COMMUNICATION AND TRANSPORTATION 259 



county forces and ill-located responsibility. While I cannot 

 complain of any lack of good will, the work has been and is being 

 done under conditions that exclude any high standard of attain- 

 ment and with the knowledge that no one expects results to 

 measure up to any such standard. 



I may be slow-witted. I have had to waste much time in plan- 

 ning how to get the work done under legislation both unreason- 

 ably restrictive and often inconsistent and in learning to tie the 

 red tape thereby required into the regulation bow-knots. 



During my term of office almost every one of our neighboring 

 States has changed the head of its road department. This brings 

 us to a most serious defect of our road administration, namely, 

 that the head, whether a commissioner or a board, is a political 

 appointee, usually unskilled in road-work and frequently without 

 any engineering training. Holding office for a term of years, 

 subjected to great political pressure, and intrusted with wide 

 powers, it would, indeed, be wonderful if these men did not 

 frequently yield to considerations other than the best interests of 

 our roads and err by dabbling in engineering matters. 



Instead of appreciation of the seriousness and the needs of the 

 situation, one generally finds in our legislatures a faith in the 

 efficacy of certain pet remedies and a leaning to numerous checks, 

 safeguards, and investigations, the outgrowth of lack of con- 

 fidence in the road administration, fruitful sources of delay, red 

 tape, and waste, and godsends for the muckraker. 



I have said that European experience is of but limited value 

 to us in the solution of our problem. The weight given in 

 Europe to the administration of their roads is, however, in- 

 structive. The French Republic has been the classic example 

 of road administration. It compares with our ten States as 

 follows, the French motor-vehicle figures being for the period 

 before the great war : 



In France all national roads and most of the departmental 

 roads are under the care of the celebrated "Fonts et Chausees" 



