The daily Cairo bulletin., 1881-01-19
The Mississippi River Improvement Bill.

Why congress hesitates to act favorably
and promptly on the bill tor the improve
ment of the Mississippi river is isunaccounta-
Bile and incomprehensible. The only reason
advanced for delay, so far as we know is,
that the bill has not been duly considered.
This reason is not supported by the facts,
as the history of the bill shows, Long be-
fore the bill was framed the purposes
| sought to be accomplished by it were famil-
lar to the whole country, 50 that when it
came before congress it contained nothing
new or startling. A year ago last June,
the act creating the Mississippi river
| commission become law, and
the commission, having made thorough
| survey of the river, reported to congress
a comprehensive and satisfactory plan,
with estimates, for its improvement.
The bill was drawn in accordance with
this report. Before the bill was shaped,
however, Especial committee of congress
visited and carefully inspected the river
and made report so favorable that it was
expected that legislation, authorizing the
commencement of the work and making the
necessary appropriation, would immediatly
follow. This expectation has not been real
lied notwithstanding the fact that the bill
is as fully Comprehended as any measure
that was ever before congress- the pros
pcct OF Its passage this session is far
from promising The committee on
commerce, which now has the matter of the
appropriation in charge, wants further in
formation, and from dispatches we see it
has invited Captain Eads and General
Wright, engineers Of the Mississippi river
commission, to come before it and give their
views about the proposed improvement of
the river. This, of course, will occasion
further delay and retard the progress of the
bill. General Gibson, however, who is
pushing 1t with all his influence and skill
may succeed in getting it through. In
last Fridays Washington Post there is an
able and exhaustive article from him, in
which he presents the history of the bill,
and advances unanswerable arguments in
its behalf. With regard to the amount of
the appropriation ask for, he says
"The engineers ask tor five millions of
dollars, about one-haf the amount the
commerce on the riyeris taxed annually for
increased and unusual rates of insurance
the bill allows them sl,SOO,OOO. The river
and harbor bill for the last year appro-
priatcd $S,952, 600, and out of which the
Mississippi river below Cairo received
$l95,000, and so from year to year and
from congress to congress we have made
lavish appropriations for our ocean fronts
and for the upland rivers, but really have
not done anything for the trade and com
merce upon this great national highway
from Cairo to New Orleans
Speaking of the great value of the Mis-
sissippi river as a competing outlet to the
markets of the world he has the following
to say
at is said there was no difficulty in i'm
proving the Tennessee, or the Cumberland,
or the Ohio or the Wabash or the Missou-
ri, for the engineers were all agreed as TO
the methods to be adopted, but the great
trunk line to which these are tributaries
has received no appropriations because it
required systematic treatment, and no COM
prehensve survey had ever been made.
Each one of these tributaries has received
larger appropriations in the last six or
eight years than the Mississippi itself, and
some Of them have not one tenth of its com
merce and trade. At last we have the sur
veys, specifications and estimates, and why
shall not the work begnl Shall the peo-
pie Of this great valley find their only out
lets TO the markets Of the world over the
rallroads-co corporations that defeat whole
some competitions by iar.reaching, all
grasping and all-powcrlu combinations
which, at the bidding of few capitalists
may determine the rates of freight, and |
therefore, the value and price of property
and the wages Of labor; or shall we open
the great highway, and give them cheap
and unobstructcd and untaxed commune |
cation with the sca2"
General Gibson calls attention TO the
amounts which have been expended in the
north and west for internal improvements
and shows that no difficulty Is experienced
in getting appropriations for bayous and
creeks which are wholly within the districts
of particular members. He says:
Authority was found for cSpendlng over
$4,000 600 tor the Cumberland river; sew
eral millions for the Delaware Water Gap;
$4,500,00O for the canal around the Drs
Moines rapids; nearly as much for the canal
at Portland, in the Ohio river; S2,5000 900 |
for Harlem river, in New York S7000,000 |
for Alaska; $5,000,000 damages even for
the fisheries; $780, since the estab-
llshment Of the government for internal
improvements, and SS,000,000 to $4,000,
600 per annum for the improvement Of
rivers and harbors generally.