The morning journal-courier., 1908-12-09


 Europe utll aurely happen In our country if we do not exercise that wise iorethousht which should be one of tha chief marks of any people calling itself civilized Nothing should be permitted 10 stand in the way of the preservation of tho forests, and 1t Is criminal to rer- mt individuals to purchase little gain for themselves through the de- structou OF forests when this destruc- lon is fatal to the well heins of the whole country in tho future
 Inland Waterways,
 Action should be begun forthwith, during the present session of the con grcss, for ne improvement of our in- land waterways-a which will re. tsult in giving us not only navieable but uavlgated rivers We have spent hun, dreds of millions of dollars upon these waterways, yet the traffic on nearly all of them is steadily declining, This con-. dition is the direct result of the absence of any comprehensive and far-seeng plan of waterway Improvement. Oh. FlRA7lJ Nf Nhllll'l NilllllIt LIlNN lU 'A pend the revenues of the government without return It is poor business to spend money for Inland navigation un- less we get 1t.
 Inquiry into the condition Of the Mississippi and it's principal tributar- ies reveals very many Instances of the utter waste caused by the methods yU 1, aI, so-called improvement of naviga- ton. A sriNH, Instance is supplied by the Improvement of the Oaio which begun in 1924 was continued under a single plan for half ceu- tury, In 1875 g new plan was adopt cd and followed for quarter of 8 century In 1902 still a different plan was adopted and has since been pur. sued at a rate which only promises navigabla river in from twenty to one hundred years longer.
 Such shortsighted, yacillating and futile methods are accompanied by decreasing water borne commerce and increasing ratflc congestion on land by increasing floods and by the waste of public money The remedy lies in abandoning the methods which have so signany failed and adopting new ones In Keeping Ntth the needs and demands of our people
 In d repor' on a measure mtroduc- ad at the first session of the present congress, the secretary uf war said. The chief defect In the methods ] hitherto pursued lies In the absence Of executive authority for originating comprehensive plans covering the country or natural divisions thereof" Tn this opinion l heartily concur. The present methods not only fail 10 give us inland navigation, but they are h. furious Co tae army az well, What Is virtually a permanent detail of the corps of engineers to civilian duty necessarily impairs tho efficiency of our military establishment Tho mll- Itary engineers have undoubtedly done efficient work In actual construction, but they are unnecessarily unsuited by their training and traditions to take the broad yiow. and to gather and transmit tn congress the commercial and inlustral information and fore casts, upon which waterway improve ment must always so largely rest Furthermore, they nave failed Co grasp the great underlying fact that every stream ls a unit from fits source to its mouth, and that all its uses are the engineer corps have recently gone so far as to assert 10 print that water ways arc not dependent upon thc cons seryauon of tho forests about their headwatcrs This position is opposed to all the recent work of the scientific bureaus of the government and 10 the general experience Of mankind A ton would not be the right man to handle an epidemic of smallpox nor should we leave doctor skeptIcal about the transmission of yellow fever from tho stegomya mosquito in charge of sanitation at Havana or Panama. So with the Improvement of our riy- CTS; lt is no longer wise or safe to leave this great work in tho hands of men who fail 10 grasp the essential relations between navigation and gen oral development and to asslmiate and use the central facts about our streams.
 Until the work of river improve ment is undertaken in a modern way 1t cannot have results that will meet the needs of this modern nation These needs should be met without further d3ly-dalIyng or delay The plan wai promises he best and quickest results Is that of a perma- ncnt rgUuuaslun authorized to coor- dnatc the work of all the government departments relating to waterways and to frame and supervise the oXccu- ton of n comprehensive plan Under such a commission tho actual work Of construction might be cntrusted to the reclamation service; or to the military engineers acting with a sufficient number of civilians to continue tho work in time of war; or it might be divided between the reclamation ser vice and the corps of engineers. Funds should he provided from current rev enucs if lt ls deemed wse-otherwlse from the sale of bonds. Tho csaen- tial thing is that the work should go forward under the best possible plan and with the least possible delay We should have new type of work and a new organization for planning and directing it. The time for playing With our waterways is past. The cogn- try demands results,
 National Parks.
 l urge that all our national parks adjacent to national forests he placed completely under tao control of the forest service of tho agricultural do- partment. instead of leaving them as