The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-12-01

cloth as well as for the cotton planta- tions of Georgia and Louisiana and Mississippi. Water is the motive pow CT of the one and the producer or the other. We must thank Him for the wa ter which produces the gigantic trees. We must also thank Him for the water which makes the 1umDerman's saw whirl round and round and cuts the rough logs into smooth boards out of which we build our homes and stores and factories. When we think or factory town for the most part we pie ture the heavens blackened with smoke from scores and hundreds of furnaces but there are thousands of factories run by water alone. The water or these streams not only irrlgates the soil in which the crops are grown, but supplies the power which changes the raw materials into the finished prod ucts of the markets.
 Our Water Highways.
 But we have still another reason why the American nation should be thahklu, for it's water ,t produces the grain and the cotton and turns the wheels of the factory It also furnishes the great hlgh- ways over which the commodities or one part of the country are transported 10 other parts of the country, and this bless ing is not confined to our long coast waterways which the Panama canal will soon connect, but if also includes our vast network of navgable river and lake systems which for years offered the only practical means of ntercommunication between different parts of our land
 Open your map and study in the Hrst place that vast water system which starts from New York City and moves up through the Hudson river, then on through the Erie canal and through Lakes Ontario and Erie and Huron and Michigan and Superior. Have you ever stopped to think what such system ot waterways means to our nation from a commercial standpoint? In order to make this system complete De Witt Clinton IT, augurated the most stupendous engineer ing feat of that age, the building or lhe Erie canal. The state of New fork to complete this canal obliged itself to pay the vast sum of s5o,000,O0o. When the ca nal was finished there was national hol- iday of thanksgiving. Yet the Erie canal is only a small part of the hundreds or miles of inland waterway over which to- day great fleets of ships crowded With messengers and millions of tons of freight are annually carried.
 Then study your vast Mississippi water system. The recent trip of the President of the United States down this river vis-
 
 has illustrated for the public mind what this river and it's tributaries mean to us as a nation What would Vicksburg and Cairo and Memphis and St. Louis ana Kansas City and Keokuk and Davenport and St. Paul and Louisville and Cinch- natl and Wheeling and Pittsburg do With out this vast system of Mississippi waterways? This river and its tributaries founded these cities as the Michigan lake made Chicago. That river Is one of the great arteries carrying the lifeblood Of our nation.
 The Coast Waterways.
 Then open your map again and study the vast waterway system of our coast fronts What today puts Maine in com mercial touch with Texas and fills the factories of the Merrimac with cotton from New Orleans and Mobile bay? The railroads? No; it is the steamboat. Why are the harbors of the Golden Gate and San Pedro crowded with lumber boats? Because Oregon and Washington states and California are one by tlie>Pathways of the seas. And, though the Unfted States government is to spend over $300,- 600 900 to bring New York and San Fran cisco nearer by cutting the isthmus of Panama in two, yet it is worth all the cost, for where we transport by water the business men and farmers have their
 
 cities and towns will not only increase in the west, but there will be more goods to be made, more oranges to be grown, more prosperity everywhere. Thank God for the rivers and the lakes and tho ocean highways, which have so helped by their transportation opportunities 10 make our national prosperity what it is.
 Again, let us thank God for the At lantic ocean, which is on the east of us, and the Pacific ocean, which is on the west of us, which sepaarte us from all the entanglements of European politics and from the Asiatic embroilments or international jealousies and contests It was the custom of the ancient earls to surround their castles with meats filled with water. At night the drawbridge would be lifted, the castle gates closed. and the inmates were practically safe from any attacking foe. Well. God has done for us as nation what the earl did for his castle. He has placed noat 5000 miles wide on the east of us. which we call the Atlantic. He has placed a moat more than 1O0O0 miles wids on the west of us, which we call the Pacific. And in military or naval par lance these meats are practically im- passable. Our nation is not so much pro- tected by the guns of its. warships and the Notifications of it's harbors as by the immense masses of water that sep arate us from an invading foe. Iris true we must have a navy. It is also true we must have the skeleton of an army. But the greatest guarantee of the future of the United States government is not our war guns or our coast Qualifications, but these immense bodies of water sur rounding us on the east and west Now that we are soon to have the Panama canal marry the two seas no foreign na- tion on earth could successfully invade us We may destroy ourselves, but we can