Mr. WHITE. Absolutely not, Mr. Randolph. You just set up a new agency for work that an existing agency is doing and has been doing for 10 years. I do not see but what you will get confusion, irritation and delay.

Mr. RANDOLPH. I agree with the gentleman, and that is all.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Cunningham?

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I do not believe it is necessary, Mr. Chairman, to state for those who have heard Mr. White, the reason why the people of his own State of Iowa have such complete confidence in him. His presentation has been very helpful to me, and I am sure was valuable to the committee. However, I think we have gone far afield from the subject of feeder and secondary roads, and I have just one question. Mr. White, would not the improvement of secondary and feeder roads increase travel on those roads and proportionately decrease travel on the Federal-aid system?

Mr. WHITE. That is rather a wide question, Mr. Cunningham. It doubtless would be determined in the individual case, but I do think that the improvement of the secondary and feeder roads will unquestionably increase traffic on those roads.

Now, whether it will decrease the traffic on the Federal-aid roads is something else. The increase on the secondary and feeder roads might simply be an increase in the growth and development created along the secondary and feeder roads, but might not take any traffic off the Federal-aid system.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Let us go out home. We will say a farmer lives on the secondary and feeder road and he wants to get to a point, let us say, 5 miles distant. He lives one-fourth mile, or one-half mile from the Federal-aid road; what would the situation be?

Mr. WHITE. By going to the Federal-aid road and traveling at his destination another half mile back, he will go the longest way. But he does it, because he has better road conditions.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. And under present circumstances, if we improve the secondary road, he will take the shortest cut?

Mr. WHITE. He will take the short cut, and avoid congestion on the Federal-aid road.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I have no more questions.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Elliott?

Mr. ELLIOTT. Mr. White, it has been very interesting that you brought up this matter of feeder roads. Do you care to state what yardstick you would use in your State as to how that money should be allocated to the various counties? Would it be as to population or as to miles of road in the various counties?

Mr. WHITE. In our State, the one factor in allocation of secondaryroad money among the counties, that our State legislature has ever been able to get together enough votes in the house and senate to agree on, is area. Our counties receive about four-ninths of the proceeds of our 3-cent gas tax. That fund is allotted among the counties on the single factor of area. So, I would answer your question by explaining that in our State, if Congress should provide that the State highway department make a recommendation to the Public Roads Administration as to the allocation of these funds, we would immediately turn around and recommend the one factor of area, to the Public Roads Administration. For that is the only factor our State

legislature has ever agreed upon. Other States might do something different, but that is the one our law-making body developed and we would follow it.

Mr. ELLIOTT. The reason I bring that up is that it might be true if our Federal Government set up a department to do the job and had capable men. But we never know what the general trend is. And placing too much power here in Washington as to allocation of Federal funds-well, I am wondering

Mr. WHITE (interposing). You understand, Mr. Elliott, that in my suggestion the initiative for the recommendation would have to come from the State.

Mr. ELLIOTT. That is true, but as my good friend Mr. Wolcott has brought out, if $10,000,000 was taken out of the fund and used for something else, some other State would have less money, because not enough was left there to be apportioned.

Mr. WHITE. We did not get any of that.

Mr. ELLIOTT. I understand that. As far as this cycle we were going into prior to the war was concerned, for about every $4 we were taxed, and $1 to come back after the war, we were taxed four, and three was lost in motion, or lost some place else. So I am just wondering whether it would be a better idea, in connection with this gasoline-tax money, to specify that instead of reverting to the Federal Government, it might stay within the States where it originates, so it could be used for road purposes?

In other words, I am a great believer in keeping our Government close to our people. And we are getting farther afield. The general trend is now, and was, even prior to the war, to come to Washington for practically everything. And if your hair is not parted on the right side, or they do not like the kind of preserves you serve on your bread, you just do not get anything. I can prove those statements. Mr. WHITE. Suppose I agree with you, and you do not have to prove it?

Mr. ELLIOTT. Well, I think we should begin to find out where we are at on these various measures.

Mr. WHITE. I have a very large measure of sympathy for what you are talking about.

Mr. ELLIOTT. Then you practically agree with it.

Mr. WHITE. Well, I agree with you enough so you do not have to prove it to me. I will say this, Mr. Elliott, you suggested, if I understood correctly, that there should be turned back to each State, or that. each State collect its own gas tax, or that they repay to each State the amount they collect.

Mr. ELLIOTT. That is right.

Mr. WHITE. With that system you would have quite a bit of difficulty improving and maintaining roads through the sparsely settled desert areas, if we are to have a system of highways in this Nation.

Mr. ELLIOTT. Perhaps a portion of the money could be left in the State.

Mr. WHITE. I do not believe that your suggestion could be wholly applicable.

Mr. ELLIOTT. Well, it might not be applicable on account of your desert States, but if a portion of that money could be left within the States, I believe we could look to the fund with a little more security.

Mr. WHITE. There is another thing in the picture, Mr. Elliott, that I would mention. By and large, the amount of Federal money that has come into the State of Iowa, as Federal-aid for highways has been a relatively small percentage of our total highway expenditure on the State roads system, about 30 percent. We have paid about 70 percent of the cost of our State road system out of State funds, as compared with about 30 percent that came from Federal funds.

Now, I have said this is done of my own State-and I do not hesitate to say it here I have said that if we had set aside in a fund all of the Federal money that came to our State as highway aid, and hauled it down and dumped it into the river and let it go, it still would have been worth the money if we could have retained the generally steadying influence of the Federal Government in highway

matters.

I think my good friend, Cunningham, over there, will recall instances in the Iowa Legislature where we would have been washed out to sea-and by "we" I mean the highway department—had it not been that we had this anchor of Federal-aid that we could cling to and hang on to. And it did act as a steadying influence. So I think there is another factor.

Mr. ELLIOTT. In the past 2 years, I am wondering if your State and counties have been affected something similar to ours, in that the gasoline money the various counties and the State hoped to have, has been pared down and the counties, perhaps, today are paying more in general taxes on their property for the maintenance and construction of these farm-to-market and various other types of roads you speak of, rather than take some Federal funds to assist them. Yet they need it perhaps more today than they ever did before.

Mr. WHITE. Mr. Elliott, perhaps I can state it in a little different way. We fed this feeder system skimmed milk, on this question of participation, for 25 years.

Feeder highways consist of about 88 percent of the highway mileage of the United States. And over the past 25 years, through funds allocated by Congress, only about 8 percent of the Federal funds have gone on to those roads, which are 88 percent of our total mileage, and carry 32 percent of the traffic.

Mr. ELLIOTT. That takes us back to the horse-and-buggy days when the horse could pull you out of the mud. But take the basis today, with the use of trucks and trailers that pull our livestock and produce from the farms to market, it calls for a changed program.

Mr. WHITE. Absolutely. And in taking children to the consolidated schools in the morning and back in the evening, we certainly have gotten beyond the horse-and-buggy days on our secondary and feeder roads.

Mr. ELLIOTT. So it is right that we change from our old system, and it is quite necessary that we use a part of this, one-third of this $1,000,000,000 a year, to assist in the improvement of farm-to-market roads.

Mr. WHITE. Yes. I say, as a matter of just common fairness, that approximately one-third of these moneys should go to the secondary and feeder roads. Mr. Whittington suggested yesterday, possibly in view of the largeness of the Federal debt, after the war is over, we might cut out the secondary and feeder roads. May I suggest that if you want to keep the total amount down because of that, Mr. Whit

tington, cut it down, but give the secondary and feeder roads a fair proportion.

Mr. WHITTINGTON. You have reversed.

Mr. ELLIOTT. I do not think the gentleman from Mississippi really meant it. I think he was throwing the hook out here to test somebody else's feelings. But I think after the war is over, that on our farm-to-market roads, we will be spending more money and bringing them up to the standard, or it will cost us more than that to operate, due to the nature of our changing situation.

Mr. WHITE. There is no question about that, and that comes back to the question, perhaps, of what kind of a motor vehicle registration are we going to have in this country when the war is over?

Mr. ELLIOTT. We better not do like a lot of these other agencies that have stuck around here on the pay roll and are not doing any good but just giving us a lot of trouble all the time.

Mr. WHITE, That is all right with me.

Mr. ELLIOTT. No further question.

Mr. BEALL. Mr. White, you said in your statement that you favored this proposition, that the secondary roads need not be of the same high quality as your main roads.

Mr. WHITE. Yes, sir.

Mr. BEALL. Now, do you mean that you also reduce the width of those secondary_roads?

Mr. WHITE. Yes; certainly.

Mr. BEALL. Well, now, when you reduce the width in construction, what sort of a shoulder would you have? Suppose you would reduce it to a width that two cars would never be permitted to pass, would you have some sort of a shoulder built up 8 or 10 feet wide, for instance?

Mr. WHITE. I would not suggest that the width be reduced to a point where two vehicles could not pass. For example, on our State road system and Federal-aid road system, we are now building grades 40 feet wide from shoulder to shoulder. That is for a two-road lane, about 22 feet of roadway, on there, and nine feet of shoulder. Now, there is no sense, as I see it, in building a 40-foot grade for a secondary road which carries only about 100 or 200 vehicles over it.

Mr. BEALL. Your hard surface may be 14 feet wide, with a wide shoulder. Would you approve of something like that?

Mr. WHITE. Rather than economize too much on the width and build a high-type surface, I would economize on the type of surface and build enough width so that traffic could be reasonably permitted to pass.

Mr. BEALL. Enlarging on Mr. Cunningham's question as to the future of the secondary roads and increase of traffic over them, do you think it would be a good idea for the States to establish-I mean when they go in to build these secondary roads, and to acquire rightsof-way-that they purchase sufficient width now, or should they wait until the traffic justifies the purchase of additional width?

Mr. WHITE. On these secondary and feeder roads, I think the standard as to right-of-way can be very easily stated that you buy enough. land to build a road.

Mr. BEALL. In Iowa does your highway department have a regulation right-of-way width when you go out to buy? Do you have some specific width?

on.

Mr. WHITE. No, sir; we buy enough right-of-way-to build the road Mr. BEALL. For the immediate use, or contemplation of future traffic?

Mr. WHITE. Well, by the time you get enough right-of-way to build the road on for a reasonable standard of construction for the immediate use, in most cases you could at least double the traffic and still have plenty of room for your road.

Mr. BEALL. You mean you would buy maybe a 100- or 60-foot rightof-way, something like that?

Mr. WHITE. Well, I would say for our State road system, we have for some years been purchasing a minimum 100 feet right-of-way. Now, from that we go on out, of course, as we have deep cuts or high fills or borrow material.

Mr. BEALL. Does that follow with your secondary roads, too?
Mr. WHITE. No, sir.

Mr. BEALL. That is what I was referring to; secondary roads.

Mr. WHITE. As to secondary roads, while there is no standard rightof-way width fixed in our State, we try to get enough land to build the road. Many of the counties have, generally speaking, adopted 80 feet as an ordinary standard width.

Mr. BEALL. On secondary roads?

Mr. WHITE. Yes, sir.

Mr. BEALL. That is all.

The CHAIRMAN. Any further questions?

Mr. WHITTINGTON. With respect to the allocation among the counties, it occurs to me that in all previous Federal highway legislation we have left to the State highway commission the allocation of the Federal-aid highway funds to the various counties and that there is no departure from that in this bill when we left to the State highway commission the allocation as among the counties.

Mr. WHITE. That is right.

Mr. WHITTINGTON. And, secondly, the question of the apportionment is not involved in this legislation, because we have here a definite yardstick for distribution among the States.

Mr. WHITE. Yes, sir.

Mr. WHITTINGTON. That will always occur when you make a lumpsum appropriation for highways or any other project.

Mr. WHITE. That is true.

The CHAIRMAN. If there are no further questions, we will adjourn until tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock.

(Whereupon, the committee adjourned, to resume tomorrow morning, Thursday, March 2, 1944, at 10 a. m.)