FREE ROADS.
Mr. FLOYD called up the special order, being his bill [H. R. 77] providing for purchase and making free roads of toll roads, which was read the second time, with a majority report from the Committee on Roads recommending its passage, with an amendment to Seetion 3, adding these words: "Providing that the bonds issued under the provisions of this section shall at no time exceed 1 per centum of the assessed value of the taxable value of the property of the County."
The report was concurred in.
Mr. CARTER moved to amend Section 1 by adding the following: "Providing that the County Commissioners shall not purchase any gravel roads, except upon petition of a majority of the legal voters in the County."
The amendment was adopted.
Mr. FLOYD--In speaking upon this bill, I am not actuated by any personal considerations of profit to myself; nor am I unmindful of the obligation that is upon me in legislation to labor for the good of the whole people. It is a fact, Mr. Speaker, the mere mention of which will secure the mental assent of every gentleman this floor, that nothing adds so much to the wealth of a State as her public highways,and nothing indicates so clearly the spirit of progress in a State, or marks the status of the improvement and development of a State as the condition of her public highways. Moneys appropriated to the application and operations of a systematic method of working and improving the highways of the State bring in returns to the Treasury of the Commonwealth far in excess of what can be known by any method of computation.
The improvement of the public highways affect the general prosperity of the State to such an extent that every branch of industry responds to such improvement as the springing grass responds to the gentle showers of springtime.
In speaking of the importance and utility of such public improvements as are now under consideration, I know I shall not be considered as drawing a fancy sketch. But beliving that gentlemen upon this floor are fully aware of the vast wealth-producing power attaching to public highways, I proceed to speak of the merits of bill now before us as embodying a system by which the material wealth of the State may certainly and equitably be developed by a process at once simple and practical.
The bill proceeds upon the principle that to every highway there attaches a local value and a public, or general, value. Those who live along the line of the road receive the greatest benefit. This is what I mean by a local value. It is of greater value to them because of their location in proximity to the road. Then, Mr. Speaker, I hold that every gravel road, and every other highway that is constructed in the State, has a general value attaching to it; that is, it is of value to the public--it increases the public wealth. It adds to the general wea1th more, vastly more, in the aggregate, than to the individual wealth of the few who live along the line of any given road. The present law proceeds upon the assumption that a page: 210[View Page 210] gravel road is of but little advantage to the public, or to anyone axeept those who live within a distance of one mile and a half or two miles. Now, gentlemen, I take it that this view is not only narrow in itself, but it involves a principle that is inequitable and unjust. Can anyone establish before a Court of Equity the obligation of parties in a given locality to tax themselves to make a public improvement? Upon what prnciples of justice or equity, I ask, are parties along a given line of road required to make public improvement, which adds materially to the wealth of the State, even though such parties may be benefited thereby more than the same number of persons living more remote from such improvement without any aid from the public? If this improvement was exclusively local, then I admit it would be just for parties desiring it to bear the entire cost of making it. But since it is general, and because it adds to the public wealth, and to the convenience of the public in traveling, I claim that the public ought to bear a part of the expense of building every gravel road that is built in the State. I claim it not only upon the ground of equity, but upon the ground of profit to the State. The State's wealth is increased by building or purchasing gravel roads by the same method and to the same extent that individuals,or corporations, are increased in wealth by building or purchasing them. If the State should build these roads and bear the entire expense, it would simply be a large corporation swallowing up the smaller ones. But then could she control this interest to the advantage of the people? and then, too, would she rise rapidly to a point of respectability and profit in the improvement of roads? Private property, or individual rights in roads is so antagonistic to the public interest that the attention of the Legislature ought to be at once devoted to the best methods of brnging about the result contemplated in this bill, viz: the absorption of individual rights in roads. I submit, Mr. Speaker, that the principle of private property in public improvements if it were applied to our State Institutions, e. g., our Deaf and Dumb Asyum, our Blind Asylum, our State House or our Educational Institutions, would at once appear to the most casual observer as an unwise method of managing these Institutions. But sir, it would involve the same method now existing in the management of our public highways.
A public highway as legitimately and justly belongs to the State, considered in the light of its object and use, as does a State House or any of the Benevolent Institutions of the State. It will readily be seen that the provisions of this bill pertaining to the construction of roads as provided in Section 7 are intended and that they do blend the local and the general interests together so as to secure the rights of individuals along and adjacent to the road, nor does it work any injustice to the tax-paying public. But on the contrary it secures to the citizens of the County large returns for the money invested. This is true in its application to every man owning real estate or doing business in the County. Nor are cities or towns any exception to the rule in this case. Cities and towns are dependent upon the country adjacent to them for their prosperity. As a rule the measure of their prosperity is determined by the development and prosperity of the country surrounding them. Hence, they should be as much interested in the development of the country as the yeomanry of the State, for the reason that the interests of the former and the interests of the latter, as it pertains to public improvements are, and of necessity must be mutual.
Nor will it change the obligations of cities or towns as it petains to a measure so important and so general as that contemplated in this bill for such cities and towns to refuse to support the bill, because they may have roads already built leading to their city from every point of the compass. It is not expedient for cities and the rural districts to separate their interests in matters of public improvement and public enterprise.
There are too many Court Houses, State Houses, Benevolent and Reformatory Institutions to be built and maintained, for which the whole people of the State must be taxed to justify a city or town in opposing the general good, as provided for in any bill, upon the hypothesis that they are provided for, and that therefore they are under no obligation to aid a measure in the interests of the State.
These remarks, I apprehend, do not apply to any town or city in the construction of gravel roads, but only in the purchase of such. Nor do I know that they apply to any considerable extent to the purchase of gravel roads. But the local value of gravel roads to a city or town is so apparent that they always contribute liberally to their construction.
Mr. F. proceeded to show that it is to the interest of the State to absorb by a gradual process all the gravel road corporations within the State, and to convert all the toll roads into free roads.
Mr. CARTER--It seems to me that this measure is a dangerous one. We will have within six months after the passage of this bill every County in debt and owning all the toll roads in the County. I think it would be an injurious thing to put in the hands of Commissioners the power and require them to exercise it at once. Another thing unfair in this bill to the people of this State is this: A bill passed the Legislature two years ago, authorizing the people of any portion of a County to build their toll-roads and tax the land within a certain distance on each side of the same. A large number of Counties have, under the operations of that act, taxed the people and built roads in the last two years. If this bill passes, you will tax these same people and make them help pay for the new roads, thus taxing them twice. A great many gravel roads, under the law of this State [making them free roads after existing twenty years] will soon become free under the operation of the existing law. I do not believe the people want this law. It would be a very unwise thing to require the County Commissioners to buy every toll road in the State as soon as possible. I hope this bill will not be ordered engrossed.
On motion by Mr. STUART, the bill was recommitted to the Committee on Roads.
