Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1908-05-16
STATES MUST
CONTINUED from page ID

. s
of both petroleum and natural gas.
The percentage Of coal left in the
ground beyond recovery there is from
forty to seventy per cent in the differ
ent fields, to say nothing of the vast
full and extravigant use of the por-
ton extracted, while the waste of
natural gas, the most precious fuel
of all, is so vast that no one can
even approximate the percentage.
The task before you and our consti-.
tuents is indeed formidable. The
! forces of greed and selfishness are
so entrenched behind corporate pow
er and influence, that to attack them
may often appear to you as useless
as the labors of Sisyphus. But as
you love your states and country,
adjure you to take up this fight for
the conservation of our fuel resour-
ces with the determination never to
surrender until the forces of greed
| and averice which are so rapidly
sapping the very foundations of our
| country's greatness, capitulate, and
agree to end the wild riot of de-
| struction that has characterized the
| past.
! ''This story of awful waste of our
most valuable natural resources is
| one of such a disgraceful character
that its exposition to the world is
4 necessarily notifying to all patri-
4 otto Americans, but sense of duty to
our common country compels that
the truth be told, however humiliat-
ing to our national pride.
"Forewarned is forearmed, and this
conference, which has brought to-
gether so many influential citizens
from every state in the union, should
not fail to be productive Of untold
good to the nations future
Navigation Resources of Waterways.
E. R. Johnson said in part:
The waterways in our country
rivers, canals, lakes and coastal
channels-have an aggregate length
of between So, 900 and 10000 miles,
and only about half of the entire
mileage is now used for navigation.
II Considering the great length and
undoubted value Of our inland water
ways, comparatively little has been
useful. The most effective work has
and channels of Lake Superior
L
result that the freight now shipped
on the Great Lakes-75, 900 900 tons
in 19O6-is three times what it was
in 1890 The traffic passing the st
Mary's locks rose from 1000, $50 tonl
in 1880 to 100000 in 1889, and t.
Al 900 $50 in 1906, an increase o
$500 per cent. This commerce OF
the Great Lakes has been made pos
sible by total congressional appropri
ations of less than 500 100000.
The total appropriations made b,
congress from the beginning to 1870
for the rivers of the Mississippi val
ley amount to sos, 4S4, 100. Thi
seems to be relatively large sum
but when we consider that tn
United States has spent during tn
past hundred years in regulating
improving and extending our sys
tenn of natural waterways only Az
per cent. of the amount private cap
talists have invested in the construC
ton Of railways, our congressiona
appropriations for the betterment 0
inland navigation seem to have bee
conseryatively small.
The United States has as yet don
less than has been done by othe
leading industrial and commercial
rivals in the development and use o
inland waterways, IL we except as, o
course we ought, the chain Of Grea
Lakes which have no counterpart Il
any other country. Whether 1t is de
sirable that the United States soul
d follow the example of France an
Germany as regards inland waite
] transportation is a question to whicl