The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-12-04

our home markets and to facilitate our |
 trade abroad, these grades should ap- | | proximate the highest degree of uniform 1 ty and certainty. The present diverse | | methods of inspection and grading | | throughout the country under different | l laws and boards, result in confusion and | lack of uniformity, destroying that con- 1 ndence which is necessary for healthful | trade. Complaints against the present 1 methods have continued for years and 1 they are growing in volume and intensity, | not only in this country but abroad. l I therefore suggest to the Congress the | | advsabilty of national system of in- speetion and grading of grain entering
 into interstate and foreign commerce as ! a remedy for the present evils
 Inland Waterways.
 The conservation of our natural re-
 sources and their proper use constitute
 the fundamental problem which under
 lies almost every other problem of our
 national life. We must maintain for our
 civilization the adequate material basis | without which that civilization can not exist. We must show foresight, we must
 look ahead. As a nation we not only
 enjoy a wonderful measure of present
 prosperity but if this prosperity is used
 alright 1t is an earnest of future success
 such as no other nation will have. The ! reward of foresight for this nation is
 
 be the look ahead. there must be a 1 realization of the fact that to waste, to
 destroy, our natural resources, to skin | and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase it's usefulness, will . result in undermining in the days of our | children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them
 ampllfied and developed. For the last
 few years through several agencies, the 1 government has been endeavoring to get | our people to look ahead and to sub
 stitute planned and orderly develop | ment of our resources in place of hap
 hazard striving for immediate profit Our great river systems should be developed | as national water highways: the Mis- sissippi. with it's tributaries, standing , first in importance, and the Columbia | second, although there are many others of importance on the Pacific, the At
 lantic and the gulf slopes. The national | government should undertake this work, i and I hope beginning will be made in the present Congress. and the greatest of | aA our rivers, the Mississippi, should re-
 ceive especial attention. From the great 1 lakes to the mouth of the Mississippi there should be a deep waterway with [ deep waterways leading from it to the | east and the west. Such a waterway
 would practically mean the extension of | our coast line into the very heart of our country. It would be of incalcuable | benefit to our people. If begun at once i it can be carried through in time appre- | ciably to relieve the congestion of our
 great freight-carrying lines of railroads 1 The work should be systematically and i continuously carried forward in accord i ance with some well conceived plan The | main streanv should be improved to the highest point of efficiency before the i'm | provement of the branches Is attempted; 1 and the work should be kept free from
 every taint of recklessness or jobbery. 1 The inland waterways which lie just | back of the whole eastern and southern ; coasts should likewise be developed. 1 Moreover, the development of our water 1 ways involves many other important wa
 ter problems, all of which should be con sidered as part of the same general | scheme The government dams should { be used to produce hundreds of thousands | of horse power as an incident to improv-
 ing navigation; for the annual value of i the unused water power of the United i States perhaps exceeds the annual value ! ot the products of all our mines. As an : incident to creating the deep waterway down the Mississippi, the government 1 should build along its whole lower length , levees which taken together with the , control of the headwaters will at once and forever put complete stop to all i threat of floods, in the immensely fertile | delta region. The territory lying ad- jacent to the Mississippi along its lower course will thereby become one of the most prosperous and populous, as it all ready is one of the most fertile, farm | ing regions in all the world. have ap- pointed an inland waterways commission to study and outline comprehensive scheme of development along all the lines indicated. Later I shall lay its report | before the Congress.
 Reclamation Work.
 Irrigation should be far more exten- [ cit atxy in the states of the great plains and the | Rocky Mountains, but In many others, | as, for instance, in large portions of the | South Atlantic and gulf states, where 1t | should go hand in hand with the reclama-
 tion of swamp land. The federal gov ! ernment should seriously devote itself to | this task, realizing that utilization of | waterways and water power forestry, l Irrigation and the reclamation of lands l threatened with overflow, are all nterde- | pendent parts of the same problem. The | work of the reclamation service in de- | veloping the larger opportunities of the l western half of our country for irriga- | ton is more important than almost any other movement. The constant purpose of the government in connection with | the reclamation service has been to use | the water resources of the public lands | for the ultimate greatest good of the | greatest number; in other words, to put | upon the land permanent home-makers, to use and develop 1t for themselves and for their children and childrens chill i dred. There has been. of course. oppo- l sition to this work; opposition from some interested men who desire to exhaust the | land for their own immediate profit with | out regard to the welfare of the next | generation, and opposition from honest [ and well meaning men who did not fully l understand the subject or who did not look far enough ahead. This opposition | is, I think, dying away, and our people | are understanding that it would be ut terly wrong to allow few individuals | to exhaust for their own temporary per- | sonal profit the resources which ought i to be developed through use so as to be ! conserved for the permanent common advantage of the people as a whole.
 Public Lands.
 The effort of the government to deal ! with the public land has been based upon i the same principle as that of the reea- 1
 nation service. The land law system l which was designed to meet the needs Of | the fertile and we'll watered regions of the |
 middle west has largely broken down l when applied to the dryer regions of | the great plains, the mountains, and much | of the Pacific slope, where a farm of 160 | acres is inadequate for self-support In l these regions the system lent itself to ! hands of the government without pass ing into the hands of the home-maker. l The department of the interior and the | department of justice joined in prosecut- 1 ing the offenders against the law; and l ft..f..