Mr. ROBSION. In your State, the State of Ohio, the State is the unit in matching Federal aid, is it not?

Mr. BOULAY. Do you refer to the State or the counties?

Mr. ROBSION. In making the contract, and dealing with the Government, the State is the unit?

Mr. BOULAY. Yes, sir.

Mr. ROBSION. I think under the act of November 9, 1921, the State is required to be the unit.

Mr. BOULAY. On all of the Federal roads, or, in fact, on all of the roads of our State system, the State does the work.

Mr. ROBSION. I notice that the gentleman from Iowa yesterday and you, both, stressed the necessity of repealing this $15,000 per mile limitation. I think the gentleman from Iowa said that his State the year before last expended something more than $30,000,000 for roads, and last year perhaps $28,000,000, or some such sum. Mr. BOULAY. Yes, sir.

Mr. ROBSION. And you say that your State last year expended $50,000,000?

Mr. BOULAY. Yes, sir.

Mr. ROBSION. Your Federal aid portion of it is less than $3,000,000, is it not?

Mr. BOULAY. Yes, sir.

Mr. ROBSION. Now, I can not see, since the State will spend on its Federal roads so much more than the 50 per cent necessary to match Federal aid, why $15,000 proposition is very material?

Mr. BOULAY. I would have to go into the finances in Ohio to explain that to you, which I will do, and it will only take a very few words in which to do it.

Mr. ROBSION. But under the act of November 9, 1921, the State is the unit, and if the State is the unit, then you can not, so far as it is related to Federal aid, go into your county arrangement.

Mr. BOULAY. We can as regards the securing of funds, and do. Mr. ROBSION. In many of the States, and I know in my own State, the fund is selected by the State, and they come directly and exactly in mind with the Federal statute.

Mr. BOULAY. Yes, sir.

Mr. ROBSION. In that the State matches the Federal Government. Mr. BOULAY. Yes, sir. Now, let me explain the Ohio situation. We operate in Ohio on what you call the pay-as-you-go plan. That plan was referred to by somebody as the "pay-as-you-go plan, and don't go." We go.

The State secured, through a half-mill levy, previous to the last session of the legislature, about $3,450,000 a year, which is apportioned out by the director of highways to the different counties, one eighty-eighth part of that to each county, there being eighty-eight counties. That money must be spent in the county in furnishing State aid to the county. The county will come in to us and make application for a road. We will have these funds with which to give them aid, but that will not go very far in the building of the roads in that county, so that county puts up a certain amount of money, and the balance necessary, we will say, to make the total cost of the construction of this particular road is turned over to the State, is paid out by the State, and is secured by these counties through a bond issue.

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Mr. ROBSION. But in doing that I can see, of course, that your poorer counties, the counties of least wealth, through which must pass one of these Federal aid roads, or one of these main roads, is put to a great deal of disadvantage.

Mr. BOULAY. Exactly so.

Mr. ROBSION. In creating these great links that you speak of. Mr. BOULAY. Yes, sir.

Mr. ROBSION. And this great system in Ohio looks as though it is based on Federal aid, that New York has built its roads, and Pennsylvania has built its roads, and that therefore they can build, with Federal aid, in making the national system.

off.

Mr. BOULAY. And that is why we believe that limit should be taken

Mr. ROBSION. Would it not be better to take off the limit in your State and change your law to conform with the Federal act? Mr. BOULAY. We are getting roads built.

Mr. ROBSION. But the point I make is that your State is coming in and saying, "We want this law changed because our law is so and so." Mr. BOULAY. No.

Mr. ROBSION. Would it not be better, in view of the terms of the national act, to try to get the States to conform to the national act.

Mr. BOULAY. We realize that the conditions that exist in Ohio will exist in a large number of the other States, and we are not in favor of the limit of $15,000 a mile, because sometimes in the hill countries, it will cost more than twice that much.

The CHAIRMAN. Just one other question there.

Mr. BOULAY. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. If you should raise this limit and make it $20,000 in some of your counties, the other counties will not get Federal aid; is not that true? Every dollar that you would take off of the $15,000 minimum you would have for the construction of a certain piece of road. Is not that true?

Mr. BOULAY. Not exactly. At the present time we can take the Federal aid that we get and place it all in one county, if they have the number of miles to necessitate that amount of money.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; and if you should raise this to $20,000 or $25,000 or $30,000 a mile, and you used $30,000, you would only build half the number of miles that you would be compelled to build under the present law, if you used up the Federal aid.

Mr. BOULAY. No; I would not say half, because we would not use that.

Mr. ROBSION. If Federal aid is to be used to stimulate road construction and I think that is the biggest thing in it, to stimulate road construction-then, I believe if you would string out to a reasonable degree, you would string out the stimulation.

Mr. BOULAY. We have certain counties where we do not give the minimum of Federal aid. There are counties in Ohio where we will only give them $5,000 of Federal aid on a $60,000 job, because those counties are counties that have a large tax duplicate, and can afford to pay a greater proportion of the money. Some of the counties, with only 20,000 population, may have tax duplicates of less than $15,000,000, and in those counties they would not be able to pay more money. The State legislature has recognized that fact, and the people in those counties the State will pay as high as 90 per cent of

the cost, because it is impossible for the poorer counties to put a tax on the people which would equal the sum necessary to meet Federal aid on a 50-50 basis. We are relieving the farmers in those counties by paying a greater proportion of the money.

In our own State we have met with the same objection that you are hearing from all over the Nation, that we pay more money into the Treasury than we get back.

Mr. ROBSION. If they had the same law in Kentucky and some other States that you have in Ohio, you could never build the Dixie Highway or any of those great roads, because there you have some real mountain construction.

Mr. MANLOVE. Let me ask you this question right there, please? Mr. BOULAY. Yes, sir.

Mr. MANLOVE. My understanding is that in Ohio with regard to your through highway projects, you raise a good part of the money by what is known as the assessment plan on the land adjoining, is not that the fact?

Mr. BOULAY. By assessing 10 per cent, unless the county deter

mines

Mr. MANLOVE. The county can assume that?

Mr. BOULAY. Yes, sir.

Mr. CABLE. By a unanimous vote on the part of the commis

sioners?

Mr. BOULAY. Yes, sir.

Mr. MANLOVE. That is what I had understood.

Mr. BOULAY. We can not assess them more than 15 per cent, and it goes back a mile and a half.

Mr. CABLE. You said something about an objection of the part of the richer counties to taking that percentage of their tax money and putting it into the poorer counties?

Mr. BOULAY. You will sometimes hear that; yes, sir.

Mr. CABLE. Do you get much of that?

Mr. BOULAY. Not so much when you sit down and explain to those people that they are as much interested in the roads in the poorer counties as they are in their own roads, because the people of every county will find it necessary to drive through those sections carrying on their business, and if we do not improve the roads in those counties, their people are affected. A vast majority of the people have come to the conclusion that the richer counties must help take care of the poorer counties, because they are all residents of Ohio, and they are all doing their bit to make Ohio a better State.

Mr. CABLE. How much have you allocated to some of those poorer counties; how high a percentage?

Mr. BOULAY. One of those counties, Pike County, does not pay anything. That is a little county with a road running across it, north and south and east and west. They can not pay anything: they have no tax duplicate. Of course, we have only got a few miles of hard surface road in there. We are maintaining their road until the time comes when they have their financial situation relieved and can afford to pay a little bit. In other counties we pay 90 per cent of the cost of the road. Sometimes the property owners do not pay anything in those counties.

Mr. MANLOVE. I am wondering whether in those poorer counties that assessment on the adjoining property owners would not work a hardship on them.

Mr. BOULAY. We have a very flexible law. For instance, let us take this proposition: We will have a road; they will ask for aid on the road. We will say, "We will give you 50 per cent aid." This would be in a county with higher tax duplicates. They would secure 10 per cent from the assessments against properties, and that will extend back, perhaps a mile or a mile and a half; 15 per cent of it is assessed against the township, and 25 per cent is assessed against the county at large. Of course, the money that the State puts in other than Federal aid is secured by a half mill levy, and that naturally reaches out and in a very minor way touches everybody in the State of Ohio.

Mr. CABLE. You do not have that now, do you?

Mr. BOULAY. No: an appropriation was made by the legislature. We could not continue to do that, because we can not continually appropriate from funds, which they refer to now as surplus, but which are not surplus, but balance.

Mr. CABLE. Will you have to put that all back? Mr. BOULAY. I think so. It should be put back. There is great agitation in regard to that matter by the people who are interested in the good roads in Ohio.

Mr. MANLOVE. Is it the general sentiment of the people that they are willing that it should go back!

Mr. BOULAY. I think so. They have to do one of three thingseither to issue bonds or they have to assume a levy or they have to stop building roads. Now. Ohio will not stop building roads. Mr. DOUGHTON. I understood you to state previously that you were working on State roads.

Mr. BOULAY. As far as the State is concerned, but not as far as the county is concerned. There are a large number of these roads that are on the State system, and there are Federal roads, and there are requests made for aid, and we have not the money to give them the aid, and they go out and build them themselves.

Mr. CABLE. There is a limit as to the time of the bond issue, to the life of the improvement; is that not so?

Mr. BOULAY. Ten years, generally.

Now, gentlemen, I am not going to take up any more of your time. but I have with me Mr. W. A. Alsdorf, of Columbus, Ohio. He is the executive secretary of the Ohio Good Roads Federation, and he will follow me.

The Ohio Good Roads Federation is an association of citizens whose interest in good roads is purely civic. They are supported by contributions from the people and have representatives in all of the counties. As we refer to them, they are the watch dogs of our road system.

Mr. Alsdorf has sat in the State legislature and was instrumental in passing several of our road laws. He is very familiar with our road laws, going back for a number of years, and I believe he can give you some very valuable information, if you care to quiz him on it.

I will surrender to him now, because I have finished really, what I have to say.

Mr. CABLE. Before you conclude, let me ask you one more question.

Mr. BOULAY. Yes, sir.

Mr. CABLE. Have you any other suggestions as to the Federal aid law?

Mr. BOULAY. No; I will not say that I have. I will now introduce Mr. Alsdorf.

The CHAIRMAN. We will hear you, Mr. Alsdorf.

STATEMENT OF MR. W. A. ALSDORF, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, OHIO GOOD ROADS FEDERATION, COLUMBUS, OHIO

Mr. ALSDORF. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I just want to supplement the remarks of our director, from the viewpoint of the citizen, representing largely a civic organization. We recognize that you people are desirous of obtaining the viewpoint of the citizens in the various States; so we from Ohio briefly bring you the message, first, that we are very much in favor of the principle of Federal aid.

The one outstanding thing that appeals to us in regard to what Federal aid has accomplished is the stabilizing and systematizing of road work. We do not have to remember back very far in our State, and neither do you in your States, when road work was done without any idea of system at all; it was here and there and everywhere, scattered around over the States, according to the will of the counties. We have now approached a new era since the war.

The Federal Government took an interest in highway building, and while that interest was, as stated by the gentleman up here, stimulating in building, yet it led to the systematizing of it.

In Ohio we have, in addition to the Federal system, a larger State system, and following the State system we have a county system. Then, in each county that system is designated along lines of certain definite machinery, and it becomes a definite county system of roads; so that the expenditures of the public moneys are now systematized, and, naturally, that involves many items of economy that are practiced now and which heretofore were impossible.

That is one of the big things that we believe Federal aid has established the stabilizing and systematizing of road work.

In Ohio, where we have 1,000,000 vehicles, we can carry the population of the State in our machines around over the State if we wanted to. We have about 85,000 miles, total, of all kinds of roads. About 16,000 miles are improved by counties and approximately 5,000 improved by the State. We are going on building.

What are the definite ideas that might be presented, and why is Federal aid popular in that State, and with whom is it popular?

It certainly is popular, first, with the manufacturers. Ohio has 79 cities and 646 villages, and there is a manufacturer, of course, of some kind in all of those cities, and quite a number of them in a great number of them. I do not believe there is a single manufacturer of any product but what either carries a part of the raw products which he manufactures over the highways or distributes the finished product over the highways.

So we have a large number of manufacturers of all kinds that are interested in the development of a system that permits them to collect their necessary raw products or to distribute their finished product to the various cities in the State.

Therefore, the manufacturers are vitally interested, and we have a great many of them with us.

The next are the merchants.

The merchants in every county seat town or in all of the other cities, even though they are not