258 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 



the management of the greater part of our road systems. In 

 most of our States we have placed bridges under the care of 

 somebody other than that in charge of the road. 



On this substructure many of the States have built, each in its 

 own way to provide for our increasing highway traffic. The 

 laws passed for this object may be grouped into two general 

 classes, following the lead set by the two States that first took 

 up road improvement as a field for State activity, namely, New 

 Jersey and Massachusetts. The former undertook to aid counties 

 in the building of improved roads, leaving the care of the roads 

 thus built to the county authorities; Massachusetts, on the other 

 hand, set herself to building and maintaining a system of State 

 roads made up of the most important through lines of traffic. 

 Both of these represent correct principles. The State should 

 care for the important through lines. Local bodies should be 

 encouraged to improve roads of secondary importance. Neither 

 of these States, however, undertook to thoroughly provide for the 

 proper care of all of its country roads, nor, as far as I know, has 

 any other State. Nothing less than this will meet the need. 

 Every public road should be insured such intelligent care as to 

 furnish the best service of which it is capable. 



My own experience as a road official may be enlightening. A 

 mechanical engineer by training, with scant}- knowledge of road- 

 work and even less experience in public office, I was appointed 

 five years ago head of the New Jersey Road Department. The 

 appointment, I believe, was considered a good one. 



I expected to find very simple engineering, an ill-organized 

 repair system, and more or less "graft." I found the engineer- 

 ing by no means simple, that proper reorganization of the repair 

 system would require voluntary cooperation and acceptance of 

 State control by the counties, many of which were jealous of 

 each other and of the influence of the department. I found no 

 legal evidence of "graft" and no reason for suspicion against 

 the force under my control. This force had been formed and 

 had worked under department heads not one of whom had any 

 previous engineering experience; it was personally well fitted for 

 its work, but hardly large enough for its statutory duties and 

 utterly insufficient for the work necessary to insure thoroughness. 

 There was much duplication of work between the State and 



