the fifteen thousand dollars. If the state or county does not wish
to take the contract, the General Government will advertise and give it
to the lowest bidder, and will pay its contributory share and the other
party will pay its contributory share.

"It is no part of the essential principle involved in this national aid
plan that the exact proportion should be fifty per cent on each side.
Any other figure can be adopted. Some think ten per cent is sufficient;
some think thirty-three and one-third is the proper percentage; others
think twenty-five per cent only should be paid by the government,
twenty-five per cent by the state, twenty-five per cent by the county,
and twenty-five per cent by the township. The one idea that seems to be
generally accepted is that the government should do something."

Thus the interest in the great question is beginning to forge to the
front; through the Office of Public Road Inquiries a great deal of
information is being circulated touching all phases of the question.
There is a fine spirit of independence displayed by the leaders of the
movement; no one plan is over-urged; the situation is such that the
final concerted popular action will come from the real governing
power--the people. When they demand that the United States shall not
have the poorest rural roads of any civilized and some uncivilized
nations, we as a nation will hasten into the fore front and finally lead
the world in this vital department of civic life, as we are leading it
in so many other departments today.

[Illustration: SAMPLE STEEL TRACK FOR COMMON ROADS

[_On the driver's right is seated Hon. Martin Dodge, since 1898 Director
of the Office of Public Road Inquiries_]]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See _post_, pp. 68-80.

[2] _The Federalist_, p. 198.

[3] _Historic Highways of America_, vol. xiv, p. 57.

[4] Thomas M. Cooley, _Constitutional Law_ (Boston, 1891), pp. 85-86.

CHAPTER II

GOVERNMENT COOPERATION IN OBJECT-LESSON ROAD WORK[5]

In a government having a composite nature like that of the United States
it is not always easy to determine just what share the General
Government, the state government, and the local government should
respectively take in carrying out highway work, though it is generally
admitted that there should be cooperation among them all.

In the early history of the Republic the National Government itself laid
out and partially completed a great national system of highways
con