The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-08
"PoIIcy, Not a Project"

waterway improvements mas DeeH HOst prominently and favorably brought before the public and men of the highest charac- ter and influence throughout the country are enlisted in it's cause
 Three things have made this nation great among the nations of the world First, the inventive genius, energy and industry of her people; second, the char aeter of her institutions, and third, her coal and iron, her fertile fields and abun- dant products, in a word, her natural resources. But what will the ability and the coal and iron are wasted and IT the fields and forests lose their productive power?
 This is not the time for statistics, but I repeat a few of the estimates re- gently made by experts. If our present rate of use and destruction of timbers continue our forests will be exhausted In generation; if the present waste and currently increasing consumption of coal continues, all of our vast beds of an thracite. bituminous and lignitic coal will be gone before the end of the next cen- tury. At any reasonable rate of consump- ton our petroleum can hardly last more than two or three generations and at the present appalling rate of waste, our best natural fuel, gas, will be exhaust ed within a decade or two.
 Conservation Is Modern.
 Ten years ago conservation was un- heard of and we gloried in what we were pleased to call our unlimited and inexhaustible natural resources. During this year. 1908, following the suggestion of the great conference of governors held at the White House last. May we have begun to take stock of these resources. Most of us are now ready to face the issue courageously as our forefathers faced the untrodden wilderness and be- gin to conserve the natural resources of our prosperity. As a people we have the problem of making our forests out last this generation, our iron outlast this century and our coal the next, not merely as a matter of convenience or but as a matter of stern nat ural necessity.
 At the conference of governors, some of the ways in which we may conserve our coal, iron and timber were suggest ed. The most promising means proposed was the cause which has brought to- gether the development of water trans portation on the Mississippi and the other inland waterways of the country. So the great object for which we are here, inland navigation, one of the great est objects that ever inspired conven- tion or awakened a nation, is neces- sary, not only for the sake of the vast benefits which 1t will confer directly on all the consumers of transported mer- ehandise, as already described, but as equally necessary as one of the central features of the great policy of conserva- tion on which our whole future de- bends.
 Iron Consumption Reduced.
 'The secondary effect of inland water f.. the increasing ratio per year of the tation by water requires on the average less than one-third the quantity of iron re uired by transportation by rail. Wa ter transportation means also a cores bonding halt in the increasing consump- tion of coal net only for driving the engines. but also for smelt- ing the iron required by railroads. At the same time the substitution of wa ter carriage will tend to reduce one of the greatest demands for timber, for use as ties, more than one hundred mill Hon of which are required each year. and 1t takes two ties growing in the forest to keep one tie in the track
 The naviagble streams cannot be im- proved successfully and permanently and controlled safely and effectively without conserving the head waters, and generally this can best be done by means of forests. The forests needed for this purpose will ultimately insure the continuation of our timber supply and at the same time bring in a steady income to their owners, The same control of the sources of navigable streams will clarify the waters and keep them pure for muni- cipal supply, while at the same time them from building bars and filling with silt the harbors at tn cir mouths. In the end through the control of soil erosion, our rivers will undoubtedly be made to run clear from their sources to the sea, suitable for water supply at every point, and fit for fishery industries far beyond hose of the present Some canals and many lock dams will be required for the control of the waters for navigation those might and should be so con structed as to develop water power, and experts estimate that the water power producible in this way in the United States--would suffice to drive every mill and manufactory, propel every railroad train and street car. operate every loom and spindle, and furnish light and head wherever re- quired, thus enormously reducing the
 
 iron required for the mining and nov ing of coal
 Land Irrigation.
 Furthermore, the irrigation of arid lands, which is not only one of tn c most successful of the conservation policies, but represents the largest di- rect effort ever made by any govern ment for the man who works his own farm, is a natural part of any compre- hensive plan of stream control. So is the drainage of swamp lands which will add many hundreds of millions to the wealth of the people, In a word stream control for navitation will bring 1t control, for all other purposes and confer unnumbered benefits in many ways.
 My own judgment is that every im- provement like that of thelakes to-the e-gulf, like that of the Ohio river, like that of the Missouri river, like the Atlantic sea- ed by itself as one great enterprise. just as we have treated the Panama canal, and that provision should be made by bonds or otherwise for the setting aside of fund sufficient to complete it as rapidly as possible To leave progress in this matter to the fitful and partisan con- sideration of appropriation committees in Congress, influenced by desire to reduce the appearance of total expenditures each year as much as possible, is to impair the necessary financial support of every one of these great enterprises and tO drao