Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1881-01-11
figures are not exaggerated is easily demon


grain. Immense barge lines have been organ
lied to carry wheat from st. Louis to the gulf.
In single ono of these lines, the Missouri
Pacific, the Wabash and Iron Mountain rail
roads, under the direction of Jay Gould, have
nearly half million of stock, and grain has
already been moved from st. Louis to New
Orleans at five cents per bushel. In the spring
this single line of barges will have Transport
tation facilities for 2,0O0,0 900 bushels of grain
per month, and the officers of some of the trans
portal companies claim that with fair stage
OF water wheat can be moved for three cents
per bushel from st. Louis to New Orleans. A
comparison of these rates with the railroad
rates to New York, which have been largely
reduced by this competition, will demonstrate
the moderate estimates we have allowed for
the annual losses of the people on freghts.
The effect upon freights of the very slight
Improvements which have been made in the
lakes is shown by the following figures from
the annual marine statement of the port Sof
Buffalo, showing the average rate on wheat
each season since 1860 from Chicago to Buff
falo for eighteen years. We omit all but the
first and last year, for the sake of brevity:
1861, wheat Lie; 1878, wheat sic; also the
difference between the winter and summer
months: July, 1878, Lie; November, 1878,
4.5c.
The effect of the summer months on rates
of freight from the Northwest is illustrated
by taking the article of flour from Minneapo-
lis to New York:
December, TIT. - 80 May, 1s7s..........76
June, 1878. ........ IS July, 1878. ........56
December, 1873. Ito
On this point the report of the directors of
the Illinois Central railroad company, made
January /, 1878, says: "During eight months
OF water communication the facilities for tax
ing by water are SO much improved that the
actual cost of water transportation to the sea-
board is less than half the actual cost of rail
transportation"
To illustrate the tendency of grain to seek
an outlet by the river route, the following
figures from st Louis paper of December 25,
1880, are interesting as well as prophetic.
GRAIN RECEIPTS AT ST. LOUIS.
1875 1879
Wheat .1O,915,OOO 1S,5SO,OO
Corn. 12,721 600 21,575,O0O
AS this business of transporting grain in
bulk by barges is yet in its infancy, and the
Mississippi river in no suitable condition for
its successful prosecution, river men claim
that with five feet of water from St. Paul to
st. Louis, wheat can be moved from Minnesota
to the Gulf for three cents per bushel.
The Mississippi river is not only indispensa-
BILE to the people to secure low freights, but
indispensable to enable them to move their
products at all. Already the railroads are I'M
able to carry the wheat of Minnesota while
only 2,7OO,O 600 acres are under cultivation and
sOwn to wheat, and only 1000, 600 acres to all
kinds of produce. When this vast reserve of
the virgin soil is subdued and cultivated and
Dakota comes to the front with her immense
wheat fields, this river will be absolutely nee
| essary to carry our products to market, and
| the railroads, rapidly as they are multiplying,
will be utterly. pOwerless to do the business.
In view of the vast interests at stake, your
rise to the full appreciation of the subject, and
adopt at once a comprehensive and liberal sys-
tenn of improvements from st. Paul
to the gulf; providing for the improvement of
the river fully, completely and thoroughly;
not by detached, Struggling and temporary
makeshifts, but by system to be carried out
promptly and at once, and whether this sys-
tenn shall cost 81 ,000,O or 500, 000, 900.
The improvement must be made sooner or
demand it, The tax on them will be mere
triie compared to the tax they are already pay
ing in freight transportation They are no
more prepared to allow this river to be OBJ
structed by sand-bars, and its free passage de-
MED to them by the Congress of the United
States, than they were when they expended
millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands
OF lives to clear the river and prevent its OBJ
structiOn by the congress of the confederate
States. To postpone is not economy; to post
pOne is the most reckless extravaganza. 1t is
a blunder, if nota crime. 1t will cost no more
to make the proper improvements now than
it will ten years hence, while ten years. losses
and taxes in the shape of freights, amounting;
at the above moderate estimates, to $780,
600, 600, will be necessarily levied and collect
ed off of the people by the postponement.
Speaking, therefore, not only for our own
State, but in behalf of the 20,000,000 of the
people of the Mississippi valley, we renew our
earnest petition for appropriations for the en-
tire river, from st. Paul to New Orleans, upon
scale of liberality and comprehensi veness
which will give assurance of business as well
as craftsmanship on the part of our represent
ativeS.
While we think it important that appropria-
tons should be liberal and ample and for a
system of Improvements, we respectfully
ask that the upper Mississippi may
be at once improved by the deepening of the
channel, SO that barges may be able to carry
grain from st. Paul to st. Louis, and to this
end that at least $4,000 of the appropriation
be expended between st. Paul and the st. Croix
river; and in order that this may be accom-
plished most speedily and effectively, unembar-
raised by any other schemes calling for much
larger sums of money for reservoirs or any
| other untried systems, we respectfully ask
that all such schemes be postponed until the
channel of the river is deepcned, and the works
already recommended by engineers and in pro-
cess of construction be completed.
While not prepared to condemn such schemes
entirely, they are untried experiments; they
are largely theoretical, not to say visionary, in
the opinion of some engineers; they are repre-
| scented 10 have large and costly job underlying
them; they call for a great deal of money,
which we need to deepen the channel of the
river; and the effect of pressing these schemes
is to postpone and defeat all legitimate i'm
provements. The reservoir system is being
pressed upon the attention of Congress by the
owners of pine lands and lumber for logging
purposes rather than navigation, and by men
who show that they care nothing for the inn
provement of the river by opposing the bill
now pending to prevent the river from being
filled with sawdust and other refrse-a bill
recommended by the engineers of the govern
ment as essential to prevent sandbars and keep
the river navigable.
If there were no'other reasons for hesitat-
ing to accept this system as the ebcst for
improving the Mississippi river, this attitude
of its special friends and champions is suf-
ficient to put Congress on its guard and
act cautiously before it decides to divert the
bounties of the government from legitimate
plans of improvement, for the want of which
the country is suffering every day, to untried
schemes of at least doubtful expediency.
l,.kA e d h 11k = - l.