Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1908-02-14

DELEGATES
Continued from page two

Continued from page two
freight means. Now what would this
mean in money, in savings? That
freight out Of that harbor costs about
in money, twelve millions of dollars,
probably about fifteen millions (if it.
is more it is better for my purpose),
but we call it twelve and a half mill
lions. Consider the same! If these
commodities had gone by rail it
would have cost nine times as much,
or more than hundred millions of
dollars, and do you see that off of the.
freight that went out of Duluth har-
Dor only this last year, there was saw
ed to the people of this country more
than million of dollars more than
we put into all the Great Lakes in
all the harbors and connecting chan
nels during all that time of that i'm.
provement.
Put the same figures upon the
freight that has passed through the
500 locks and we have saved two or,
three times the investment of our
money in the Great Lakes this year.
What have we done, what has been
done for the farmers up here in the
northwest, what has it done for the
farmers of North Dakota that raised
seventy-five million bushels of wheat
in 1906? e3iia a M
. was asked what the rate was to
Duluth, think 1t was about nine
cents q bushel from here to Duluth.
If that is SO, the wheat growers of
North Dakota can put their wheat
on a steamboat in Boston or New
York harbor for the price Of drink
of whisky and all that you have got
to do is to cut out the drink of
whisky and you are in the Liverpool;
market. No what did you do. what
did you have to do with this, grain
business before we began these im-
proyements? You paid 81 cents to
get your wheat from Duluth to the
New York market. The price of
wheat the world over Is the price in.
Liverpool, this is the price. 1t does
not make any difference whether
your crop Of wheat goes there or not,
the price you get for it is the price
in Liverpool less the freight from
your field to Liverpool.
a'A Our Advantage
Out ii, Utah a few years ago it cost the
farmer one bushel of wheat to get another
in Utah. Now / have said that this work has
When Sf You are getting Your wheat lowa there
cents, in Knasas Oklahoma and Nebraska, why
they pay as much as you pay to get their wheat
to Kansas City, and when they have. paid that
price. they have got to pay two or three times
wheat to the New York harbor Why is that !?
The only waterway, the only complete channel
Of commerce for the carriage of wheat from
the great wheat fields in this country, is the
channel down thes Great Lakes and so up in
here you are enjoying don't want you to
| think that am looking at you with an envious
eye-you don't see any green in my eye-but
I propose that the other farmers without any
prejudice to your interests here, shall have
some of the advantages that you enjoy. ss
$ Thirty Millions In the Ohio River I
Now we have done some work down on the
Ohio river. That Ohio river is a splendid ex-
ample for us of the Missouri We want to
learn its possibilities and also of the problem
of. the Ohio river, for in it we. find our en-;
couragement and our Argument with which we
can go before the national legislature and ask
for the improvement of our great river. We
have put about thirty millions of dollars into
the Ohio river, that is good deal of money
they think in some quarters, Some of our
friends on the Great Lakes think that Is q
great deal of money to put into a river. They
have six feet of water down there and they
propose to have nine feet of water, and to get
nine feet of water they have to build I don't
know how many locks and dams, but suffice
It for our consideration, to make the Ohio
river useful, permanent, dependable channe!
sixty millions of dollars more, and the engineers
of the government have made the surveys and
approved the project and say for our, encour-
agement that we want them to go up there for
| been the result down there? Manifold results
wonderful results in the cheapening of freight
| rates throughout the West and Southwest. A
wonderful demonstration of the value of water
Ohio to New Orleans from the Pittsburg dis.
trict-better coal than they will even let us
snel out in this county-for rs cents ton
fifteen hundred miles for rs cents ton, and
when we build, as we will, an intercostal canal
from the Mississippi river to Corpus Christi
| we will supply southern Texas for six hundred
| miles from Pittsburg with coal that we can
| get out of the mines at SO cents ton and
| carry it down there for dollar more. That
| is what the Ohio river is doing down there
now, they are carrying freight of all kinds
for less than one.twentieth of the railroad
| rates that parallel the river. That is pretty
| good example of what can be done by the i'm
pToVement OF "a great river. fiji IF
No Complaint For the Past
Now one thing more; by easy stages am
getting on to Missouri! want to say one
word more about the improvement in spot:
and the location Of the improvement that has
been done by the government. I want to sa,
my good friend, who so gracefully and elegant
| ~ responded to the welcome here this after
noon, want him to cut out all that talk
about the little creeks. The reason is it is not
In the days when we have been scofing, in the
days when a water, bill could be talked to deatf
and was talked to death, it was considered
cute for the newspapers to joke about The
| little creek. as 1t was to crack jokes at the ex
pense of the Missouri river, but that dayT K
played out. The things that were said were
never true. There are today. let me saw fol
your inform. alton, there are TO-DAY in ever,
river and harbor bill and will Be tsext winter
appropriation for 5 large sums Of money 20,
creeks They call everything in New ENGLAND
tcreeks. a Streams that carry millions of tons
out OF which are turned millions of TONS n,
commerce want to say this because Il wan
yep 70 know thai. there is not a saner subject