(c) Through the State Highway Department the skill and judgment of superior engineering ability is made available in a supervisory capacity for all county road improvement throughout the State.

(d) This Department, as the depositary for all plans and financial and other records and reports, becomes the means for the enforcement of the highest standards of efficiency and economy.

6. Water and wear on the Oregon road-the maintenance problem. "It begins the day construction ends"-and there should be no day of intermission of maintenance. A little water at frequent intervals during the summer months on all Oregon roads would be a godsend (excepting the few miles of asphalt and concrete surfaces). Too much water during the winter months from above and from below is their ruination unless they are rightly drained and maintained.

The maintenance needs, then, are simply a binder for the surface particles during the summer months and a crowned, smooth and impervious surface in the winter, with the under and the side drains unobstructed. It would add so much to life in Oregon to be free from the road dust of the summer and the road mud of the winter!

The Defects in Oregon's Present Road Laws

By Rufus C. Holman, President Oregon Association of County Judges and Commissioners

The laws now in effect that grant the authority, define the duties, limit the powers and direct the efforts of the several governmental agencies of Oregon in the administration of the road funds, are antiquated, indefinite and conflicting. Although the population of every county in the State has grown from that of sparse pioneer settlements to that of today, yet according to the existing laws, we are still to locate our roads by first appointing viewers to spy out the proposed routes and mark the locations by blazing the trees! Although we are spending millions of dollars annually in road work, it is necessary to constantly carry suits at law to the Supreme Court of the State before we, who are responsible to the people both civilly and criminally for the legal disbursements of their funds, can know whether our procedure is legal or not. Although there is an enormous amount of work to do each year and our season for outside work is short, yet no one is sure which of several laws on the same subject prevails.

For generations each successive legislature has amended, repealed and enacted laws pertaining to roads, without ever considering the entire subject as a harmonious whole, the altering of a part of which disturbs the entire structure. Wherever we turn in our law books for guidance in road matters, confusion confronts us.

Time has changed conditions. A revolution in transportation has passed over us. Our roads must meet new demands. The pack-horse and the ox-cart are no longer the prevailing means of conveyance between the producer and the markets of Oregon. The rapidly moving, and heavily laden auto truck requires the grade and alignment which only skilled highway engineers can produce economically. The awful waste of continually relocating the routes selected by guesswork must stop. The enormous expenditure for road work of a temporary character, made under the direction of men ignorant of the requirements of drainage, uninstructed in the necessity

ccclxxi

of proper grading and unfit to supervise the labor of other men, must give way to careful investments of the public funds in construction of a permanent nature, consummated under the careful supervision of skilled men, prepared for their work by education and experience. Our present laws produce wasteful conditions and prevent the consummation of prudent expenditures. They must be repealed, and in place of them must be enacted a complete code of road laws providing for the initiation, construction and maintenance of roads, the financing of such work, the organization and supervision of the forces, the acquiring of rights-of-way, the vacation of unnecessary routes, the regulation of traffic, the fixing of responsibility for accidents, the elimination of grade crossings, and all other matters pertaining to the subject.

To accomplish this, the Oregon Association of County Judges and Commissioners have requested the office of Public Roads and Rural Engineering at Washington, D. C. to prepare a draft of such legislation as seemed to them necessary for such purposes in this State and supplied them with Bulletin No. 1, of the State Engineer's office, which was prepared by Hon. John H. Lewis at my request. In addition to that, a committee was appointed by the same association to coöperate in this work, consisting of Representative Laurgaard of Multnomah County, chairman; Senator Orton, of Multnomah; Representative Schimpff, of Clatsop; District Attorney Evans of Multnomah and Representative A. W. Mueller of Columbia. These men are to have the assistance and coöperation of District Attorneys Bell of Wasco and Neuner of Douglas with Deputy District Attorney Murphy of Multnomah County.

I hope there may be a concerted effort made in this attempt to correct the evils which now exist in our road laws so that the next legislature will not be confused by a multiplicity of recommendations. To that end I will transmit to you the draft for a code prepared by the Office of Public Roads at Washington as soon as it is received. It can hardly fail to arrive in the next mail from the East.*

The document was received so as to be available during its last two sessions.

May there be no personal jealousies in this work, and may we not have in mind the particular ambitions of any particular persons in the preparation of these proposed new laws, regardless of the prominence of such persons, but have in mind only the welfare of the people of the State.

Bear in mind that the careful expenditure of money for efficient public roads is the best use to which we can put the public funds; therefore the great importance of the work before this Commonwealth Conference, which is conducted under the supervision of the University of Oregon.

I turn now to point a specific feature or two of our present road laws simply to bear out the claim made in my opening statement that the provisions in them are "antiquated, indefinite and conflicting."

I shall not discuss in detail the defects in Oregon's present road laws, for to do so would require too long a time. I take the liberty of commenting briefly on such few as have come under my observation as a county commissioner of Multnomah County.

To consider first the oldest and most accepted form of procedure for the establishment of county roads, you probably know that under this method of laying out county roads, an application in proper form must be presented to the county court, signed by twelve freeholders of the county residing in the road district where that road is to be located. The only exception from this rule is in the case where all the lands. necessary for the establishment of the road are deeded to the county by interested individuals. The effect of such a provision is at once obvious.

In the first place, unless the county court desires to undertake the circulation of a petition, it can initiate no proceedings for the establishment of a road, however essential that road might be toward the completion of a definite program.

Secondly, it is well known that a petition signed by twelve freeholders can be secured and presented to a county court with little trouble, and without proper consideration of the real merits of the petition.

The effect of making this procedure exclusive is two-fold. It hampers a county court in the formulation of a definite, comprehensive plan for the road development of a county, and in addition it has the effect of encouraging many petitions to be filed and considered by the county at some considerable expense when there is no real merit to them.

It seems to me that while this provision of the law might well be retained for the benefit of small communities in which it is necessary to establish a road for local needs, yet some provision should be incorporated to enable the county court of its own motion to initiate proceedings for the establishment of needed county highways.

After the petition is filed and due notice thereof given, it is presented to the county court, whose duty it is to appoint a board of county road viewers. This board must immediately locate and mark the road as prayed for in the petition. The system of marking appears to be antiquated. At least one thing is certain, that in many cases the counties are subjected to unnecessary expense, for the survey and marking are done before the road is finally established. Thus the same expense is entailed on the road which is never established as on the one whose need is apparent and which is later opened to the public.

It has been a constant cry against the administration of justice in our courts that the procedure was too cumbersome, and yet we have the same faults in appeals from the orders of the county court establishing roads. It is provided that any one feeling aggrieved at the assessment of damages for establishing a road may appeal from the county court to the county court, and finally from the county court to the circuit court. In those counties where the county judge is a member of the county court, it would seem to be a useless procedure to appeal from the decision of the county judge sitting with two commissioners to the same county judge sitting alone. It is fair to suppose that in the great majority of cases justice might be served more quickly and more cheaply by dispensing with any appeal to the county court and making the appeal