Evening star., 1909-05-11
FROM LAKES TO GULF
People of Louisiana Crying for
the Waterway.
FAIL TO USE MISSISSIPPI
New Orleans Becoming Local Port
of Shipment.
DECLINE OF TRAFFICMOVEMENT
Transportation by Steamboat-He-
suit of Opening Of Railroad.
Changing Build of Boats.
DECLINE OF TRAFFICM MOVEMENT
RY WILLIAM T.. CGR1IS.

BY WILLIAM r.. CUh1iS
Written for The Star and the Chicago lsecoru-
Herald.
| Although the government has spent
. $oOS COO 900 digging a channel in the MIS-
; sssippi river to make New Orleans an
. outlet for the products of the northwest
the people are making no use OF II. Ne"
; Orleans is becoming more and more
. local port of shipment for a limited tract
. OF territory which produces cotton ana
: turpentine and their by-products Yet
. the people down there and all along the
. river are crying for waterway from
: the lakes to the gulf and there was
. meeting of governors of states at Ne"
Orleans not long ago to organize move
ment for the expenditure Of many mill
lions more to establish "a fortified naval
, base at New Orleans and provide ade-
) quate defenses against invasion by hos
tile foreign navy of the export and i'm
. port commerce of the Mississippi valley.
; Mr.. Ellis of the New Orleans Board OF
Trade in speech said that 1.-The federal
; government while spending many mil
lions of dollars to secure to .ae people
. these vast benefits, seems to have over
. looked the fact that an unprotected nav
igable waterway affords the easiest ave-
. nue. for an enemy in the time of war,
. and that the War and Navy Departments
are not making provision to protect the
. commerce of the Mississippi river
/. While there certainly Is great deal
, of force in the statement, and while 1t
is true that there is nothing to prevent
; hostile fleet from sailing up to st. Louis
in wet weather, 1T seems rather queer
; that the people of New Orleans should
be demanding protection for a commerce
that does not exist Perhaps they are
: thinking of the appropriation as we'll as
the protection.
Utilizing Upper Mississippi.
According to the recent report of the
; inland waterways commission, there is
. only one company utilizing the upper
. Mississippi with a capital stock of $780,
; COO. with four boats engaged in car
.. rying package freight north, with mer-
chandise, grain, flour and live stock south
, The freight tonnage in recent years has
. varied from 5000 to over 10000 tons
1t could handle export flour routed via
; New Orleans. but it cannot guarantee
; any connection below st. Louis, there
; being no through lines to New Orleans at
brought as many as 5000 barrels of flour
. from st. Paul in single cargo. being
flour consigned to New Orleans but for
. the reason stated, the line can longer
. handle this business. What freight bus-
. ness is done is mostly a general mer-
. chandise business between st. Louis and
. st. Paul No grain now comes to st.
. Louis from the upper Mississippi"
II
. seven small packet lines operate between
Davenport and Burlington, between
; keokuk and Quincy. between Lyons and
; LeClaire, between st. Louis and points
; in Calhoun county, ILL.,, and as far as
; Peoria, Ill.
; "A new line has recently been estab-
lished the Missouri river between
. ST. Louis and Kansas City" continues
. the report "A former line, which was
in operation between the same points
. some ten or fifteen years ago. went out
. of business after the reduction of the
. rail rates The physical difficulty with
. which the new line has to contend, is
|. that the boats are not of a type adapted
. to the Missouri river service. being small
carriers with capacity of about 800
: tons each"
Decline of Traffic Movement.
The commission says: Traffic move
: ment on the lower Mississippi has so
. materially declined in recent years that
the supremacy once enjoyed by the Mis-
! sissippi river has been transferred to the
Ohio. Few realize that Pittsburg. rath-
er than either ST. Louis or New Orleans,
is today the most important river point
in America.
while there are no longer any
through lines of traffic between St
Louis and New Orleans, there Is still
d considerable interchange of merchan-
! disc between towns like st. Louis.
, Memphis, Vicksburg, Natchez and
lower river ports as well as points on
the Arkansas and other streams, which
! furnish cotton, cotton seed and other
plantation products in return for plan
tation supplies. OF bulk freight on he
lower Mississippi. coal from the Ohio
river constitutes the main factor. Their.
is some movement of lumber up river
and on the tributaries Grain is now
of very small Importance.
mo grain is shipped out of st. Louis
by river to any considerable extent,
entirely dead. Formerly large quanti-
ties of wheat, corn and oats were sent
by river from st. Louis to New Orleans
for export. but the building of rail
roads through Nebraska, Kansas, Okla
homa and Indian Territory to the gulf
together with the lack of attention
given to river improvements. have
operated against st. Louis as a point
of shipment for river grain. During the
past six or seven years several eleva-
tors formerly used for storing export
grain at st. Louis have been disman-
tied or destroyed"
Port for Coal Traffic.
The lumber trade. the rafting of logs
and the traffic in coal from the Pitts
: burg mines Is described by the inland
waterways commission, and the report
says: New Orleans is much the most
important port for river coal traffic on
the Mississippi. River coal is handled
here for supplying ocean and river
steamers. for the Texas and Pacific and
! Southern Pacific railroads, for local
consumption and for delivery to plan
tations and to sugar and rice mills and
! the neighboring territory west of the
Mississippi"
The report then proceeds to discuss
the decline of tonnage on the MiSsissip-
p explaining that ii is difficult to OBJ
I tain accurate statistics of the volume
! of freight handled. The reports of the
government engineers for 1908 give
I 5,675.31S tons on the upper Mississippi
I and 69141SS tons on the lower AIissIs-
I sippi, but even these figures duplicate
: the traffic moving from one section of
: the river to another because the same
I shipments are reported for each sec
! ton of the river they pass through"
II The entire report is exceedingly mel
: ancholy and tells of nothing but de-
cav No new steamers are being built
and the old ones are becoming useless
! Notwithstanding the enormous appro-
! priations of money that are annually
: expended by the Mississippi river com
2 mission to improve channels that are
useless and keep them clear.
s Transportation by Steamboat.
steamboat transportation upon the
lower Mississippi from the sos to the
early SOS was the chief agency upon