Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1899-11-27
SUCH is THE BASIN DRAINED BY
THE MISSISSIPPI
STUYVESANT FISH'S FACTS
Forty-one Per Cent of the Area of che
United States and Nearly Onehalf
of Our Population Within That
Area-Altitudes and Their Bearing
on Railway Traffic.

States industrial commission which
had asked him, together with other
railway chiefs, for information relat-
ing to immigration labor, agricultural
and manufacturing. Special attention
was paid to the Mississippi river
which, said Mr.. Fish, drains the whole
of nine states and territories, and parts
of twenty three other states, not to
speak of considerable slice of the do
states, of which but a small portion
lies within the valley, twenty-four
states and territories may De fairly
considered as tributary to that river.
Its valley contains 1,240,039 square
miles, or fOrty-One per cent. of the
area of the United States, exclusive of
Alaska and other outlying possessions.
There dwell 35,O00000 of our people, or
nearly one-half of our citizenship. It's
SOIL besides feeding all of our own peO-
pie, except those on the Pacific coast,
yields the whole of our eXpOrtable sur
plus of live stock of every kind, and
most of the breadstuffs. It's mines
coal, it's forests supply our lumber, and
it's workshops turn out, annually, an
increasing share of our manufactures
In these days of large and increasing
tonnage and of low and constantly fall
ing rates for transportation by rail, the
question of grades is becoming more
and more controlling. 1t is, therefore,
in the level prairies of the great valley
that we must look for the solution OF
the problem of how to conduct trans
portation ever at or near, and often be-
low, cost, without SO absolutely bank
rupting the carriers as to close the
highways of traffic. The accumulated
surplus earned in previous good years,
and the borrowing power based there
on, coupled with rigid and distressing
economy, barely kept the western and
southern railroads from universal
bankruptcy during the bad times from
1893 to 1897. On June 80, 1894, there
were in the hands of receivers 40,818
miles of railroad, or nearly one-quarter
of all in the United States. These
bankrupts represented an investment
of over $4,000, 100000. The enforced
economies of that year reduced the
number of railroad employees by 1894.
Seven-tenths of all the employees dis
charged had been employed in the Mis-
sissippi valley, and, while throughout
the rest of the country, one man in
fourteen lost his employment, during
that year, in the valley nearly one in
every seven met with like misfortune.
New Orleans is the natural port of the
Mississippi valley. You are familiar
with the struggle made by the people
of the valley toward the close of the
last century against the embargo laid
by Spain and France on commerce
through New Orleans, which led to and
justified the so-called Louisiana pur
chase in 1903. Down to the breaking
out of the civil war in 1861, the river
carried the products of the valley 10
the gulf, and brought back imported
goods. During the four years of that
war and the following period of mis-
rule at the SOUTH the very mouth of
the river was allowed to fill up until
only vessels of small draft could enter
it, and transportation between the val
ley and the sea was forced into the I'M
natural channels provided by steep or
circuitous railroads over or around the
Allegheny mountains. That even the
most direct of them is crooked, is
shown by the fact that while the short
line distances by rail from Chicago to
New York and to New Orleans are
identical, 912 miles, the air line dis
tances are to New York 700, to New !
Orleans 826. That is to say, in run
ming over the mountains, 203 miles, or
% 6-1O per cent, are added to the air
line distance while in running down
the valley only Sc miles, or 10 4-10 per
cent, are added thereto. The summit
on the short line between Chicago and
New York is nearly midway between
those cities, at an altitude Of about
2,161 above tide; the summit on the
short line between Chicago and New
Orleans is within "a miles of Chicago, |
at an altitude of 804 feet above tide. AS
Chicago is 500 feet above the sea, the
dead lift to New York is 1,571 feet and
to New Orleans 214 feet. While it IS
true that other railroads running to
New York by longer routes cross lower
SUBMITS, the most level of them
reaches an altitude approximating, f
not exceeding, LOO feet above the sea,
and is compelled to lift every ton it
carries in either direction 500 feet
vertically above the level Of Chicago.
When order was finally restored at the
south, it's railroads were, without ex-
ception, physical and financial wrecks.
It is within my knowledge that they
were then, and long continued, incap
able of competing with the lines to the
Atlantic seaboard. That condition has
with us passed, through the increase in
the past enighteen years of the capital
ization of the Illinois Central Railroad
company from $38, 1881 900 to $185, $685.
925. We can now use the advantages
of our geographical position, and give