Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-01-31

and the Ohio Valley mine. can work hall
time. The improvement of our rivers
would bring these people together. Coal
would 60 to people who want warmth and
light and power, and corn would come to
those who want meat. The Kansas farmer
would live and prosper and the Onion Val
lev miner would work full time.
These things cannot be considered mar
rowly. We cannot help one section only.
Every sod turned in the Missouri Valley
makes a pulse leap in the heart of Eastern
business.
New England cannot grow cheap grain;
but her farms are peculiarly we'll watered
and adapted to stock and dairy farming.
Cheap water transportation, giving her
cheap grain, would build up her stock and
dairy industry, repeople her healthy hills
and vastly widen the grain market. Under
such conditions New England would ex-
port great quantities OF meat and dairy
products. Her market for hides she does
not look abroad for.
The great copper-producing districts are
Montana and the Lake Superior district.
The great copper and brass mills are, with
few exceptions, in Connecticut. The de-
velopment of waterways giving cheap con-
nections between these widely separated
regions would reduce by one-tenth the cost
Of brass and copper goods
In 1890 the world produced about 800, 900
tons $1,000 TBS. of copper. We produced
136, 255 tons; 81, 475 tons coming from Mon
tana, of which Anaconda yielded 32,O23
tons. Lake Superior produced 9,7S5 tons,
29. 500 coming from Calumet & Hecla.
If Montana had water transportation to
the Atlantic by an improved Missouri, and
the great arterial canals, the saving in
n = har To- hou nd he
not less than 81, ,OO0, 900 yearly-enough to
pay for So miles of first-class river improve
ment; while the saving in freight on the
manufactured product from the Eastern
mills to the consumers would be half as
great. The saving on 1877, 900 tons of lead
would equal that on copper; and the saving
on 6S, 1000 tons of zinc would be no mean
figure.
1t is probable that the saving in freights
on copper, lead, and zinc ana their manu-
factures would exceed S., ,000, 600 annually,
which seems great sum. But how small
does it appear when we try to imagine the
effect of the saving on the IL 300, 600 tons Of
domestic and 2, SOC, 600 tons OF imported iron
ore, and the iron and steel produced there
from, more than one half of which would
have found market along the line OF our
great river system; on the tens of millions of
tons of agricultural products.
Why do not the cotton growers OF the
lower Mississippi sell their bales to the
cloth-wearers OF the upper valley? Why
does the fiber go to New England, and the
cloth, the cotton, and the goods in which
they are paid for make the circuit OF the
country instead of following the short,
straight line from producers to consumers?
Because so long as our rivers are unim-
proved the longer is the cheaper way.
The same is true of wool and woolens.
Transportation charges compel unnatural
and expensive courses.
Given water transportation and St Louis
ought to be the center of the wooden and
cotton trades, because located at the inter-
section of the roads connecting the people
who grow the ibers and the people who must
wear the fabrics.
To enumerate all the phases of this ques-
tion would be to discuss the business of
every village and every man in the United
States, and then to treat of foreign coun-
tries. Let those interested figure it out for
themselves. Let them determine sailing
distances, as given in the diagram. to their
markets, and then calculate the difference
between water transportation at 1 or ~
mills per ton per mile aud what they now
pay. The result will make every man who
will do so believer in, and an advocate Of,
the improvement Of our rivers to the fullest
extent, to rob them Of their destructive
power, and at the same time to create sys-