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Monday, March 4, 2019

State Hasn't Approved Good Roads Bill But Requires License to Carry or Sell Pistols, March 4, 1919

From The Wilson Times, Tuesday, March 4, 1919. He really did write “We dunno” for “We don’t know.” 

Legislators Can Not Get Together on the Question of the Way They Will Connect Up With the Federal Government on the Federal Aid Proposition for the Building of Good Roads. . . Will Jointly Talk it Over Tonight

By W.T. Bost

Raleigh, March 3—Chaotic conditions in the House regarding road legislation today for the building of a system of state highways. Matters came to a clash when Ray of Macon and Daughton of Alleghany exchanged some words over the proposition. Ray defied what he thought was a steam roller headed in his direction and charged that some of the advocates of the proposal by Bryant of Durham to withdraw the Mull-McCoin bill from the committee from action by the committee of the whole House with having broken an agreement. Nearly every one had something to say and the upshot of the offensive was a decision to spend an evening with the road bills in order to get together on one of them. Probably time will tell. We dunno and refuse to prophesy.

The House by a vote of 37 to 39 killed a bill requiring reports from wheat threshers and passed one forbidding the sale of a hog cholera serum that was not recommended by the state or federal government.

The Senate passed a most discouraging bill to pistol toters, requiring those who carried a deadly weapon to secure a license, and also a license for those selling pistols and a record of the sales made like a druggist who sells poisons. There was some inquiry about the constitutionality of the act but the bill looked so good that it passed.

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From The Wilson Times, Tuesday, March 4, 1919

Great Road Building Program. . . Largest Amount of Money Ever Set Aside by Any Nation in the World. . . $574 Million for Roads

Washington, D.C., March 3—With full State cooperation according to the terms of the Federal Aid Road Act, the United States will have a total of at least $574 million for cooperative road building during the next three years. The Federal part of this fund is assured by an extra appropriation of $209 million in the Post Office appropriation bill just passed by Congress and signed by the President.
Officials of the Bureau of Public Roads, U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the provisions of the Federal Aid Road Act and cooperates with the State governments in the expending of the money, point out that this amount of funds is the largest ever appropriated for similar purposes and for a similar period by any government in the history of the world, and that “enables the federal and state governments to carry out a road-building program of a magnitude never equaled.

In connection with the great Federal aid program, it is also noted that expenditures for highway work in the United States this year are likely to amount to a half billion or more. On reports received from State highway departments, the Bureau of Public Roads estimates the 1919 expenditures for roads and bridges at $385 million, or $110 million more than the average expenditures for 1916 and 1917.

An important effect of the law containing the new appropriation is that it broadens the definition of a rural post road, under which class a highway had to qualify in order to receive the benefits of the Federal aid act.

The new act also raises the government limit of contribution from not to exceed $10,000 a mile, to not to exceed $20,000 a mile, taking account of higher present costs of labor and materials.

The law also authorizes the Secretary of War to transfer to the Secretary of Agriculture material, equipment and supplies suitable for highway improvement and not need by the War Department.

Of the $209 million added to the funds available under the Federal Aid Road Act, the law makes $9 million available for expenditure by the Secretary of Agriculture for roads and trails within or partly within the national forests. It also provides other measures which are expected to give great impetus to the development of the road system in the national forests.


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