The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-10-31

from St. Louis to the gulf We have passed through all the dangers of the navigation of the river. and they are not confined to the shoals. sand banks and the bends, and we are here without the loss of a single man There are some few of us who have braved the whole way, and l hesitate to speak of those who resorted to the humiliating device of taking land transportation to get here. l hope that will be suppressed in the minutes of this meeting. When Uncle Joe addresses your honorable body, don't ask him where he left the river and when he got back to it.
 But. testing aside. our coming indi- cates what we hope may be an epoch in the change of the character of transpor- [ tation in this country. Do not misunder- stand me. I do not think that we are going to fill the bosom of the Mississippi with barges and ocean steamers tomorrow ; morning. The change, which is bound to be effected with respect to that stream, will come gradually. It will come with the demand that is certainly growing for an improvement in our transportation and the cheapening of that kind of trans portation, to-wit, bulky merchandise that ought to be carried more cheaply than. 1t Is today
 We have seen human ingenuity turned and developed to the highest degree in the growth of our railroad transportation and the economy of the conduct of rail- roads. But the condition of our rivers, the apparently hopeless task of making them useful has turned the public atten- tion from them, and there isn't in refer ence to river construction or river navi- gation that improvement that we ought to have had in the last 40 years. I ask you what progress has been made in the last 30 or 40 years in reference to river navigation?
 Amount Carried Necessitates 1t.
 Now we have reached a point where we are bound to use those because the amount that Is required to be carried will necessitate it. In Germany and in foreign countries, to which we are pointed to show what can be done with river navi- gation. there the government exercises control and says that with respect to rates certain of them shall be such on the river that bulky merchandise must go that way. What do we do? Why, we say to the railroads: If you will only ar range your rates so as to compete with the river will permit you to make them so as to drive the river out of busi- nes' Now, that is what has been done and while the river has served the people regulating rates to a certain extent. and
 
 exercised that power and that influence that it might if 1t were actually used for the purpose.
 "The Secretary of War yesterday sug- gested-although he Is as far from a gov ernment ownership man as possible-that perhaps it might be well to let the gov ernment experiment a bit in risking some capital to put few lines on the river to try and see what can be done with that business. In Kansas City they ar~ investing money today to try it on rhe Missouri river And the question wether we can heet the point that you have got to have some means of gathering the business and getting 1t on the boat in order to compete with the railroad may give rise to the suggestion that the gov ernment might establish stations along the river for the purpose of housing the merchandise to be sent by the river. All those are suggestions that will have to be worked out before we reach a satis- factory conclusion
 Now, in St Louis I said that thought we ought to satisfy ourselves with re- spect to great improvement of the river, that 1t would be useful before we went ahead and invested all the money neces- sary and that then we ought to invest that money quickly and issue bonds for the purpose because that is the most rapid way. Now, I think that we have solved the question of the navigation of the Ohio river for the purpose of improv- ing the trade of that river, and if you are going to make the Mississippi a valu- able stream you have got to depend on the feeders to that stream, of which the