Mr. BRAND. I think that your testimony relative to bridges might be misunderstood. You have taken care of bridges on your roads within the State, have you not?

Mr. BENEDICT. Absolutely. Only the larger bridges across to bordering States we have not taken care of.

Mr. CANNON. Except across the Illinois River.

Mr. BENEDICT. Well, we are taking care of crossing the Illinois River there. We are building one at Pekin.

Mr. ALMON. Is there a toll charge collected in Illinois?

Mr. BENEDICT. Absolutely no.

Mr. NELSON. You build mostly concrete roads?

Mr. BENEDICT. Yes, sir; on account of our soil condition. We have no gravel to begin with, and the gravel would not stand there. Mr. BRAND. What do you find to be the best way to drain your roadbed?

Mr. BENEDICT. Just by side ditches alone.

Mr. BRAND. How deep?

Mr. BENEDICT. Just deep enough to carry the water away, and not too deep. We are getting away from former methods and are advocating a shallower ditch construction, making it safe for the public to drive almost the full width of the righ of way. We find that the so-called tile drains and French drains only take care of such free water that might be preesnt, but not any capillary water that might be created or superinduced by these so-called drain tiles. In other words, we found under a section that was drained more water than under the undrained section. It was a sad blow to some of us engineers who had always figured that drain tile was the thing to put under the road. The capillary water can not be eliminated by drainage, and we found that out.

I thank you.

Mr. MARKHAM. As far as the State highway departments are concerned, we are through. The remaining things to be said are in charge of Mr. MacDonald, of the Bureau of Public Roads, and it is now 20 minutes of 12.

The CHAIRMAN. How long will you want, Mr. MacDonald?

Mr. MACDONALD. That depends entirely on what the committee wants from the bureau. The essential statement, with respect to the amount of funds and the financial status of the highway program, I can conclude in 20 or 30 minutes; but I had planned to place several of our experts, who have been making special investigations of certain lines of work, before you, in the thought that they would get into the record answers to a number of questions that have been raised here.

The CHAIRMAN. We will then adjourn until 10 o'clock to-morrow morning.

(Whereupon, at 11.40 o'clock a. m., an adjournment was taken until Wednesday Morning, February 17, 1926, at 10 o'clock a. m.)

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON ROADS, Wednesday, February 17, 1926.

The committee met at 10 o'clock a. m., Hon. Cassius C. Dowell

(chairman) presiding.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will please be in order.

Mr. MacDonald, of the Bureau of Public Roads, will now be. heard.

STATEMENT OF THOMAS H. MacDONALD, CHIEF BUREAU OF PUBLIC ROADS

Mr. MACDONALD. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I will present the material which I have to present to-day chiefly with the thought of recording the progress that has been made through the use of the Federal-aid funds which have been made available for the purpose of assisting the States in building roads. I do not wish to appear as an advocate, but, rather, to render an accounting.

There is, however, this thought that I do wish to place before the committee. It was my privilege during the past year to make a trip through Latin-American countries as a member of the official delegation appointed by the President to attend the first PanAmerican Congress of Highways held in Buenos Aires.

Without going into the details of that trip, we had an opportunity to study road conditions to some extent in Panama, Peru, Chile, the Argentine Republic, and in Brazil, and it is impossible to describe in any concise manner the lack of development which exists in all of those countries, due primarily to the lack of highways.

It can not be said that they have not developed their railroads, but there has been practically no development of rural highways of an adequate type such as we have in this country. As a result of that lack of development of highways, the countries themselves and their resources are undeveloped.

I have talked over the matter since my return at some length with the Agentine ambassador. He has told me that he fully realizes that his country has been held back by the lack of road development. Having seen the wonderful development that has taken place in this country as a result of the development of highways, it is one of his chief concerns to try to place before his people some method of improving the highways of his own country in order that it too shall go forward in the same manner.

I have seen a large part of the growth of the improved highways in this country, and was familiar particularly with the middle western conditions before we had highways of any adequate character, and this change in road conditions has come so gradually that I think sometimes we forget the conditions as they existed a few years ago, especially if we are fortunate enough to be situated in the parts of the country that are now served with improved roads. I may say, at least, that it came to me as a considerable shock to be taken back into conditions which, so far as roads are concerned, are almost the same as the conditions that existed 20 years ago in the great agricultural districts of the Mississippi Valley.

We saw in Latin-America lands just as fertile, just as capable of production as our own lands. We saw cities highly developed, and a splendid civilization; but we saw the country and the cities divided and a fertile countryside undeveloped through lack of roads.

So that I come before your committee to-day with a more profound conviction than I have ever held before that highways are one of the prime essentials of our civilization and one of the prime necessities for the maintenance of our standards of living in the rural sections as well as in the cities; and I am convinced also that the reason that roads have not been developed in the Latin-American Republics is largely that there have been no favorable governmental policies in those countries.

We are here considering a measure for the authorization of highway funds, but more than that we are considering whether we are going to have a governmental policy or whether we are not going to have a governmental policy. The authorization of funds happens to be the detail under consideration, but the fact is that we are considering also the broad question of governmental policies; so, with that thought in mind, I desire to place before your committee certain information which will be presented under several heads, as follows: (1) Material bearing on the Federal-aid highway program; (2) material bearing upon the development of highway transport; (3) material bearing upon the development of highway design and materials; (4) material related to highway costs; (5) a summary with reference to highway policies and finances; and (6) a brief statement with reference to forest highway funds.

With your permission these different subjects will be presented briefly by the different members of the bureau who have these matters particularly in charge.

I will refer now, Mr. Chairman, to the first subject, the status of the Federal-aid highway program.

During the fiscal year 1925 a larger mileage of Federal-aid projects was completed than in any other prior year, a total of 11,328 miles of all types. This, with the mileage since completed, brings the total completed to the 1st of February up to 52,401 miles. At the same time, February 1, the highway mileage under construction was 10,837, and the highway mileage approved for construction, 1,893, or a total in completed projects and projects under construction or approved for construction of 65,132 miles.

These projects completed, etc., are shown in detail in schedule No. 1, which I am submitting to you here. We have duplicate copies of these schedules, Mr. Chairman, and we will pass them around for the information of the committee.

(The table referred to is as follows:)

SCHEDULE 1.-Federal-aid highway mileage as of February 1, 1926

SCHEDULE 1.—Federal-aid highway mileage as of February 1, 1926-Continued

Mr. MACDONALD. Our expenditures for the fiscal year 1925 reached a total of $97,472,506. This is the largest expenditure which we have made in any fiscal year; that is, these are funds actually paid out to the States, and it is a peak expenditure. We are not operating on a program so large as this, but a particularly favorable fall a year ago allowed the States to complete practically all of the work or a very large part of the work which they had under construction, so that we more nearly brought all that outstanding work up to date and settled for it than had been possible in previous years; so that from this time on, assuming a continuance of the program at the present rate, we will drop down from that peak`expenditure.

The information as to appropriations and expenditures for the past several years is contained in schedule 2, which I will submit.

(The statement in question is as follows:)

SCHEDULE 2.-Balances, post-road funds

Mr. MACDONALD. The types of the roads completed up to February 1, 1926, were as follows:

What we call the low types, including the graded and drained and the sand-clay and gravel surfaced roads, totaled 35,402 miles, or 672 per cent of the total mileage completed.

The intermediate types, consisting of water-bound macadam and bituminous macadam, totaled 4,006 miles, or 7.7 per cent.

The high types, consisting of bituminous cement concrete, Portland cement concrete and brick, totaled 12,892 miles, or 24.6 per cent; and bridges, 102 miles. It is rather a remarkable showing that since Federal aid was started we have built over 100 miles of bridges, 20-foot span and over.

Mr. CANNON. What is the average length of those bridges?

Mr. MACDONALD. I am unable to say what the average length is. I presume it would be under 100 feet. I would be glad to get that information if it were thought desirable.

Mr. CANNON. It includes some bridges across large rivers, such as the Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Ohio?

Mr. MACDONALD. Yes; it includes quite a number of bridges across the Missouri River, and one of the most expensive bridges we have is in New Jersey, at Perth Amboy, across the Raritan River there.

Mr. CANNON. Have those bridges been built entirely out of Federal aid, or have they been built by cooperation between the Federal Government and the State?

Mr. MACDONALD. They have been built under the regular Federalaid plan, involving participation by both the Federal and State Governments, and, in some cases, participation of two States and the United States; but in any case the expenditure has never exceeded 50 per cent from Federal funds, and ordinarily it has been less than that percentage.