Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1907-10-08
at an excessive height.

at an excessive height
Year by year transportation prob.
lens become more acute, and the
time has come when the rivers real.
.ly fit to serve as arteries of trade
should be provided with channels deep
enough to make the Investment of the
necessary money profitable to the pub
lie. The national government should
undertake this work. Where the i'm
mediately abutting land is markedly
benefited, and this benefit can be def.
nitely localized, ] trust that there will
be careful investigation to see wheth-
er some way can be devised by which
the immediate benefciaries may pay
portion of the expense-as is
now the custom as regards certain
classes of improvements in our munic.
tpalities; and measures should be
taken to secure from the localities
specially benefited proper terminal ia,
cilities.
Immense sums have already been
spent upon the Mississippi by the
states and the nation, yet much of 1T
remains practically unused for com3
merce. One is that the work done bys
the national government at least has
not been based upon a definite and.
continuous plan. Appropriations by
congress, instead of assuring the
steady progress and timely compile
ton of each piece of work as it was
undertaken, have been irregular and
uncertain. Planned and orderly de-
velopment is essential to the best use
of every natural resource, and to none
more than to the best use of our in:
land waterways. In the case of the
waterways it has been conspicuously
absent. 1t is evident that their most
urgent need is farsighted and COM
prehensive plan, dealing not with nav
igation alone, nor with irrigation
alone. but considering our inland
waterways as a whole, and with ref
erence to every use to which they
can be put
Railroads Inadequate.
The industries developed under the
most part permanent industries, and
therefore they form the basis for fu-
ture development. But the railroads
have shown that they alone can not
meet the demands of the country for
transportation, and where this is true
the rivers should begin to supplement
the railroads, to the benefit Of both,
by relieving them of certain of the
less profitable classes of freight. The
more farseeing railroad men, 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 a
sort of inland seaboard, extending
from the gulf far into the interior, and
hope ultimately to the great lakes.
Other interests to Care For.
No study of the problem of the
waterways could hope to be successful
which failed to consider also the re-
naming factors in the great problem
of conserving all our resources. Ac-
cordingly, ] 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 mex
haustible are being rapidly exhausted,
or in certain regions have actually dis
appeared. Coal mines. oil and gas
fields, and iron mines in important
numbers are already worked out. The
coal and oil measures which remain
are passing rapidly, or have actually
passed, into the possession of great
corporations, who acquire ominous
power through an unchecked control
of these prime necessities of modern
life; a control without Supervision Of
any kind. We are consuming our for
ests three times faster than they are
being reproduced.
Conserve Public Lands.
Our public lands. whose highest use
Is to supply homes for our people.
have been and are still being taken
in great quantities by large private
owners, to whom home making is at
the very best but a secondary motive
subordinate to the desire for profit.
To allow the public lands to be
worked by the tenants Of rich men for
the profit of the landlords, instead Of
by freeholders for the livelihood of
their wives and children, is little less
than crime against our people and
our institutions.
Firm Fails for $245,3s7.
Pittsburg, sPa, Oct Ali. j. Nc
Cracker & Co., the Oldest wholesale
produce commission firm in Pittsburg,
has filed voluntary petition in bank