Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1883-01-24
What Hayes, Fades and the Commission
have Done for the Mississippi Valley.

What Hayes, Fades and the Commission
have Done for the Mississippi Valley.
In 1850 the grain crop in five states
Illinois. Missouri, Minnesota, Michigan.
and Iowa-amounted to 9, $751;, 600 bushels
In 1870, twenty years later, it was s, 273, 0O0
bushels. In 1871 the quantity was doub-
led. In 1873 the grain crop of the United
States was 1853, 1875, 900 bushels. OF this
vast production ,34s, SOS, 900 sprang from
the valleys Of the mississippi rivers.
Surprising one-fourth of the whole was
exported, New Orleans should have re-
ceived 5000, 600 tons. Instead of receiv-
ing this quantity, the entire ocean ton
mage of New Orleans did not exceed
1000, 900 tons. If the city had been &C.
cessible to ships drawing even 2S or 80
feet, the saving to the producers of this
crop at 10 cents per bushel would have
been $32, 900, 900. In 1853 New Orleans
had 518, 600 tons of ocean tonnage; in 1873
522, 600, an increase of 1900 tons. Nearly
all these ships were employed exclusively
in cotton expectation. New York, on the
other hand, in 1858 had 1, 755. 900 tonnage;
in 1873, 100000. In 1878 New Orleans
had 1856. 438 foreign tonnage and and $685.
$50 Gulf and Atlantic port tonnage, or a
total of III, 1923 tons, when New York ha d
1000 600 tons. Now New York has
IL, OOO, 600 tons of ocean commerce, while
New Orleans, with 20, 600 miles of navig-
able rivers tributary to her riches, has not
800, 900 tons. From 1000, 900 tons trans
ported by the Erie Canal in 1853, the on
mage increased to 6,760, 600 in 1864. In
1853 the tonnage of the Erie road was
SO, 600, which in 1873 increased to $685.
900 TONS The Pennsylvania Central con-
veyed about the same quantity, and the
two roads and the Erie Canal $4,000, 900
tons of the value of $1,000, 000,00 The
volume of freight on the Erie increased
from 1862 to 1867, 81 per cent; on the
Pennsylvania Road, SO per cent, on the
New York Central % per cent. These
facts show that the grain crop of the
Mississippi Valley still follows the rail-
ways, and not that which would be inf
nitely cheaper if it were an open water
way to the Gulf of Mexico and
to the markets of the world. If
the rivers navigability were per-
fected, and New Orleans really acces.
sible from the sea, these enormous crops
from the Valley of the Mississippi would
find the ocean by route on which the
cost of transportation is certainly one
half less than over these interminable
railway lines. 1t will not cost as much,
when the Mississippi is really open, to
transfer bushel of grain from Kansas
City via New Orleans to Liverpool. as it
now does from Kansas City to New York.
Then eur grain can be sold in Liverpool
at 10 cents per bushel less than that COM
ing to Liverpool from the Black Sea and
the Danube. Then our exports will be
800, 000, 900 per annum instead of 100. 000,-
600 bushels. A 40foot ship channel to
the Gulf, and not q 30-foot newspaper
channel, means not only cheap bread for
Europe, but for New York and New
England. Besides whatever may be said
OF Federal railway commission and of
the regulation by law of interstate COM
merce, there is no other means of compel
ling transcontinental railways to serve
the people fairly or justly. The Miss
issippi, when finally opened, becomes the
great American regulator of freight and
passenger rates. Therefore have the rail-
ways, through Hayes, sent Fades to plug
up the rivers mouth, and the river Gem
mission to destroy its navigability.-
american Registsr.