“In county road repair and construction we were no better. The district boss was elected politically, and of course he rewarded his commissioner friends by working the road fund. He dared not complain of short hours or little done or sitting by the road discussing how to ‘fix the election,’ and usually the work was done just before the nomination and election. The ‘dump of dirt’ was left in a pile, not even leveled; every team avoided it if possible, and when winter then came it was ‘slurry’ and mud. No ditches or outlets for same were made or cleaned out, and if any suggestion was made for improvement, you were told ‘it was good enough before you came and you can get out if you don’t want to stay.’” In Polk County, Iowa, an investigation in 1912 disclosed the fact that the board of supervisors had paid out $100,000 for contracts without asking for bids. They never required plans or specifications of any bridge to be constructed. Bridges had been ordered without any idea of what they would cost. No guarantee bond was required and bridges were accepted without inspection. Certain companies had been favored to the exclusion of others and the result was that in many counties bridges were built at a cost fifty per cent. higher than their reasonable value. To the rich opportunities for “turning an honest dollar” which lurked in such systems and in such an attitude on the part of the public officers, the “powers that prey” have been keenly alive. The tale that was told a few years ago, with a multitude of specifications, by a few enterprising farm journals in the Middle West, rivals, except in dramatic quality and the size of the sums involved, the characteristic falls from grace which have been heretofore associated with ward aldermen and legislators hailing from wicked urban districts. It was a serious indictment of county officialdom which is contained in a letter of the chairman of the Roads and Highways Committee of the lower house in Kansas, who wrote in 1913: “I know there are comparatively few county commissioners who profit personally by the manipulations of the bridge companies but the representatives of the companies are shrewd men who understand thoroughly that the average county commissioner is very jealous of his bridge patronage, and brooks no interference with his handling of the bridge business with a free hand. Consequently the bridge men play this feature to the limit and to their own profit.”[13] That Iowa was inoculated with the same germ is suggested by remarks of Alson Secor, the editor of _Successful Farming_: