Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-02-15
stenm nnd the Sale Of the Ohio CanaIs

would not be a publication which both
Heaven and earth should approve?
steam and the Sale of the Ohio Canals
Steam is to be brought into requisition to
save the Ohio canals. Steam is a mighty
power but it has got its match now. How
ever, it is not steam which is to do it, but
the pen, which we all know is much might
ier. Our poor old dilapidated canals, which
have annually come before the Legislature,
from time to which the memory of q
legislator runneth not back, with their poor
tale of extraordinary floods, and frowning
Providence, and their annual deficit of
100000 and upward, and their annual
Ieouisitions for money to rebuild structures
which were ready to tumble down, which
acquisitions year after year were not granted;
and which-the canals-have been annually
growing poorer and more desperate in their
condition and revenues, until the State is
looking about for some method of giving
them away, 80 as to restore their efficiency
and stop this drain upon the State revenue
are now to be saved by the introduction of
steam as motive power for boats; and it is
proposed that the State shall hold on to the
canals until steam canal boats do the busi-
ness for them.
Somebody has succeeded in running a boat
on the Ohio Canal, by steam. But. chiefly,
there are steamboats, on the New York
Canals; therefore, we shall have steam here,
and steam will revolutionize the canal bus-
ness. The Erie Canal in New York, has
seven feet of water, and a width of eighty
feet, with locks in proportion. The canals
in Ohio were constructed for four feet in
depth, and forty feet in width at the top.
They have filed up until boats can only load
to about twenty -four or at most thirty inches,
and the width has decreased in proportion.
1t is said that the propeller wheels of the
steam canal boats will cut away the grass.
The grass will be much more likely to break
the propeller. But even a steam canal-boat
must have canal. A propeller wheel will
not dig a canal. The State of New York
paid $50, ,ooo,O 900 or 100000, 600 to enable her
canal to compete with her railroads. And
she has business enough for both. In Ohio,
there is not business enough for both and
the canals take only what the railroads leaye,
CT what is not convenient to railroads.
Will the State of Ohio appropriate any
millions to improve her canals, so as to en-
able them to offer vigorous competition
with more progressive means of transporta-
tion? On the contrary, State management
has not vitality enough to keep them from
filing up. It would be out of. the question
to get money enough from the Legislature to
bottom out the canals 80 as to restore the
original depth of water. Nor dare the Board
of Public Works ask for all the money that
they know is required to put the canals in
efficient condition, because it would raise
storm about their ears that they were running
the party. .r..
The Board is reduced entirely to tempo
rizing; showing payments beyond the end of
the year, so as, to make financial showing
less bad; putting off the rebuilding of struc-
lures imperatively needed charging large
amounts to Providence and extraordinary
casualties, which are as regular as the rolling
year; cunning cyphering, to show the great
saving ofa Republican member of the Board
over Democratic member, to show that
pure Republican management is all that is
required to restore the canals; asking for ap-
parently moderate appropriations, and then
expending 100000 in excess of them hold
ing out encouragement of greater business
next year, when, in spite Of bountiful crops,
the business is constantly declining; and
asking for all the appropriations they dare
ask directly, and an additional one of $4,000
TO be held against hard shower; all of
which, and many other devices, have been
played 50 long, that they have excited a
general disgust.
There is nothing now proposed that is not
part of the same temporizing policy. Next
year will bring round the same old story of
disaster, poverty and Providence, and an in
creased deficit. There is no good IN the
canals under State management. If private
enterprise can develope any, let 1t have
them. If there are any improvements that
will restore the canal business, private inter-
est will add them. The State never will,
and is only letting them run down. Is II
not interesting to hear politicians raising a
cry for fear that private ownership may
make money out of canals, which it is cost
ing the State 100000 year to hold while
they are going to decay?
Men, commonly regarded as having com
mon sense, argue that if any persons are
willing to take the canals, with the expecta.
ton Of making money out of them, there
must be fraud intended, and the State is Ia
be victimized. Then, according to thai
statesmanship in order to dispose of the
canals, they must be sold to those who are
unwilling TO take them, and who will do SC
expecting to suffer constant loss by holding
them. tr ~
1t is for the interest of the State to have
the canals 60 into the hands of men who ar,
a 4 ~ "a = 4 =