Editorials

ARIZONA HIGHWAYS ARIZONA HIGHWAYS

Published in the Interest of Good Roads by the ARIZONA HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT

THIS HIGHWAY BUSINESS

We all use roads and have various ideas as to how road finances and administration should be conducted; yet it is quite likely that those who have made road building their profession are better qualified to handle these problems than the layman.

True, the roads belong to the public and the more interest the public takes in highways the better.

Highways, generically speaking, have solved their problem of revenue better than any other branch of the government. They are financially on a sounder basis because we do not owe a dollar on them, while practically all other public works, buildings, schools, dams, even the sidewalks we walk on, the pipes that bring water, the sewers that carry waste away, are still under stupendous mortgages.

The mill tax on highways is only about ten cents on a hundred dollars of assessed valuation and is only a small fraction of the other direct property tax, so criticism directed against it has the appearance of an attempt to draw fire from other much more questionable taxes. When the increased property valuation accruing from improved highways of a state is taken into account, the mill tax is absurdly small.

The gasoline tax is paid only by those who use the roads. It was not devised as a sales tax, but primarily as a road toll. Instead of stopping at a toll gate the road user pays his toll at the filling station and pays it for road improvement and maintenance only. To use this tax otherwise is a rank and flagrant violation of the rights of the road user. Vehicles likewise are taxed in proportion to their value. The vehicle which serves a poor man pays a very low tax.The cost of building our already fine highway system has been borne largely by the federal government; that is, our roads today have been mostly paid for by people outside of Arizona. The justification of this, in our democracy, is that money spent on highways provides incomes for factories producing machinery, cement, steel, lumber, explosives, oil refineries, directly, and for car and truck factories, hot-dog, post-card, souvenir and so on manufacturers indirectly, to say nothing of a family running a tourist camp for each two miles or so of highway.

Roads are the arteries along which the life-blood of civilization flows. Highways are the show-windows of Arizona, destined to become one of the show-places of America. To abate our highway activities would be a pitiful mistake.

ARIZONA'S GREAT CHANCE

It seems unnecessary to call attention to the attitude of the incoming national administration on reclamation; yet we enjoy "pointing with pride."

For a long time this magazine has been publishing articles advocating more reclamation as Arizona's key to future greatness and as the best possible thing for the whole United States.

In no other part of the country are opportunities for profitable reclamation so plentiful and so favorable as in Arizona. If we do not put over the reclamation of a round million acres of our semi-tropic desert, to start at once, in view of the announced policy of the new administration, our descendents will have reason to be ashamed of us. Bring on technocracy if you will. Our children, we know, would rather live in a grove and garden than cooped up in a sky-scraper somewhere. We heartily agree with the policy of the new administration.

TWO MEMBERS TAKE OFFICE AS HIGHWAY COMMISSIONERS

The Arizona State Highway Commission underwent one of the greatest re-organizations of that body since its inception in 1927, when two new members, Shelton P. Dowell and Ray N. Vyne of Prescott took their places on the Commission through the appointment of Governor B. B. Moeur. They were welcomed into office by C. E. Addams, Monte Mansfield and Jacob Barth, holdover commissioners. In the organization of the new commission Mr. Dowell was elected chairman unanimously, Ray N. Vyne vice-chairman and C. C. Jarrett of Mesa secretary.

Mr. Dowell replaces Mr. John B. Hart, who was named to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of James McDonald, who held the only six year appointment on the first Commission. Mr. Dowell's term expires February 1, 1939. Mr. Ray F. Vyne, vice-chairman, is filling the unexpired term of the late S. R. Trengove, which expires in January, 1935.

The ruins of Ft. Lowell, on the Rillito Creek seven miles from Tucson, is pictured on our cover page this month. Established in 1862, and named for General C. R. Lowell, this outpost of civilization played its part in protecting the early settlers of Arizona from the ruthless Apache.