Los Angeles herald., 1907-07-27
POSSIBILITIES GREAT
FOR WATERWAY ROUTE
GOVERNMENT ISSUES CHARTER
FOR CANAL
Channel viii Be 1903 Miles Long and
Connect the Ohio River with
Lake Erie at a Cost of
$5o,ooo,ooo

Special to The Herald.
WASHINGTON, July 26,-ships of $500
tons burden in the lear future will be
enabled to load cotton, sugar, lumber
and other supplies at New Orleans,
steam up the Mississippi and ohio rivers
TO the great lakes, and return laden with
wheat and ore and coal.
This was made possible this week
when the national government issued a
charter to the Lake Erie and Ohio River
Ship Canal company
The company is to build the canal by
private contract. but the operation of
the waterway will be under certain fed-
eral supervision.
The ship canal, as its name indicate
is TO connect Lake Erie with the Ohio
river
Its northern terminus. unless plans
are modified or changed, is to be at
Geneva-on-the-Lake, some seven miles
west of Ashtabula. Ohio. 1t viii enter
the Ohio river by utilizing tne Mahoning
and Beaver rivers.
1903 Miles Long
The distance covered by the canal is
10S miles.
The channel will be 100 feet wide and
1t will have depth all the way of II
feet
1t is estimated that, once completed,
the canal will have capacity OF SOOp,VV
tons Of freight annuany.
The cost will approximate 100000,
but II the earnings of foreign canals fur
nish any criterion it will prove highly
remunerative investment, besides being
a boon TO shippers and a wonderful up
builder Of the territory IL lraverses.
The saving this channel will effect to
shippers will be enormous.
on an average the cost of waterway
transportation is one-sixth that by rail.
At the last national convention of the
N-tioral Rivers and Harbors congress its
president, Congressman Ransdell OF
Louisiana, advanced some figures that
showed clearly what waterway develop
ment meant, not only to the shipper
but to the consumer. who IT. the last
analysis is the one who feels the weight
of heavy transportation tolls in the ad-
vanced cost of the necessaries of life.
Mr.. Ransdell, in comparing rates, point
eu to the fact that the average railroad
charge is rs mills per ton per mile, and
said
Charges Moderate
There is an immense commerce on the
Ohio river, and there the freight charge
is 70 of one mill per tor per mile.
THE tremendous commerce on the
lower Ohio and the Mississippi between
/ Louisville and New Orleans is carried at
a freight charge of 81 of one mil per ton
less than one-eleventh of the railroad
charge. There is a splendid commerce
on the Morongahela river, and there the
freight charge is less than one-eleventh
Of the railroad charge.
What would it amount to If in one year
we could carry all our freight by water?
Last wear the commerce of this country.
which moved by rail, was 1909, 100000
tons. II 1t could have been carried by
water the saving thereon would have
been In one year $3.50, 900 These figures
are so vast that know they stagger
credulity, but they are absolutely true
and defy any man to contradict them. :"
The Lake Erie and Ohio River canal
will increase the business that is now
teeming on the great lakes and the rivers
of the Ohio, Missouri and Mississippi
valleys.
Heretofore they have had no connection,
one with the other, but when linked the
volume of the country's internal COM
merce is certain to make some remark
able gains.
Shows Waterway Sentiment
The National Rivers and HarborS con-
gress is interested In the project, but
only for the reason that it shows the
gradual growth of the sentiment in favor
of a return to waterway transportation.
The organization is not pledged to any
individual scheme of improvement, but