Los Angeles herald., 1907-04-15
WATERWAYS TO
END CONGESTION
CREATE NEW METHODS OF
TRANSPORTATION
Inland Commission FaVors Spending
$4,000, 900 Annually for Internal
ovement--eeneral
Railroad News

Railroad men are sitting up and taxi
ing notice since It has dawned on them
that the work cut out for Congressman
Burton and his colleagues on the newly
appointed inland waterways commits
sion will be enormous.
In all the discussion of the navigable
waterways of the United States little
has been said or written that would
disclose their vast reaches. The inland
streams of the United States are in
keeping with the wonderful distances
of the country AS avenues of trans
portation they are a marvellous system
in themselves.
1t is not generally known that the
total navigable distance of the Mis5ls-
sippi river extends over a space of 2161
miles for the average steamers and 2237
miles for smaller craft. Taking into
consideration the tributaries of the
Father of Waters, these combined woulu
make q river system 1850 miles long,
through which a good-sized steamer
could make it's way.
Some idea of the distance these
figures convey can be gained only by
comparison. 1t Is astonishing to find
that it is slightly greater than from
New York to Bankok by way of Lon
don. If the steamer were driven by
powerful engines and made a continu-
in about fifty days. These figures are
for the Mississippi river and it's trib-
utaries alone.
The splendid reaches of the Columbia
river and the mileage of scores of other
navigable streams emptying into the
Atlantic and Pacific oceans and the
Gulf of Mexico are not taken into con-
sideration. With this mileage added,
the navigable rivers of the United
ha 1f ba
A faint idea of the immense volume of
water that sweeps through the Missis-
sippi valley may be gained from the
fact that every second the Mississippi
river pours into the Gulf of Mexico
$4,000 cubic feet of water. For more
than a quarter of a century this great
volume of water has served little to ad-
vance the cause of commerce. The gov
ernment, instead of harnessing the
great tide and making it bear on its
bosom fleets of freight steam
ers has been content to fight it's en-
croachment on farming lands, regarding
it rather as a destructive agency than
as great factor in the advancement of
the countrys prosperity.
With the appointment of the inland
waterways improvement by the last
congress this policy is about to be
changed. The freight congestion that
mas paralyzed the railroads and has
gripped the commerce of the whole
United States has driven the federal
government into taking steps for the
creation of another means of transpor-
tation. This decision was reached only
after coal famines caused untold suf-
fering throughout the northwest, and
the agricultural states found themselves
financially embarrassed in the midst of
plenty, because of the inability of the
railroads to carry their products to
market, while the manufacturing states
felt the same embarrassment because
of the impossibility of getting delivery
of raw materials.
Large credit is due to the National
Rivers and Harbors congress for this
belated recognition of the waterways
as means for relieving transportation
distress. The organization, which has
been at work for five years, is nom
political and lends it's powerful in
fiuence to no individual scheme for bet
terment. 1t stands for a general cam
paign of waterways improvement and
has contended unhesitatingly that not
less than $50,000,000 a year should be
expended by the government in this i'm
portant work of internal improvement.