The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-10-04

fact, remember that the average cost of transportation on the Mississippi is only about one-twentieth of the railway I freight cost per ton per mile. ! Freight traffic on railroads has in- creased 350 per cent in the past 20 years. l The railroads have not been able to keep l up with the increase and there have been car famines and vexatious delays and no 1 end of trouble because there has been l too much freight. It Is maintained that the great inland waterway project would not work to the injury of the railroads, as the increase in freight continues but would be an immense saving to the people,
 The only quarter from which objection 1 is likely to be heard in the preliminary stages of the discussion Is from the engi- | neers. The army engineers, who will have | the last word, cannot talk now They must wait until they have investigated. l They have made their report on the waterway from Lockport to St. Louis, and are awaiting further orders from l Congress. But the question will come from engineers: Are you not asking too l much? Why not be content with nine ! feet? The Ohio asks no more, and tho Ohio has a great freight traffic. The | Mississippi is difficult to control but 1t has nine feet or more now from Cairo l to the Gulf"
 To this objection the far-seeing men 1 who are behind the movement and who l plan for 50 years in advance, will make krepy in substance: The desirability of l the Lakes to the Gulf waterway was l apparent to the first white man who ever crossed the Chicago divide. Joliet and Marquette came that way in 1873, | and the next year Joliet wrote a letter | saying that by cutting a canal across a half-league of prairie the connection might be made between the lake and the l gulf. But what use would canal that would have accommodated Jollet's baruues | be today?
 When Thomas Jefferson was PresI- l dent, his Secretary of the Treasury, AL | bert Gallatin, urged "a canal across the | Chicago divide for a lakes to the gulf 1 waterway. Chicago was then unborn In 1916 a canal route was surveyed If that canal had been built, of what use l would 1t be today? In 1886 the city of 1 Chicago had population of nearly 40OO In that year the Illinois and Michigan canal was actually begun. Twelve years later 1t had been completed, and extended from the Chicago river to the Illinois | river at LaSalle, a distance of 97 miles. It was six feet deep.
 
 1 required ever-increasng units of ship | ments. Low water made sand-bars which | decreased the depth, and for one reason | and another the lakes to the gulf purpose l for which 1t was intended was never served. Shall we now, in the twentieth | century, fail to take advantage of these lessons and proceed upon a nigeardlv theory which does not contemplate the growth that Is certain to come? Shall we build a little waterway scarce large enough for present-day demands and hope that business will not increase enough to render our canal too Hitler"
 These are the arguments. No one doubts the practicability of the scheme in A gen. eral way. Problems now unforeseen are certain to arise, but such problems have never daunted American engineers The commerce of the United States Is greater than that of any other nation in the world. The commerce of the Mississippi l valley is greater than that of France or I Germany. Chicago with only the lake traffic Is a greater port. measured by its clearances. than Liverpool and Is prac- tically the equal of London 1tis ex- ceeded only by New York in this ooun- try and Hamburg in Europe. New Or leans Is the third commercial city in the country, while Galvestons marine com merce ranks next to that of New York These are lakes and gulf cities With the rapid increase in the traffic of these cities increase in transportation facilities must come. It fs stupendous project. this matter of "A feet through tha val lev. but 1t Is designed to meet a tre- mendous crisis.
 Argument aside. there must needs he considered the political aspect of the problem. Congress must make provision for this work, for 1t Is too vast for any state or any private corporation to under take. The President has indicated his interest in the matter by his trip down the Mississippi and his presence in Mem phis today. The Mississippi valley states are unitedly supporting the measure re gardless of party politics. Railroads may oppose 1t, but their power is not what 1t once was. The speaker of the House of Representatives, all powerful in ,n- fiuencing legislation is a resident of q Mississippi valley state. The political out look. to say the least. is more favorable than 1t has ever been.
 If the plans for this great inland water way are carried out. if there is "A feet through the valley then 1t is certain that the commerce of the great plains be- tween the Alleghenies and the Rockies will increase at even a more astonishing rate than it has in the past two decades. Add to this the Panama canal and the short cut to the Pacific and surely they are not too optimistic who predict for the United States continuance of that prosperity whicN has already made 1t the Crosses of the nations, prosperity which can hardly fail to endure because 1t Is l.based upon the limitless wealth of that empire of empires. the Valley of the Father of Waters.
 Tomorrow: 'The Usefulness of snakaA'