The record-union., 1896-05-27
Deep SEA HARBORS.
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helping great shipyards by giving them
contracts for building vessels. and am
glad of it, They needed it. They wan
ted to build the vessels in the United
States. We had ingenuity enough; we
saw all that was needed was encourage
ment. We have been helping great iron
works, Bethlehem and Carnegies, by
giving them contracts and a chance to
make money and thus get their plants
together. 1t was a good thing to DO.
But there was a quiet man in the United
States who did not call upon the Gov
eminent for any help. Nobody in the
Senate knew anything about what was
going on at Newport News. One day
received an invitation to go down and
see ship launched at Newport News.
L did not know there was sh1pyard
at Newport News; 1 had never heard Of
1t. I went down there, saw great iron
ship married to the ocean, and it had
been built in the finest shipyard in the
world. equipped with every kind of con-
ceivable modern machinery, costing 3d.
00O, 900. 1t employed thousands and
thousands Of men; it has enabled them
to support their families; they have
built themselves houses, and for the
next half century it will support these
men, educate and clothe and feed the
children; and Huntington did It, On,
cut off the appropriation for Newport
News; he ought not to have 1t! Hunting
ton ought to be punished for building
that shipyard, which is to-day under
bidding every shipyard in America and
building the great war ships of the
country.
Cut 1t off from Norfolk, where he has
great line Of steamers. The improve
ments there are a benefit. Cut it off
from New Orleans. He runs twenty
steamers into New Orleans.
Oh, it is too paltry to undertake to
stop any legislation with that cheap,
demagogical cry that because Hunt
fngton has done it no help can be given
to Huntington. He employs to-day
1o,OOO men; pays them their wages
when they are due, and there never
has been a laboring man who has
worked for him to whom he has not
given his wages the day 1t was due;
one instance I know, where a railroad
was an utter wreck and owed the Ia
borers S500,000 and Mr.. Huntington
put his hand into his pocket, gave the
S50O,O00 to the railroad, wrecked as it
was, to enable it to pay its laborers,
took the wrecked railroad as security;
and then put his energy and courage
into the railroad and brought it up to
life, activity and value.
Mr.. President, enough OF this sort of
paltering has been INDUCED in here
Let US come right back to the questions
of where a harbor should be made, and
whether it should be made at ALL It
has been said, and truly that we sent
Board of Army Engineers out there.
/ have called your attention to their
report. l do not yield to any man in
the Senate or anywhere else in my re-
spect for the army engineers. They
are gentlemen-thoroughb They
are educated men and scientific men.
Their integrity can be trusted without
question. 1 would risk my life and my
reputation and my money with the
Corps of Army Engineers as quickly as
/ would with my own father. But, as
the Senator from Missouri said. they
are finite; they make mistakes; they
are frequently overruled. They are
fertilization engineers, as General
Craighill said in our committee room,
not riparian engineers.
1t is said we cannot overrule them;
we must not overrule them. Your at
tention has been called to instances
where we have deliberately overruled
them. We have overruled them three,
four or five times in this very bill
which we are now considering. We
al hnr I'd Il
to Brazos River to see whether or not
it could be improved and a great com.
mercial harbor made there The en-
gineers reported that it was an utter
impossibility; that the jetty system
there would be an entire failure; that
the river would fill up. Colonel Ernst
afterward made another report, and he
more strongly said that it was an utter
impossibility; it could not be done. We
authorized a company to do it, and in
the river and harbor bill. That com.
pany sent for Mr.. Corthell, this gentle.
man who perhaps may be doubted a:
authority because somebody paid hi.
board. Mr.. Corthell went and made g
plan and specification for a jetty sys.
TEN for the BraZos River. The com
pany adopted ii, and to-day they have
twenty feet of water and the river /.
securing its channel. They want tht
United States now TO take it up. They
called upon US, and we concluded Il
have Il commission to investigate Die
we appoint a Board Of Army Engineer
as that commission? Not a bit of ii
We disregarded the Corps of Engineer,
and appointed outside men to max,
that investigation. Why? Any Sen
ator can answer the question wht
pleases.
In this same bill there was a propo
sition for a great harbor in Georgia
the harbor of Brunswick. There was
gentleman there who thought that witt
dynamite he could make all the channe