The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-10-07

miles than any tributary Of the Missis- sippi, except it's twin companion, the Missouri The Tennessee has already cost the government, not including in terest, about S7000,000.
 Improvements Must Be Finished
 Gentlemen of the convention, the gov ernment owes 1t to itself to finish these improvements and make possible navi- gation from Knoxville to the lakes and to the gulf.
 When General Jackson was making his campaign against the Creeks in Ala bama, and the British at New Orleans, and was camped on the banks of the Tennessee at Florence and Tuscumbia, he predicted that there would be a great city there. General Grant at Chattanooga, looking down on the broad eNpanse Of the Tennessee and knowing It's connec- tion with the Mississippi, said that there would be great city there. Neither of these prognostications have come true. Not only should their words be prophetic. but other cities along this stretch of river should be great.
 Touthinf the Tennessee at Sheffield and Florence, at Decatur, at Guntersville, at Chattanooga, and coming out from Vicks- burg, Greensville, Memphis Cairo and St. Louis, the Southern railroad runs like the outstretched Bfngers of your hands, through and through the state. The Louis vile and Nashville from Memphis, Bel mont, St. Louis, Evansville Chicago, Louisville, Cincinnati and Nashville, runs through. the state like the arteries and veins of the body, cris-erossing every commerce of the state. If these great railroad systems, connecting not only the Tennessee river as branch of the 14- foot proposed channel from the lakes to a rr11lf httf al fIxvt t.rff f1,. nel itself at the points mentioned should make traffic connection with this greatest system of navigable waterways the world has ever seen. Then a 14-foot channel from the lakes to the gulf would give Alabama benefit incalculable.
 Mobile Harbor.
 In addition to this, at the end of the state directly on the gulf with a 2O- foot channel, which channel is being deep- ened to 30 feet, lies Mobile Harbor with a short interlaken way to New Orleans, so that any towboat could be taken up the Hudson from New York through the Erie canal, through the lakes, down through the proposed Illinois 14-foot chan nel, down the great river that lies at the foot of your street to New Orleans and thence this short interlaken way to the wharves at Mobile. Mobile, the home of the magnolia, the wisteria, the jas mine, the rose; the home of the famous smell road, Is just awakening to what commerce really means. This deep water way channel, and the short cut from ocean to ocean at Panama has fnoculated Mobile with visions of the future, visions whose roseate hues rival tn sunset skiesl The Alabama river, the Coosa, the Tallapoosa, the Warrior, the lomplgbee, stretching from Mobile as the output through the state; cover all the middle and western coun- n n the eastern and southwestern section of our state and emptying into the Apalachicola river and the Choctaw- hatchie bay and the gulf, the Chatta- hoochee and the Choctawhatchie rivers l will call your attention that it has never been proposed to macada- mize the beds of any of these rivers, but with some few shoals taken out and channels cleared and deepened, they would have a carriage capacity forever, and all of them, either direct ly connecting with this proposed four teen-foot channel or connecting by such means of indirection that tn ey be- come a vital and valid union. And all of these taken in connection with the joint rate, we trust will be made with all of the railroad systems of the state would in the largest measure make the state partake of the full value of this open way from the great inland saes of the north to the great open seas of the south. To this ac- complishment we pledge you the hearty cooperation of our senators, our congressman and our people; for with this accomplished the opening of this channel would do more to relieve freight congestion, and would do more to prevent the demand of government ownership of railroads. because carried to its logical sequence, it would put in process of accomplish ment by compe- tition fair railroad charges and rea- tion, more so than anything the gov ernment could execute.
 Seas Open to All.
 No method has yet been found to either stock and bond or embargo the open seas; Alabama, perhaps, furnishing the only instance where ports and great water ways have been so trust bound that com mensurate and effectual use and growth have been stopped
 The attempt by one of our greatest financiers to put a trust on the carriage of passengers and freight across the At lantic was abandoned, because the tracks of the ocean could not be combined into trusts. Competition was there and would not down, and that attempt to make d combination of interests to place q trust on the ocean failed, because of the un- limited possibilities of the water carriage. And so it would be in this case. When you consider the limitless possibilities of fered to every species of interest to have at hand q competitive carriage at noni nal cost, from the lakes to the gulf with all the outlying territory of infowing streams, then you will see that not only could these waterways be used to carry off congested and surplus freight from a productive area equal to an empire, but would always be used as the Erie canal is used, as every inland water carriage is used, as the navies and armies are used. Spectacular 1t may be, yet an ever ready help, preserver and salvation.
 Alabama raises approximately s70 00O,0 GOO worth of cotton annually, and this citton money, joined in with the cotton money of the other southern states. has more than once saved Wall street from it's wild follies. and thus been of incalcuable value to the commercial interest of the world
 Alabama Resources.
 Alabama has deposits of coal to run Inc