The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1882-06-30


extension has progressed. Take the post
offices aud postroads of this country, because
they, like the rivers and harbors. extend all
over the nation. In 1T0 there were only as
postoffices in the entire United States, not
half Is many as l have had to fight over In
In 1881 there were 1879. In 1870 we had
only 1873 miles Of postroads in the Unit ]
States; in 1881 we had over $4,000 miles of
postroads. 1t cost, in 1890, to run the post
offices of this country sS2, 40; last year it
cost $39y251, 736. So with our rivers and
ing new country. Why the east does
not seem to understand that there is but
little country but what lies east of the Ale
ghany mountains; whereas, you take the
map of the United States and three or four
busy flies would blot that eastern country
out in 10 minutes. prolonged laughter and
applause.
The great bulk of the country Of the United
States lies west of tho Allegheny mountains
and south, and we are constantly opening
up this new country. Take our own state as
an illustration, because we know what
we are talking about around home
here. Thirty years e il anybody
had spoken about improving the harbor at
Au Sable it would have been considered
ridiculous, and yet to-day Au Sable is ship
ping more tonnage than the entire Connect
cut river, on which the government has ex-
pended over half a million Of dollars. The
same thing may be said of Alpena. Think
for a moment. / like u President, and
say to you we have q good President, but
men sometimes make mistakes. Fools never
do. [~Laughter.] Our President made a mis-
take in yetoing the river and harbor bill, |
think He did not think so. but ] say l
think he made this mistake. He got
the old Democratic notion into his
head-but it is not Democratic any
longer, because the majority of Democrats do
not believe in it-that q stream must not be
improved unless it runs through two or more
states. The fact is, the supreme court OF
this country has decided this question as to
when u stream may be improved under our
constitution and they that say that it simply
depends upon whether it is ~navigable or not;
that is the only question. The state surren-
dered up to the general government all CON
troll over commerce. Is that not true' You
cannot bridge the Saginaw river without
you get permission from congress-, because it
Is a ~nnvigables stream. State courts cannot
assume jurisdiction over any vessel on that
river as your vessel mon will tell
you. You must 60 to the United States
court simply because the Of the
country is controlled by the general govern
ment. So the harbors must be improved, if
| improved at all, by the general government.
Ever since there have been appropriations
made money has been paid for tho improve
ment of rivers that only run in one state.
| Amongthe earliest appropriations was one for
| the Hudson river, In the state of New York
TIL constitution was hardly cold when the
| first river and harbor bill was passed and
that included the Delaware river as one Of
the streams that should be improved. There
has never been ar appropriation bill from
this that has paid any attention whatever to
state lines. This is as 1t should be. The
question of whether q %navigable river is in
one state or another has nothing to do with
the improvement of it. The only question
is, is 1t in the United States Of America.
and give 1t such improvement as it needs.
o THE BILL WAS PREPARED.
Let me tell you how carefully we prepared
this bill, then you will see whether the crit
icisms which are INDUCED in by the press all
over the country are Just. Our committee is
| composed of ID men. There Is not a single
item in the S51 in that bill-perhaps there are
more than that now in it, because l give the
number as IL was when the bill left the house
there Is not q SINCE item In that entire bill
which that committee did not consider Care
fully and in reference to which we did not
take the reports OF the engineers
and read them critically, first, as to what the
Improvement was; second, as to the amount
of commerce that fioated over the stream or
u iiltO III Ioh WI = thiho ~ w VI tnO AtIiO ihftA
ton that we could get from the papers that
were filed outside OF the engineers reports.
For instance, in reference to our home river,
the Saginaw, the board of trade sent al
elaborate statement showing the m
Of this river, tho ,ihills upon It's banks,
etc. Every one Of those items was
carefully examined by that committee and
we struck out every one of them that did
not seem to present good reasons for being
improved, and that did not have m
enough TO entitle 1t to the consideration OF
the nation. Don't understand me that every
item In that bill met my approval There
were many in II that / voted against. There
were many items In IL that 1 voted for which
others voted against. II you will think Of
IL a moment you will see that such would
necessarily be the case. The majority of
these men had determined what items
should 20 into the bill. how much money
each item should receive, and I'm no instance
Is there q dollar given on a single item
in excess of what the engineer has said was
needed to complete the work or carry on the
work for this year, and only In q very few
instances has the full amount asked for been
given. In the bulk of cases they obtained
IS per cent. only of what the engineers
recommended. In our Saginaw river we
only got 80 per cent. Bat let me say, fellow
| citizens, that in that entire list there Is not
a single instance where we have not
the approval of. the engineers al
the United States who have examined thu
work. More than that. when there
lives right about the work and knows 81
as Q rule he was generally In favor Of "the