The age-herald., 1900-05-21

far beyond his gaze in great waves of roll ing blue
 He loves it at rest and looses not that love when he sees 1t storm dashed. beating in thunder tones of anger against its grim everlasting God-erected barriers of rock.
 Poets have voiced this love: artists have placed it on canvas, and the great heart beat of humanity will ever and always quicken, even if it be unconscious of it. at the sound, the sight. the simple thought of fountain, brook, river or ocean.
 Not Dreamers.
 But we are not poets, or artists We are, perhaps, unfortunately for us, only 7'busi- ness men, gathered here for what the world calls 'busness purposes" Then, too with that curious streak of American he- reality, due to an ancestry who with fitting combination of piety and solemnity be gan business in this country, as has been willingly said. by first falling on their knees and then on our aborginees" we business" descendants of today shrink from letting it be ever suspected that we as boys ever fdled or "hooked" away any time by the old spring branch, on the old mill pond or river, or shouted with a never to-be-forgotten child's joy as the waves rolled in from the breakers and "wetted us all over" But still, and always ever, boy and man loves the water. Unless, perhaps and 1t is said by some to be at least pos- slbllity he has by long contemplation of the rolling green of blue grassed hills and absorption of sparkling mountain dewss arrived at such an internal state of spirit ual longing and of outWord roseate Der- lection of rotundity, that he can see no bloom, no blossom, no color producing ef- Iects In water, and 1t becomes attractive to nm solely on account of it's laVatory and transportation possibilities
 And so having, as it were, appeased our conscience and memories by dropping a hRx gone days, having laid a wreath of grate- lul offering at the feet poet and artist, having further recognized the spiritual in- huenees which induced a bluegrass man to once declare that it certainly was a misprint or a fearful blunder of the poet to use through" instead of "to'' in those beautiful lines beginning, "Gin a body meet a body, l hasten to the consideration of inland waters as a commercial factor, as a transportation medium for 'business pur poses'
 In the limited time allowed each of us, l must content myself with simply recall ing the fact that the subject of improv- ing existing water ways for transportation purposes has received the energetic atten- ton of the people and rulers for many centuries prior to the Christian era And 1t is especially interesting to recall the fact that an Egyptian king constructed and used the first SueZ canal 1900 years before Christ's birth, 3,094 years before Napoleon surveyed and 3,169 years before de Lesseps retriumphed over the shifting sands of the desert and mans Instructions or scepti- cism. From that remote era down to our time, inland waters have never ceased and never will cease to be used for communi- cation. Many great and beneficial works of mans skill now exist, and are constant ly arising to establish this fact Every civ ilized country the globe is today alive to their uses, stimulated to their improve ment by the demands of their people that natural and national highways be main- tained where every man, rich poor can avail himself of their free facilities and thus get his products and wares to market Most wisely has the American congress even now, outranked 1t in importance or usefulness.