The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1907-06-01
INTEgcoAsTAL CANAL,
IA cnexlan Outlines ultimate OBJ
ject of the Great Project In q Letter
60 the Chairman of the Inland
Waterways Commission.
Waterways Commission.


of the Louisiana executive committee
of the Interstate Inland Waterway
League, addressed the following letter
to Congressman Theodore E. Burton
OF Ohio, chairman of the Inland
w aterways Commission, under date
of May q:
GAS e-president for Louisiana OF
the Interstate Inland Waterway
League, whose object is the construc-
ton by the government OF an inland
waterway along the American coasts
of the Gulf of Mexico and of the
Atlantic Ocean, I wish to call the at
tention of the commission to the trans
cendental Importance of the project as
national undertaking destined to
constitute a very important part OF
your general plan OF an inland water"
ways system.
AZ refer you to the relief map OF the
q. S. geological survey, annexed
hereto, which will make apparent at q
glance the necessity of including such
work in your general plan and which
brings out sharply how cheaply and
quickly this great work can be ac-
complished along the lowlands of the
Gulf and the Atlantic. 1t is proper
that you should consider primarily the
great Mississippi basin and make it
the basis, as it were, of your general
work. 1t becomes your duty, how
ever, to consider every other section
of the United States, affording relief
where possible and connecting up
where practicable the different smaller
systems with the grand basic system
of the Mississippi valley. What plans
have you conceived to amalgamate the
great Appalachian watersheds into
working systems of practical value?
Can you conceive of better plan for
the eastern shed OF this important
chain OF mountains which drains into
the Atlantic, than to gather and m1ngle
the waters of its many rivers at the
foot OF the slope where these empty
into the sea into an inland canal or
waterway? The same can be said of
all the rivers of Georgia, Florida,
Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and
Texas, other than the Mississippi
river, which drain into the Gulf of
Mexico-that is, that an inland water
way along the coast would connect
them all.
1.-THE long, creeping, still waterway
contemplated by our Interstate League
starts at the Rio Graude and as it
proceeds north and eastward along
the gulf coast it picks up the several
river strands of Texas and Louisiana
and ties them as a whole to the great
Mississippi at or near New Orleans.
Eastward it continues its journey, max
ing a common system OF rivers large
and small that flow into the gulf, till
it reaches Florida, part of which it
lops off, thereby saving hundreds OF
miles to the coastwise light-draft
traffic. Now it is coasting along the
Atlantic in north north easterly di-
rection, still tying rivers to the Father
OF Waters and taking as it were a
warm inland gulf stream to the cooler
shores of the Atlantic
This great waterways partly natu-
raj and partly artificial, has now ae-
complished its many objects; it has
connected to base line $500 miles
long the many important navigable
rivers of the Atlantic seaboard and of
the gulf coast, aggreg ating thousands
of miles of commerce bearing streams;
it has connected this grand system of
water transportation with the grander
system of the Mississippi valley, for
say nine-foot barge navig alton, the
cheapest under the sun, { as the Great
Lakes tonnage will attestl; it has con-
centrated government funds on this
great undertaking that would have
been spent otherwise in deepening the
mouths of small streams to less adj
vantage; it has laid the found alton for
many drainage reclamation project
which in time will be undertaken by
the federal government, and it has de-
veloped wonderfully and made popu-
lous the richest agricultural lands in
the United States, that part OF our
country which can sustain the most
people to the square milee
81 ask for this national waterway
project youe most careful cousidera-
tion.'s
Speaking Of the proposed canal, the
St. Louis Post Dispatch has the fol-
lowing to say:
"Itis about eighthundred miles long.
running from the Mississppiriver in the
vicinity OF Donaldsonville to Browns
vile, Texas, on the Rio Grande, al
the most southern point in the
United States west of the tip of Flor
ida peninsula. OF this 800 miles there
are less than $50 miles to be dug, the
rest following the coast line through
the channels and bays already nav
igable.
1.-THE appropriation just made by
congress in the rivers and harbors bill
will not complete the canal, but will
open sections of considerable import