The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1892-10-07
The Da1les Daily Chronicle.
OFFICIAL PAPER OF DALLEs CITY.
AND wAsco COUNTY.
SPEECH OF SENATOR DoLFH.
CONTINUED from Ist page.)

the improvement of the cascade locks
had got fairly under way, with the pros
pect of liberal treatment from future
Congresses, / turned my attention to
the distractions to navigation at the
dalles of the Columbia. Major Jones
had proposed boat-railway as means
of overcoming the distractions at this
point. The boat-railway scheme was
new to me and offered in the Senate
resolution directing the Secretary of War
to cause the distractions at the dalles
to be examined and to report a plan of
improvement. l saw the chief of en-
gineers concerning the matter and
learned that there was no fund out of
which the survey and examination could
be made, and that such examination
could not be made without an appropria-
ton for that purpose. l therefore
dropped the resolution and proceeded to
examine the question with care, and
elaborately presented the subject to the
Senate in a speech which I entitled, An
Obstructed River" In the next River
and Harbor bill, fearing that the scheme
of boat-railway might prove imprac-
ticable and not being willing to entrust
the matter of recommending plan for
the improvement, as is ordinarily done,
alone to the engineers in charge, we
secured provision for the appointment
of board OF three Army Engineers to
make a survey and report plan for an
improvement to overcome the obstruc-
tions at the dalles, with an appropria-
tion of $40, 900 to defray the expenses.
This board was appointed, consisting
of three eminent Army Engineers, who
spent IA months in examining the ques-
lion, during which time they visited
similar works in Europe. They reported
in favor of a boat-railway as the most
effective and economical method of over
coming the distractions.
Mr.. Mitchell, being chairman of the
Committee on Transportation Routes to
the Seaboard, upon the receipt of the
report to Congress, introduced bill to
provide for the construction of boat
railway, which he had referred to his
committee and which in due time favor
ably reported it, and by our united
efforts it was passed through the Senate.
We believed that there was a chance to
secure the passage of this bill through
the House and asked for and were prom
ised hearing before the House Com
mittee on Rivers and Harbors and were
surprised at the action of that COM
mittee in reporting the bill to the
House with substitute providing for
an ordinary portage road. I immedi-
ately investigated the matter, to see if
there was a prospect of securing the
passage of the substitute through the
house, and was then assured, and 1
have recently been assured by the
chairman and members of that commit
tee, that the report was made under an
agreement that the bill should not be
called up in the house, and to get rid of
i'm portunity concerning it, that no
member of the committee was commit
ted to the project, and that the COM
mittee was not prepared to, and would
not make the new departure of entering
upon the construction of ordinary rail-
roads, work upon which any citizen
might enter.
At the last session of congress Sen
ator Mitchell again introduced his bill,
which was again referred to the senate
committee on transportation routes to
the seaboard. reported from that COM
mittee, pas, ed through the senate, and
sent to the democratic house to sleep
the sleep of death.
In the meantime, knowing that
separate bill providing for the prosecu-
ton of this work under the contract
system would not pass the house, l was
working up my proposition to incorpo-
rate in the river and harbor bill pro-
vision for the work. While doing so,
the Seattle canal project was brought
before the senate committee on COM
merce and pressed with great energy and
perseverance by the Washington senat-
ors. 1 felt compelled to oppose this
measure, on the ground that it was not
in the interest of general commerce and
because l knew that the proposition to
expend so large sum for this canal
would necessarily interfere with and
prevent me from securing an appropria-
ton for the improvement at the dalles.
BY my presentation of the Importance
of the proposition for the removal of the
distractions at the dalles, as compared
with the Seattle canal, an improve
ment which 1 considered of vastly
more Importance to the people of
Washington than the canal, became
embarrassed with the Washington sena-
tors and was put in the position by the
public press of complaining of them.
The appropriation for the Washington
ooDoI ,1ravoilod IN, tho copop,ittoa With