Perth Amboy evening news., 1906-12-28

CONSTRUCTIVE
CON RESS.

-
The most benignant law spread up
on our national statute book in re
cent years is the Reclamation act.
which has arrested and utilized the
wasting waters of our Western
streams, spread them over unwashed
lands( and made our deserts kind
and hospitable. 1t has brought and
is bringing to a group of Western
states, comprising nearly half of our
national domain, green gardens, pros
porous people, happy homes, and
thriving cities, where once eve the
sun-seeking RATHER chose not to go.
The most important appeal from
the American people now before their
national Congress is that which asks
for the improvement OF the great nat
ural waterways-the rivers which,
when channeled, will bear the burden
of the commerce of not less than
fifty millions of people.
Both of these nation building en-
terprises had their birth sixteen years
ago, when a group of men, represent
ing every state and territory west of
the Mississippi river, organized the
Trans Mississippi Congress, which
has convened annually to discuss the
ways and means of giving to the west
the internal expansion it is capable
of sustaining.
They elaborated the old New Eng
land idea of democracy and gathered
into a great town meeting" the rep
resentatives of the people who claim
as their home seventy per cent. of
u mainland. And their purpose,
which is no mean one, is to make that
Congress represent seventy per cent.
OF our national population rather
than our national real estate.
The sixteenth session of the Trans
Mississippi Congress, held in Kansas
City, from November 20 to 23 inclu-
sive, will be memorable in the annals
of history, not only because it stimu-
lated its own advocacy of it's second
great task, that of improving our in
ternal waterways, but it gave birth
to a third great campaign for the ex-
pansion of industry, prosperity, and
peace. 1t inaugurated a Pan-Ameri-
can Patriotism which within a CEN
tury's time, is destined to dominate
the world.
The Battle of Opportunity.
The states and territories represent
ted in the Trans-Mississippi Congress
cover more than two-thirds of our ma
tional domain, while the population
east and west of the Mississippi river
is exactly in reverse. Because of this
distribution of population the states
east of the Mississippi river have, by
constitutional right, a large repre-
sentation in the national congress
than those west of the Mississippi.
Yet the western states, with a small
er congressional representation, offer
both to the young American and the
new American a greater opportunity
than the eastern third affords. 1t is
this fast that gave the Trans-Missis-
sippi Congress being. It's battle is
the battle of opportunity. This Con-
gress of the West is demonstrating
that it's upward of two millions of
square miles means prosperous peo-
pie rather than millions of alluvial
acres.
1t is because the Trans-Mississippi
Congress is pleading for an expansion
of industrial and commercial oppor-
tunities for Americans in a broadly
patriotic rather than a provincial
sense, that Secretary Root chose it's
sessions, in preference to the New
York Produce Exchange and other
eastern commercial bodies that invit-
ed him, to deliver his plea for the
realization of the commercial mar
of North and South America,
which was the great dream of James
g. Blaine more than twenty years
ago.
This congress struck twelve when
Secretary Root delivered his notable
speech on our trade relations with
South America. In a most logical
manner he pictured our rise to COM
nerciaf~supremacy, and our transit
ion from a debtor to a creditor Ia
ion. AS a matter of pure CONNER
,ial eXpediency he showed it to be
)ur best opportunity to enter the
South American field with our CAPT
to establish banks where ten per
cent. is as secure as four per cent.
n Manhattan. Banks are the advance
agents of trade. Germany, England
ind other foreign nations are plant
ng their commercial Notifications on
he lands that should be our own
ne MOllIOe DOCtflu6 mas DeeH Il
political instrument rather than a
commercial one, but as the strongest
international bond operating in the
world today 1t fosters a sentiment of
generosity that would amount to not
less than a preferential treaty of
trade If we would but foster and de-
velop 1t. But We have persistently
1t. There Is but n way for
Il merchant or tradesman to go to
Rio or Buenos Ayres, and that is by
crossing the Atlantic twice. During
the last year, as Secretary Root point
ed out, there sailed into the wonder
full harbor of Rio over three thous-
and five hundred steamships bearing
foreign flags, not one of which was
American. But seven times in the
twelve months did the Stars and
Stripes unfurl in that sunny harbor,
and each time 1t was borne by a cheap
and inconsequentiaI "windjammer,"
two OF which were IN distress.
To meet this first need in trade
expansion to the South, the secretary
of state made an earnest plea for ship
subsidy to our merchant marine.
Thus, on the platform of Kansas City