Birmingham age-herald., 1894-11-25

will be the silver question; another will be the matter of irrigation, which has already this year received much attention on the part of those living in the arid belt, who held large and en- thusiastic irrigation congress in Den yer month or two ago. The disposi- tion of Indian and public lands, the i'm provement of western rivers and har- bors. mining laws; t!le admissions of territories to statehopd; anti-optien legislation; a. na tio,3ssl bankrupt law, and the proposed Nicaragua canal, will also, 1t is expected, receive attention. The canal project will probably be heartily championcd by respectable proportion of the delegates, for many trans Missi5sippians believe that the opening of such a waterway under American auspices would be of great advantage To their part of the repub- lie
 It should not be understood that in banding together. for the purpose of holding congress to further the in- terests of their own states and terri tories trans -Mississippians feel their interests to be segregated from the interests of the rest of tho country; as q matter of fact, they realize fully that the whole must be ..prosperous in order to insure the progress and well-bcing of both cast and west, but this does not conflict with the notion that thc inter- ests of each section may be vastly fur thered by such gatherings for discus sion as the one about to be held
 The coming congress is not the first of the Mississippian meetings, six or seven previous gatherings of the same nature having been held during the last few years, each of which, it is be- lieved, has been of great benefit in that it has brought nearer to one another the men of all the Mississippi states. Through these congresses the American who lives and does business away mp in the northwest upon the shores of Puget sound has learned to know that other American who lives away to the southeast of the trans Mississippian region in the semi-tropic state of Louisiana and depends upon sugar as the northwesterner depends upon lumber and salmon. The ranch CTS of California and Arizona and tho farmers of the Dakotas, the miners of the mountain states, and the business men of St Louis, Omaha, San Fran cisco and Denver, New Orleans and Galveston, and the twin cities of Min nesota, St. Paul and Minneapolis, all meet together at these congresses and exchange views rub off sectional prej- udices, if any exist, and learn more of the good qualities of their brother T in life time without such opportuni- ties for personal contact.
 Shortly after the St. Louis conven- tion adjourns grain congress will be held in New Orleans, whose object will be to look for gulf port through which the grain and other produce of the west may be conveniently shipped and through which European goods may be imported. These congresses do not interfere with each other in fact, many delegates to the first will also attend the second, because of financial interests in the objects of both.
 Unl Hhave looked into the mat ter Nscfe, you have not the slightest idea of the vast stretches of territory that intervene between the different cities of the region west of the NIissis- sippi If you will take foot-rule and measure upon the map the expanse be- tween Olympia in Washington, and New Orleans in Louisiana, you will see that it is as far from one of these occi- dental cities to the other as it is from London to Constantinople and enough further to go from Constantinoplc to Rome on the return trip. It is as far from St. Louis to San Francisco as from Lisbon, Purtrgal, to Berlin, Ger many. It is as far from the point where the Red river of the north runs across the line which divides Uncle Sans farm from Queen Victoria's patch of ground, to the point on the gulf coast where the Rio Grande empties, as is from Gibraltar to the Orkney Islands, away up north of Scotland
 But, notwithstanding the magnificent