Waterbury evening Democrat., 1907-10-05


 deep enough and wide enough to make the investment of the necessary money profitable to the public. The national government should undertake this work Where the immediately abutting land ie markedly benefited and this benefit can be definitely localized trust that there will be careful investigation to see whether l some way can be devised by which the immediate benenciaries may pay por- ton of the expenses, as is now the custom as regards certain classes of improve. ments in our municipalities, and measures should be taken to secure from the To- calities specially benefited proper ter. minal facilities.
 | The expense to the nation of entering upon such scheme of river improve ment as that which believe 1t should undertake will be great Many cautious and conservative people will look askance upon the project, and from every stand point 1t Is necessary, if we wish to make I 1t successful that we should enter upon it only under conditions which will guar antee the nation against waste of its money and which will insure us against entering upon any project until after the most elaborate expert examination and reliable calculation of the proportion be- tween cost and benefit. In any project
 
 and a resolute purpose to keep in mind that the only improvements made should be those really national in their charac- l ter.
 Inland Seaboard.
 The railroads have shown that they I alone cannot meet the demands of the country for transportation, and where this is true the rivers should begin to SUD- plement the railroads, to the benefit of both, by relieving them of certain of the less profitable classes of freight. The more farseeing railroad men, I am glad to tell you, realize this fact, and many of them have become earnest advocates of the improvement of the Mississippi, so that it may become sort of inland sea- board, extending from the gulf far into the interior and, hope, ultimately to the great lakes. An Investigation of the pro- posed lakes to the gulf deep waterway is now. in progress under an appropria- ton of the last congress. We shall await its results with the keenest interest The decision is obviously of capital impor- tance to our internal development and scarcely less so in relation to external commerce.
 Continuing, the president declared that the inland waterway development should not stop with the improvement of the Mississippi. The Columbia, the Sacramento and many other great riv- CTS, he declared, should be fully open, ed to commerce MT. Roosevelt also urged further development of the na- tional work of irrigating arid lands and retaining swamps. He discussed the governments forestry policy at length and called particular attention to the great waste of water power throughout the republic. He said:
 It has recently been shown that water enough is flowing unused over government dams, built to improve navigation, to pro- duce many hundreds of thousands of horsepower. It is computed that the an- nual value of the available but unused water power in the United States eX- ceeds the annual value of the products of all our mines Furthermore, it is cal- .ulated that under judicious handling the power of our streams may be made to pay for alp the works required for the complete development and control of our Inland waterways.
 Conservation of Resources.
 No study of the problem of the water ways could hope to be successful which failed to consider also the remaining fac tors in the great problem of conserving all our resources. Accordingly I have asked the waterways commission to take account of the orderly development and conservation not alone of the waters, but also of the soil, the forests. the mines and all the other natural resources of our country.
 Many of these resources which we have been in the habit of calling inexhausti- ble are being rapidly exhausted or fin certain regions have actually disappeared. Coal mines, oil and gas fields and iron mines in important numbers are already worked out. The coal and oil which re- main are passing rapidly or have actually passed into the possession of great cor-