Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-01-24
WEALTH OF A RIVER
Supplies Of the World Largely
Drawn From the Mis-
sissippi Valley.
THE FIVE-FOLD MEASURE
Needed to Extend tine Seaboard TO
the Great Lakes and the
LAKES TO THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.
Cheap and Easy Communication With the
Orient and 0ccident.
THE FIVE-FOLD MEASURE
LAKES TO THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.
Cheap and Easy Communication With the
Orient and 0ccident
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SHIP CANAL
PAPER NO. 9.


the age.
Together with its front door and northern
outlets. the Great Lakes and Mohawk and
Hudson rivers, it dominates and determines
the condition and comfort of every man,
woman and child in the United States; aye,
and in Europe.
Abundance or scarcity, dearness or cheap
ness of food depend upon its harvests and
its herds.
The price OF clothing the world over is de-
termined by the pick of its cotton fields and
the clip of its heeces.
All the world looks for light to its oil
wells, which also supply lubricants for its
machinery, ungents and ointments for its
Sores colors for its fabrics, insulating mate
rials for its wires, wax for its threads, and a
thousand things beside.
Its lumber and wooden wares control the
markets from the Atlantic to the Rockies.
1t is the greatest producer of copper, lead,
iron ore, iron and steel; and the supply and
prices of these metals and of their manufac-
lures depend upon its output
Its gold and silver are the principal addi-
tions to the worlds money.
Its coal measures are the richest, the most
extensive and the easiest worked, and with
first-class water transportation to the East
will determine the price of fuel both in
Europe and America.
But five of the great necessaries of modern
life are not here produced, tO-wit: tea.
coffee, quinine, rubber and gutta percha;
and no doubt rubber and gutta percha
could be proftably cultivated in the lower
latitudes.
Its manufactures are most extensive and
its commerce is vaster than that of any
other political or geographical division Of
the earth.
Its one united people excel all other in
patriotism, virtue, culture, education,
wealth, energy, adaptiveness, inventive
ness.
The dawning century holds what gift of
priceless blessing for this noble people?
That which will add to the earnings of
every worker and reduce the cost of living
TO each individual, not only in this ccun-
try, but in Europe as well, which will add
one-,ourth to the savings of every family;
which will lift the Western farmer out OF
his mortgaged fate. double his net earnings,
s8quadruple the value OF his land and make his
sons iree-born, proud, independent citizens
not, as now seems imminent, servile ten
ant class; which will enrich farmer and mer-
chant, manufacturer and common carrier,
miner and professional man; which will
augment the volume of trade beyond our
comprehension and create q thousand new
avocations.
Stirred bv memory of what our fathers
did and suffered for us, longing TO hold
proud and equal place with them in the
affections of our descendants, we OF the last
decade OF this eventful century must bless
aud enrich that Just about 10 dawn by in
augurating 4 ive-fold measure. We must
extend the Atlantic seaboard to the Great
Lakes, the Great Lakes to the Rocky
Mountains. We must provide tree water
transportation from the Atlantic, and from
the Cult to the remotest corner of our
valley.
First-The Erie Canal must be enlarged
TO accommodate ocean steamships.
Second-The Ohio river and the Great
Lakes must be connected by ship canal
Third-A canal must be built connecting
lakes Erie and Michigan.
Fourth-Lake Michigan must be con-
nected by ship canal with the Mississippi.
FIfth-Last and most important OF all, be-
cause affecting not alone material prosperity,
but as vital to the safety, health and very lives
OF the people and further making serviceable
and profitable the above mentioned great
arterial canals we must improve the Mis-
sissippi and its tributaries, put an end to
disastrous floods, reclaim the lands now
waste ana ex:end TO every part and corner of
this vast valley the inestimable boon of
cheap water transportation, Tree to all the
people.
The Mississippi and its tributaries, when
improved, will furnish Ii, 500 miles of first
class waterways. navigable by large steam
ships of 20 feet draft; $4,000 miles Of water
ways navigable by vessels Of 10 to Is feet
draft and CO. 900 miles of waterways navi-
gable to steamboats, and barges.
This vast system, the natural highways of
the nation, extending parallel and converg-
ing lines through ], ,272 600 square miles, or
624, ,080,O00 acres OF the richest country on
the globe, covering its face with a network
o. magnificent waterways, nowhere more
than 40 miles apart, bringing every farmer
within practical wagon haul OF cheap
transportation route; the whole connected
by ship canals with the great lakes and the
Atlantic, having outlet to the gulf and
summit connections with the waterways oil
Hudson Bay and British North America,
piercing the Rocky Mountains to the Co.
lumbla river, and establishing cheap trans
portation to the Pacific slope-this is a
worthy gift from century to century,
Provided with such a system, we can load
ships for Europe at the 10th meridian; de.
bark the cargoes of the Orient and Of the
Occident at the wharyes of our great West
ern plateau.
Our vast stretches of farms and factories.
cities and mines will have cheap and easy
communication with one another, with Eu.
rope, Africa and the east coast OF South
America, and, when the Nicaragua Canal is
done, with both shores of the Pacific Ocean.
Nature placed our peerless continent Gen.
tral on the globe. Central, commanding,
dominating all she set our valley; planning
it on ideal lines, seeming to have always in
view the ultimate uses of our rivers, and
their connections with the Great Lakes and
the Atlantic.
The map well illustrates the splendid
possibilities inherent in that Continental
System of Highways of which Eads aptly
says:
ut is the great arterial system of this
Republic. Its vital branches and wonder
ful retlculations permeate and envelop the
great body of our country, giving unity to
amplitude, value to productiveness, and to
the State, resistless power and existence as
enduring as human liberty and intelli-
gence. Through its copious channels, for
all time to come. are destined to circulate
the sustenance and abundance of its peo-
ple."
The more one studies this vast subject,
the more the mind is overwhelmed BY its
vastness, astounded at its incompatible pro-
portions and opportunities; thrilled by the