Ke Alakai o Hawaii, Volume X, Number 7, 18 February 1937 — GOVERNOR POINDEXTER OBTAINS $1,750,000 IN ADDITIONAL "FREE" FEDERAL ROAD AID FOR TERRIT ORY---"No NEWSIN HAWAII [ARTICLE]

GOVERNOR POINDEXTER OBTAINS $1,750,000 IN ADDITIONAL "FREE" FEDERAL ROAD AID FOR TERRIT ORY---"No NEWSIN HAWAII

The faith and "confidence of WashingtoTi administration officia!s in Governor J. B. Poindexter ar»d Frank H. Locey,: WPA administrator in Hawaii, has resulted in the Territory obtaining $1,75D ? 000 in additiqna! federal ald for rbads within the past two years—a sum whieh otherwise would have been lost to the Islands. This has been disclosed recently, although the aeeomplishineiU at the time passed unnoticed with little or no publieity in the eolumna of the Republican-controlled' press of the Territory. The snms in question, whieh wouM not have eome to the Territorv uithout the pleas of the Governor, were $1,000,000 in "free" government aid for the construction of the Kolekole Pass road, obtained in 1935, and $750,000 for the construction of ihe present road around Barber's Point, projects upon whieh hundreds of men have been employed. !The unusual feat about Governor Poindexter's aeeompiishment, according to information current here, is that the army, backed bv ita powerful lobbv- in Washington, had tried and failed to obtain allocations of the 51,750,000 previous to the Governors visits to Washington. Primariiy Military Bot h roadvS are considered of primarily—almost exclusively—military value and are of little or any use to the civilian population. li Governor F%mdexter had not been able to obtain these allocations of $1,750,000, the roads in question undoubtedly would have to have been bu*lt with a combinatioln of Territ©wat and regular federal aid funds, as the federal road act states that highways of post-road and mllitary* value must have first priority in the formulation of the primary federal road aid system of any State # or Territory. Consequently "military value" plays an imporfant part in the ailocation of federai aid funds to any State or Territory. As the result of the Governor's activities in Washington, the Territory thus was saved the expenditure of 11,000,000 in its own road funds, whieh would have had to be expended in the construction of these two primanly important military roads before it co\ild h a v e obtained any additional federal road aid funds. "Manifest!y Unfair M To Washington officials Governor Poindexter is understood to have pointed out that it would be jnanifestly unfair to eompel the Territory to spend approximateb T $1»000,000 on these two military highways before it could obtain additional federal road aid, inasnmeh as virtually nonē of the civilian population ever would make use of the two roads. The Governor was able to carry his point, and the alloc«tiojtts of $1,000,000 for Kolekole Pas» and $750,000 for the Barber's Point road followed, with the resu!t that l*oth are now under constructioa and have given employment to hundreds of ni e n in the past two years. Construction of the roads is under the direction of the Lnited States Army Engineers f inasmuch as the Engineers are required to draw some 90 pereent of the labor on these two projects from the rolls of the Works Progress Admiiiis.tration, they have sei\ cd to reduce by many hundieds Oi. men the numbers on ihose rol!s- thus enabling federal relief agencies to furnii>h nient to o t h e r hundreds of needy unemplo> ed on regular Works Progress Administration projects