ROADS. COMMITTEE ON ROADS, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, The committee this day met, Hon. Thomas B. Dunn (chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. STATEMENT OF MR. THOMAS H. MacDONALD, CHIEF BUREAU OF PUBLIC ROADS, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. Mr. MACDONALD. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, we have come before the committee prepared to go into the matter of Federal-aid expenditures and results accomplished in as complete detail as the committee is willing to hear us. I should like to make, as a general statement, in opening this discussion, that I do not believe the public as a whole appreciates the importance the public highway has assumed in our national life, and I wish to place in the record that statement, because I believe it will be a point of the utmost concern within a very few years, that the increase in transportation facilities necessary in this country at this time apparently must come through highway improvement. It is very easy for us to forget during a period of business depression such as we are going through now that we are only two years away from one of the worst shortages of transportation the country has ever experienced, when it was impossible to carry on the normal business of the country; where the shipment of materials for building roads and for other building purposes was absolutely denied by those in authority over the railroads. It is my best judgment that within five years we will see a return of conditions very similar to those we have faced within the last two years, when our railway transportation broke down to such an extent that it was impossible to carry on the normal business of the country. Mr. HUDSPETH. Mr. MacDonald, do you mean that within the last two years there has been such a congestion of the railroads as to break them down? Mr. MACDONALD. We are only two years away from the time, 1917 and 1918, and even in 1919, when we were denied shipments of road materials on the railroads. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. MacDonald, may I interrupt you? Mr. MACDONALD. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. I do not want to insist on you giving us an extensive amount of material. I would like to ask a few questions upon the matter before us, and upon which I called a meeting of the committee. I would like to know the present situation and ask you a few questions that we can use in our debate here or hearings upon the amount that Congress may appropriate. Mr. MACDONALD. Yes, Mr. Chairman, whatever you see fit. The CHAIRMAN. I will say that on March 2 I wrote and asked four question-have you a copy of that letter? Mr. MACDONALD. I have a copy of it in our files and a copy of the answer with me. The CHAIRMAN. I did not get any reply to it, and I would like to have some information on those questions. Mr. MACDONALD. Are you sure the information is not in your office, Mr. Chairman? The CHAIRMAN. Not to my knowledge. We have not received a reply. I just wanted an answer. Mr. MACDONALD. A reply was written to your letter under date of March 8, Mr. Chairman, and mailed out through the Secretary's office. Mr. ROBSION. Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that it might be a bad plan for this director's testimony to be broken into and have a part here and part somewhere else. The CHAIRMAN. The answer to my question would not take up more than five or ten minutes. Mr. ROBSION. He is going to make a statement to-morrow, and perhaps The CHAIRMAN (interposing). I understood that he only wanted to make a five or ten minute statement this morning. Mr. HUDSPETH. Each member of the committee may want to question these witnesses. The CHAIRMAN. Well, do you have the question? Mr. MACDONALD. Yes, sir; I have the reply to the letter which you wrote. I believe it will bring out your questions if I read it. The CHAIRMAN. All right. Mr. ROBSION. Did the director send a reply? The CHAIRMAN. We did not receive it. Mr. MACDONALD. I do not understand why that letter was not received. The CHAIRMAN. Have you a copy of it in your files? Mr. MACDONALD. Yes; I have a copy of it here before me dated March 8, and I see no reason why it should not have been here by this time. Suppose that I read the reply to your letter, into the record? Mr. DOWELL. Should not both letters be placed in the record? Mr. MACDONALD (reading): "DEAR MR. DUNN: Replying to your letter of March 2, asking for certain information relative to Federal aid for roads, I will state that during the period from February 1, 1921, to February 1, 1922, 9.224 miles of Federal aid roads were completed. This does not include the completed portions of work under construction. During this same time $86,363,680 were drawn from the Federal Treasury and paid to the states making a total of $143,284,421." The CHAIRMAN. That answers the second question. Mr. MACDONALD (reading): "The amount of Federal aid funds due the various States and remaining unpaid February 1, 1922, was $34,112,736. The amount available for new construction on February 1, 1922, was $125,927.210." The CHAIRMAN. That is the balance of the old funds, 1916? Mr. MACDONALD. That is the balance of all; all Federal funds. The CHAIRMAN. That includes the $75,000,000? Mr. MACDONALD. Yes, sir. Mr. ROBSION. That includes the $90,000,000, does it not? Mr. MACDONALD. It includes the post-road funds only. It does not include the forest-road funds. [Reading:] "If we subtract from this the construction work we estimate will be begun between February 1 and July 1 of this year, we shall have on July 1 $85,000,000 available for new construction. We further estimate, taking the States as a whole, that this amount of $85,000,000 will be put under construction by the end of the fiscal year 1923. Many of the States will have the amounts apportioned to them under construction considerably before this time and some will be a little later." The CHAIRMAN. I want to ask Mr. MacDonald a question. You have built a great many different kinds of roads. Now, for instance, you have built roads in many sections costing from $1,000 to $2,000 per mile, and by reason of hard usage and weather conditions they are almost dilapidated or are completely unfitted for travel. Is that the kind of a road that was built, you might say, as a subsidiary expecting to complete later on? Is that rebuilt with Government aid? Mr. MACDONALD. Of course, Mr. Chairman, that question has not, as yet, come up, because of the Federal aid construction The CHAIRMAN (interposing). Where they have been built, have they been rebuilt with Government aid? Mr. MACDONALD. We have rebuilt roads by Government aid that were originally built by the States. I know of no case in which we have allotted aid for the building of a road and reconstruction of the same road. The CHAIRMAN. Well, you understand, Mr. MacDonald-suppose these roads were completed at different times. Mr. MACDONALD. Sir? |