National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1874-12-04
CHEIP TRANsPORTATTON.


In dispatch from this city printed in
the New York Times of yesterday there is
presented a fair and accurate reflex of the
opinions and views of members of Congress
upon the subject of cheap transportation
We reproduce it, as follows: THE cheap
- transportation question will claim atten-
g ton again in Congress this winter, but
there seems to be no expectation on the
part of the advocates of the different
" schemes that any action can be obtained.
There has been no question before Con-
g gress recently that has attracted 50 much
" attention, and at the same time failed TO
q obtain more sincere advocates. Many
members of each House will attach them
q selves TO particular schemes in which
90 their constituents arc interested, but
q scarcely one will be found addressing
% himself to the task of improving, in the
& best way, the means of traffic between
q the interior and the scabOaTd. The open
g ing of the mouth of the Mississippi will
g be again urged, and the Eads plan of
4" constructing icttics will be pressed with
G. renewed vigor. Mr.. Eads has spent the
summer examining the principal con-
O. stTuCtiOns of jctties in Europe, and his
q convictions of the feasibility of deepening
" the Mississippiriver by his plan presented
/" last year have been strengthened This
I" struggle over the methods of reaching
" the desired result has its basis, in large
" degree, in the hostility between engi-
neers in military and civil life. Army
d" engineers, for the most part, think there
& is no engineering ability or learning out
L" side the engineer corps, and, on the other
& hand, civilians have little more esteem
9 for their professional rivals in the army.
- In this instance almost all the army en-
g gineers oppose the jetty scheme, and the
/" civilians almost as generally oppose the
project of a canal. Delay in beginning
g any work on the river will be the cOnse-
" quencc.
A few words upon the first portion of
the above correspondence are pertinent.
We know next to nothing about Mr.. Eads
and his jettics. and feel in no way inter
ested in the contest between the civil and
the military engineers. Neither does the
public We simply desire to direct the
attention Of our readers to the whole svs-
TEN of internal improvements. which are
national necessity and must come sooner
or later. 1t is, as the Times correspondent
says, true that no subject has drawn 10 it.
self more consideration and thought within
the last few years, and at the same time
failed to receive hearty and generous sup.
port at the hands Of Congress as a body.
The trouble has been, and is, that it has
no positive leader in Congress, no man who
will boldly grasp the question and push it
10 a fnality one way or the other. Nearly
every member Of Congress secs the wisdom
of such policy and the advantages that
would flow from it: but they are scared
and terrified by the organs of the monop-
olists and railroad rings in New York and
other cities, who, in denouncing what they
call a stupendous system of jobbery, are
unfolding the worst form Of oppression,
despotism and corruption in this or in any
other country Mr. Window has the CD.
pertunity to secure a lasting name and
fame if he will only devote himself to the
question earnestly and vigorously. He can
do for the whole country what De Witt