they were each to have a third of the freight on it. The third man, who was the closest to town, was just putting on his share when I came along. I stopped to ask about it, and he told me about their purchase of the truck. I asked him how it came out. He said that they got their produce on the market at New York City at half past 7 in the morning; that it sold at higher prices than they ever were able to sell theretofore when they shipped it, and they had the truck back by noon.

The CHAIRMAN. In that view of it let us see what sort of a system of roads this would be. Instead of the Santa Fe Trail, let us take Indianapolis, for illustration. Suppose you had good highways radiating from Indianapolis for 25 miles in every direction. Would not that tend more largely to accommodate commerce than to have one continuous route stretched out across the country?

Mr. KENYON. That would no doubt make practically every farm within that radius not only double in price, but double in the amount of produce that it could turn out. There is no question about that. The other thought is when we start to build a trunk line of railway, the first thing we know the feeders commence to come in. When Mr. Finley took hold of the Southern Railway it was hardly a paying proposition. He went along the line of that railroad and induced the farmers to build roads. He told me that in five or six years, from the road that had been built, he increased the income of that road $7,000 a mile from the extra amount of material that was taken to the railroad by reason of having the good roads. He gave prizes for good roads, and also gave prizes for raising the greatest number of bushels of corn on an acre. There was an old man at the Richmond convention who told me that he came to the road convention because he had never been much interested until recently. He said, "My boy, who was 17 years old, took the second prize for raising corn on land which for 40 years I thought was cotton land." He said, "I did not suppose it was possible to raise corn on that, and when the boy wanted to have some land to raise corn on for this prize I was not going to give it to him until his mother appealed to me." He said the boy raised 115 bushels of corn on that acre. He further said, "I was perfectly amazed. I said to myself, You are an old fool. For 40 years you have thought that land was worth nothing but to raise cotton on." He said " young dude came down from Washington and he put a little potash here and a little lime there, which I did not take any stock in, but I found out within a year that he was right."

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Thereupon, at 10.35 o'clock p. m., the committee adjourned to meet at the call of the chairman.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1913.

JOINT COMMITTEE ON

FEDERAL AID IN CONSTRUCTION OF POST ROADS,

Washington, D. C.

The joint committee met pursuant to adjournment.

Present: Representative Dorsey W. Shackleford (acting chairman), Representative Martin B. Madden, Representative Richard W. Austin, and Representative Gordon Lee.

STATEMENT OF HON. C. B. SLEMP.

The CHAIRMAN. Kindly give your name and occupation.

Mr. SLEMP. C. B. Slemp. I represent the Ninth District of Virginia in Congress.

The CHAIRMAN. We will be glad to hear anything you have to say on the subject of good roads.

Mr. SLEMP. Mr. Chairman, it is not my purpose to discuss the im portance of the good-roads movement or the question of Federal aid to roads, but I thought I might make one suggestion that would be helpful to the committee, and in accordance with that idea I introduced a resolution into the House, being House resolution 816, which reads as follows:

Resolved, That a standing committee of the House, consisting of twenty-one members, to be styled the Committee on Post Roads, be elected, to whom shall be referred all proposed legislation relating to the construction, building, and maintenance of post roads, including appropriations therefor.

Resolved, That Rule X be amended by striking therefrom the words "post office and post roads" and inserting in lieu thereof the words "postal service." Resolved, That Rule XI, clause fourteen, be amended by striking therefrom the words post office and post roads" and inserting in lieu thereof the words postal service."

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The purpose of this resolution is to have a standing committee of the House, as the resolution states, to which all matters referring to road building and road legislation shall be referred.

No one

In other words, I would carve two committees out of the Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads, one with jurisdiction of all matters pertaining to the postal service, including appropriations therefor, and the other the new committee-with jurisdiction of the the construction and maintenance of post roads, including the appropriations therefor. Each committee would formulate and work out legislation and be as fully occupied in their several tasks as have been the Committees on Commerce and Rivers and Harbors. realizes more than I do that a committee of the House is jealous of any part of its jurisdiction, however obsolete or disused its powers may be, and that it has not been without a struggle that jurisdiction has been divided. And I apprehend that my present proposition will encounter objection from those who will be loath to yield up a part of their authority and privilege. But I also apprehend that this tremendously progressive movement for Federal aid for good roads will not by its friends be allowed to be impeded or checked by any selfish policy, for this question is too big and too far-reaching in its consequences for good that its thorough consideration should be embarrassed or thwarted in order to gratify personal ambition.

I submit that in view of the widespread, I may say universal, interest in good roads on the part of the States and their civil subdivisions, on the part of hundreds of commercial organizations, on the part of millions of individuals, agriculturists, and manufacturers alike, out of which has come untold activity and the expenditure of millions of dollars, that this subject-the extension of Federal aid in conjunction with and cooperation of the States-is one that has assumed such magnitude and such import as to affect every household in this broad land that it ought to engage exclusively the serious attention of a single committee of the House of Representatives. Is it not, at least, paramount to the subjects of improved waterways, which, as a means of interstate commerce, comes in for a large share of the House's attention and over which one committee has jurisdiction? Is it not even of greater importance to the country than the great questions of immigration, of irrigation, of canals, or education, of expositions, of Territories, of Indian affairs, of public buildings, of the Army, and of the Navy, each of which subjects belongs to the jurisdiction of a separate committee?

In order to give you an idea of the formation of all committees of the House, with the hope that you might possibly incorporate this resolution in whatever suggestion you make to the House in your report, I have prepared a brief outline of the formation of the various committees of the House.

Mr. MADDEN. And their jurisdiction?

Mr. SLEMP. And their jurisdiction and when they were established. Mr. MADDEN. What do you mean by "postal service"?

Mr. SLEMP. To make that clear, the present jurisdiction of the Post Office and Post Roads Committee has to do with the postal service generally. I would have a committee whose jurisdiction would be limited to that service. It is questionable even now whether it has jurisdiction on this good-roads question or not. Most of these goodroads bills have been referred to the Committee on Agriculture.

Mr. MADDEN. That is because the bills themselves referred to the Secretary of Agriculture. The bill which I introduced does not refer to him.

Mr. SLEMP. I do not think that this makes any difference, so far as my resolution is concerned. If all of these bills were referred to the present Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads instead of to other committees, I think the importance of this subject demands exclusive consideration of them by a separate committee of the House. While any ambiguity as to which committee of the House these bills would go could easily be settled, yet I advocate the selection of a committee because I think the importance of the subject is such that it should have a standing committee with exclusive jurisdiction. I have introduced the resolution above mentioned providing for a committee that would be similar to the Rivers and Harbors Committee, which has the right to make appropriations. To that extent the new Post Roads Committee would differ from the Public Buildings Committee, which only has the right of authorization. The Committee on Postal Service, then, would handle all the administrative matters of the Post Office Department, including the parcels post, the postal-savings bank and the Railway Mail Service and Rural Free Delivery and other matters.

Mr. MADDEN. Does not that cover the roads?

Mr. SLEMP. No, sir; I do not know that it does; but if this resolution is not framed just right to give exclusive jurisdiction to the proposed committee, I would expect it to be amended.

Mr. MADDEN. How are you going to take jurisdiction of the roads over which the mail is carried?

Mr. SLEMP. The present Committee on Post Office and Post Roads does not have such jurisdiction. If it ever did, it is obsolete. The jurisdiction of this new committee would be the maintenance and construction of post roads and all matters relating thereto. The present Post Office and Post Roads Committee does not necessarily have jurisdiction now of all matters pertaining to the postal service. There is the physical location of post offices in the country and their construction, and that comes under the Public Buildings Committee. And similarly the physical roads on which the mail is carried and the maintenance and construction of such roads should be within the province of another committee. I have prepared a statement about the formation of the various committees just to show that the suggestion I make in establishing a new committee is in line with the precedents of the House. I have desired to contribute some thought to the subject of good-roads legislation, and the selection of a committee on Post Roads seems to me to be the most direct and effective method of getting results.

Mr. MADDEN. This commission is a joint commission now?

Mr. SLEMP. I realize that this is a joint commission, and for this reason it can not be a continuing affair, unless you have a joint resolution passed by Congress. Your term will expire here on the 4th of March, unless there is an appropriation.

Mr. MADDEN. No; it will not.

Mr. SLEMP. At any rate, you have no right vested in you of bringing a bill into the House from this commission.

Mr. MADDEN. Sure. We have a right to bring in legislation.

Mr. SLEMP. My idea about your function was that you were to report to the House and to the Senate. When that report is received it has to be referred somewhere, has it not? I say right at this point that the place to refer your report and all of the valuable statistics and the hearings and your conclusions should be to a separate committee of the House with nothing else to do.

When the report of your joint committee and the report of the Secretary of Agriculture and Postmaster General shall be made to Congress, to which committee of the House will they be referred― to Agricuture, where now are slumbering peacefully the good-roads propositions of many aspiring statesmen, or to the Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads, whose dockets hardly permit of another entry? That your report and that of the two Cabinet officers mentioned would go to the one or the other of these committees is certain, and it would make no difference as to which one, so far as achieving further progress is concerned. For what can be expected or hoped for from those sources, the channels leading from which are choked with many and divers schemes for the benefit of farmers and the improvement of the postal service, forming a dam against. proposed legislation which the good-roads reports would only serve to make more impregnable, to the delight of the self-constituted guardians of the Treasury and the enemies of Federal aid?

I say that the selection of such a committee as I have outlined is in accordance with the precedents of the House when subjects become of great importance in the thought of the country. I wish to say also that Democratic Congresses, in my investigation, have been a little more liberal in forming committees than Republican Congresses. A great many of these committees were formed in Democratic Congresses, and then a great many Congresses would start committees by making select committees, and these select committees would be made permanent committees. It is a very interesting thing to trace the evolution and formation of committees in the House, which are always in response to a public demand. And if the chairman will indulge me I shall now read this statement. The CHAIRMAN. Proceed, Mr. Slemp.

COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS.

Mr. SLEMP. The Committee on Ways and Means originally had as a part of its duties the examination of the public departments, their expenditures, and the economy of their management. (Annals, 1st sess., 7th Cong, p. 412.) But in 1814 the Committee on Public Expenditures was created, with jurisdiction over these matters. The jurisdiction of the Ways and Means Committee also included the appropriation bills and general oversight of banking and currency matters. But on March 2, 1865, this branch of the committee's jurisdiction was given, respectively, to the newly created Committees on Appropriations and Banking and Currency.

The Committee on Ways and Means, by reference of the subject to it by the House, had jurisdiction of the oleomargarine bill, but jurisdiction of this subject was later conferred on the Committee on Agriculture. (49th Cong., 1st sess., Cong. Record, p. 2193.)

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS.

Created March 2, 1865, to relieve the Ways and Means Committee of war legislation (2d sess. 38th Cong., Globe, pp. 1312–1317), with authority to report the general appropriation bills.

In 1885 the Army and Military Academy bill was given to the Military Affairs Committee, the naval bill to the Naval Affairs Committee, the Post Office bill to the Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads, the consular and diplomatic bill to the Foreign Affairs Committee, and the Indian bill to the Indian Affairs Committee, leaving the Committee on Appropriations with the bills mentoned in clause 3 of Rule XI. (1st sess. 49th Cong., Record, pp. 168, 196, 278.) The Agricultural appropriation bill has been with the Committee on Agriculture since 1880. (2d sess. 46th Cong., Record, pp. 684-686.)

While the Committee on Appropriations has jurisdiction to report appropriations, the power to report legislation authorizing appropriations belongs to other committees.

COMMITTEE ON BANKING AND CURRENCY.

Created March 2, 1865, to assume some of the jurisdiction of the Committee on Ways and Means. (2d sess. 38th Cong., Globe, pp. 1312–1317.)