual, who formerly lived in 

 a favored highway district, with taxes in many cases not more 

 than half worked out, to apply the same principle to his own 

 town, he does not look at it in the same light, but will be 

 found calling: for a return to the old law. I have talked with 

 numerous men, most of whom were well-informed and intend- 

 ed to be fair-minded and just, who have complained bitterly 

 because the new road law took away so much of their highway 

 tax. On further inquiry, I have found in several instances 

 that such parties had been living in some of these favored dis- 

 tricts that had been kept up at the expense of other portions 

 of their towns. It will take a generation to fully outgrow the 

 effects of this system, and meantime every reasonable effort 

 should be made to clearly set forth the unfairness of any law 

 which practically would require the expenditure of highway 

 taxes in the districts in which they are assessed. 



Let us turn now and look for some of the better features of the 

 old law. I do not hesitate to say that the best feature — that 

 which mitigated, and perhaps in many instances entirely sup- 

 pressed, the general tendency to evil, was that which gave us the 

 district unit for the expenditure of highway money. Let it be 

 clearly understood that I do not mean the district system for 

 raising money. The town itself is too small a unit for this pur- 

 pose, but it is the best we can obtain at present. The old law 

 went too far in expending all the money by the district plan, 

 but experience has proved that the people desire to have some 

 one in each neighborhood who has authority and a reasonable 

 amount of money for making all the ordinary small repairs as 

 they are needed throughout the season. 



Let us consider for a few moments what an ideal system of 

 road maintenance within a town would be. Without doubt, it 

 would consist in the selection, possibly by the board of select- 

 men, of a practical road builder, who should devote his entire 

 time to a study of the needs of the town and to the superin- 

 tendence of all the work done. This is the method adopted in 

 the city and in a few of the largest towns. It is not applicable 

 to the country. In many, many towns the total money raised 

 for roads would not pay the salary of a man who was skilled in 



