The Globe-republican. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1889-1910, 1901-01-24
Democrats Who Will Support the
Measure to Build Up Amer
lean Shipping.
DR. OWING SENTIMENT IN THE SOUTH
Improvement OF Rivers and Harbors
and the Construction of Larger
Ships Viewed with Approval by
Producers and Business Men.
Especial Correspondence

When the opponents of the shipping bill
.ame to be finally counted, during the clos
ing days of the debate on the army bill IN
ihe senate, the fact uncovered that
lew influential republicans were among
Them These men had certain notions that
he bill was inequitabie IN its provisions, and
hey had been in the habit of meeting and
comparing notes and assuring each other
that their suspicious were well grounded
Finally, however, these objections
brought to light, and, when that was accom-
plishedz and the friends of the bill
given a chance to discuss these objections,
heir apparent force Tpelted away ike snow
under summer sun. The result has been
:hat few amendments have been agreed to
n the bill that cover every possible point
IF doubt on the republican side, and they
all united in the senate in favor
If the bill it stands.
When a vote is reached the shipping
bill there viii be a disagreed BILE reveal ton
20 the dem ocrats of few of their
members who will support it. n OF less than
half dozen democrats have, one way and
another, indicated that they may be relied
upon to support and to vote for the bill, and
they explain, too, that this is, largely, IN
obedience to urgent requests from their
stituents. Nowhere in this country is this
more in evidence than in the south, where,
hitherto, opposition has been so general to
ali forms of government aid, at less on the
part of the statesmen representing southern
constituencies, to have caused feeling
Of despair at times among their more pro
gressive and up-to-date colleagues from the
north and west.
The improvement of rivers and harbors in
the south, followed by the construction of
much larger ships for the carriage of south
ern export products, and the consequent re-
iuction in freight rates and increase in di-
rect returns to the producers have been OBJ
iect lessons of imm use value to the south
ern business men, and the fact is slowly
dawning upon those whom they send to
congress to represent them No longer is
there opposition IN the south to the i'm
provement of rivers and harbors; indeed,
there is more money likely to go into the
improvement of the great seaports of the
south, and especially of the gulf, and it's
tributary streams, than into the north. The
direct benefits from this have been felt IL
every hamlet, village and city in the south,
whether located upon a navigable stream
not.
So, too, it is beginning to be felt through
put the south that the construction of the
Nicaragua canal will be an undertaking of
the most far-reaching benefit to the south,
and the people of that section are begn-
ming to appreciat tie the wisdom of Senator
Morgan's valiant fight for that great water
way The spending of $50, goo, 600, or ever
200, 900, 600, for the construction of the Nj
saragua canal, it is beginning to be believed
throughout the south, will have a benefit
each year, upon the increased markets
abroad for their surplus products that viii
repay them, and the nation, too, each year
or the total of the expenditure.
And, with these thoughts crowding one
another upon the southern mind, it Is quite
Easy and logical for southerners to appreci-
ite the value of ships of our own, doing
own foreign carrying, and keeping the whole
of the $175, DOC, 900 a t home that is spent
every year for ocean freights that are paid to
foreign ship owners, and by them taken from
the country, to the loss of national
wealth, to the deprivation of own peo-
pie of employment, and to the strengthen
ing of the auxiliary naval resources of
foreign rivals. In these circumstances the
expenditure of So, 900, 00oo a year to save
from $175, 900 900 to $3.50, OOO, 900 year is nci
proposition ether to brighten the average
American citizen call forth his protest.
In fact, the demand for just this kind of a
thing is becoming quite unanimous among
The business men of the country, south,
west, north and east