The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1882-11-27
TIE DAILY Argus.
LET THE PEOPLE OF THE MISSISSIPPI
VALLEY RALLY.
From the St. Louis Republican


The Journalists and politicians wb,
are making so vigorous a war on the river
ana haTbor bill of the last session of CON
gress may defeat their object by want of
discrimination. There was enouoh in thu
bill, that is assailable and indefensible to
occupy the attention of all sincere guar
dlans of the public treasury. IF that
which was good and imperatively needed
be not COMPOUNDED with that which was
useless and prsfigate a long step NAV he
taken toward reforming a vicious method
OF legislation. But if Eastern enemies of
the Mississippi river and their barrow
minded echoes in other sections have not
the discrimination to separate that great
wafer way from the push pole creeks and
tho baYous and fish-pcnds of necessitous
congressman in outlying districts, thew
VIII show themselves so wanting in candor
and justice and breadth of vision as to lose
all influence on this subject with intelli-
gent voters. The greatest interest of the
mississippi valley is not to be assailed and
retarded under cover of the petty frauds
which have been forced into the river and
harbor bills. The tactics of rival interests
and routes are transparent as glass
There is systematic plan of attack and
misrepresentation of the work and
the purposes of the river commits
sion A great volume of false
or partial facts is to be poured out on the
public in flood which it is hoped cannot
be resisted. In this way ii is intended to
stay all progress and cause a suspension of
work, which will bring about in fact the
very waste and loss now predicted by the
marplots.
1t is fitting to remind the obstructionists
that the country drained by the Mississip-
pl and its tributaries produces the exports
OF the United States, the grain and pro-
visions and cotton which balance and paw
for the eight hundred million dollars of
imports OF our commerce, and that this
imperial region has registered an irrevoc
able purpose to have improved water wavs
to the sea and to the markets of the world.
The people who cause the earth to produce
annually four hundred million bushels of
wheat and fifteen hundred million bushels
of corn, and five million bales of cotton,
and beef and pork enough to feed forty
million people, and every smaller fruit of
the soil which is essential to the life of
man. have a profound contempt for the
puerile and fainting opinion of ANYBODY
who does not believe they can control the
currents and fix the channels and secure
the banks of streams whose abundant wa
ters offer them the easiest, cheapest and
safest means of transportation known to
civilization. They see other sections and
other people construct artificial waterways
over mountains and plains and redeem
broad areas from the very tides of the sea.
at an expense of work and money not
dreamed of in connection with their great
and tractable rivers, and yet they are in
vited TO believe that it is too much to ask
for and expend five or six million dollars
TO reclaim whole states and render available
streams which will float the commerce of
half a continent. The people of the west,
of the valley of the Mississippi, are tired
of this childish talk They are not to be
thwarted in a matter of such vast and vital
interest by arguments which would scarcely
have been appropriate to the struggling
feeble settlements of this region half
century ago Canada, lying on the mar
gin of the ocean, expends scores of mil
lions for paltry canals to compete with the
greatest and wealthiest railroads running
parallel to the markets; New York. stu
ated hundreds of miles nearer to the At
lantic harbors than this valley is, thinks |
fifty millions well spent in securing water |
routes to rival the railroads; and vet we |
are asked to allow our rivers to be super |
5eded and abandoned because the cost of |
their improvement will exceed their value |
All the analogies, as well as the logic of |
current facts, contradict such suggestions |