The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-10-06
COMER AT MEMPHIS
GOVERNOR SPEAKS AT WATER
 WAYS BANQUET.
AIabama's Exkcutivc Omcer TelIs Del- egates ok the Navigsble Streams
 of Ills 6tate--Folk and
 .ialOfheKn on Program.


 Memphis, Tenn, oct. 5--A banquet was tsndered the delegates tonight in auditorium rink. President Kava- naugh, of the waterways association, presided and Introduced the various speakers.
 Governor Blanchard of Louisiana. Gov ernor Hoch. of Kansas, Representative John Sharp Williams. or Mississippi. Governor Conner. of Alabama, and Unit ed States Senator HBrancis c. Newlands, vice chairman of the Inland Water ways Commission, responded to toasts.
 Governor Conner Speaks.
 The speech of Governor Conner of Alabama was in part as follows.
 T am asked to state the advantages which. will come to- Alabama from connection with these waterways, the benefits the opening of this channel and its tributaries will furnish. .
 The Tennessee coming up from its mouth at the same Three Rivers Junc- tion. through Kentucky, through West Tennessee. across the entire north ter ritory of Alabama, again into Tennes- see. up to Knoxville, will, with the suc- cessful removal of the Colbert and Muscle Shoals and straightening and deepening of the channel have navi- gation with more miles than any trib- utary of the Mississippi, except its twin companion, the Missouri The Tennes- see has already cost the government, not including interest. about $7.000, 900.
 Gentlemen of tne convention, the government owes 1t to itself to finish these improvements and make possi- ble navigation from Knoxville to the Lakes and to the Gulf.
 When General Jackson was making his campaign against tho Creeks In Alabama. and the British at New Or leans. and was camped on the banks of tho Tennessee at Florence and Tus- cumbia, he predicted that there would be a great city there. General Grant at Chattanooga. looking down on the broad expanse of the Tennessee, and knowing its connection with the Mis- sissippi. said that there would Oe great city there, Neither Of these representations have come true. Not only should their words be prophetic. but other cities along this stretch Of river should be great.
 Touching the Tennessee at Shemeld and Florence. at Decatur, at Gunters- vile 5yiiiiifee ct Chattannoga. and coming out from .vicksburg, Greenville, Memphis. Cairo and St. Louis, the Southern raii- roads run like the outstretched fingers of your hand, through and through the State. The Louisville and Nashville from Memphis. Belmont. St. Louis, Evansville, Chicago. Louisville. Cincin- natl and Nashville, runs through the State like the arteries and veins of the body criss-crossing every commerce of the State.
 If these great railroad systems, con- meeting not only the Tennessee river as branch of the fourteen-foot pro posed channel from the Lakes to the Gulf, but also directly with the channel itself at the points mentioned, should make traffic connection with this great est system of navigation waterways the world has ever seen, then a four teen -foot channel from the Lakes to the Gulf would give Alabama bene- it sincalculabis.
 Mobile Harbor.
 in addition to this, at the end of the State directly on the Gulf with a twenty-five foot channel, which cham nel is being deepened to thirty feet, lies Mobile harbor with short inter lake way to New Orleans, so that any tow boat could be taken up the Hud- son from New York through the Erie Canal through the Lakes. down through the proposed Illinois fourteen foot channel, down the great river that lies at the foot ofayour street. to New Orleans, and thence this short inter laken way to the wharves at Mobile;
 Mobile, the home of the magnolia. file wisteria, the jasmine, the rose; the home of the famous shell road, is just awakening to what commerce really means. This deep waterway channel and the short cut from ocean 10 ocean at Panama has inoculated Mobile with visions of the future. visions whose roseate hues rival the sunset skies.
 "The Alabama River. the Coosa, the Tallanoosa. the Warrior, the Tombig- bee. stretching from Mobile as the out port through the State, cover all the middle and western counties. In ad- dition, we have channelling the eastern and southeastern section Of our state and emptying into the Apalachicola River and the Choctawhatchie Bay and the Gulf. the Chattahoochee and the Choctawhatchie Rivers.
 q will call your attention to the fact that it has never been proposed to macadamize the beds of any of these rivers, but when some few shoals are taken out and the channel cleared ana deepened, they would have carriage directly connecting with this proposed fourteen foot channel or connecting by such means of indirection that they become a vital and valid union
 And all of these, taken in connec- ton with the joint rate, which we trust will be made with all of the railroad systems of the State, would in the largest measure make the State par take of the full value of this open way from the great inland seas Of the north to the great open seas of the south To this accomplishment we pledge you the hearty cooperation of our Senators our Congressmen and our people; for with this accomplished, the opening of this channel would do more to re- lieve freight congestion, and would do more to prevent the demand of gov ernment ownership of railroads, be- cause carried to It's logical sequence, It would put in. process Of accomplish ment by competition fair railroad charges and regulation. more so than anything the Government could exc cute.
 No Embargo on Seas.
 No method has yet been found to either stock and bond, or embargo the open seas; Alabama, perhaps, furnish ing the only instance where ports and great waterways have been so trust bound that commensurate and enec- tual use and growth have been es- topped.
 :'The attempt by one of our greatest fnanciers to put trust on the car riage of passengers and freight across the Atlantic 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 a combination of in- terests to place trust on the ocean failed, because of the unlimited possi- bilities of the water carriage.
 And so it would be in this case. When you consider the iimitless pos abilities offered to every species of in- terest to have at hand competitive