The Point Pleasant register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, W. Va.) 1909-1939, 1909-12-01
DEEP WATER
CONVENTION:
DURING The PAST FIVE YEARS HERE
HAS BEEN A#OlUEREUEAWAEEN.
ING.
The Atlantic Deep waser3ay.

AA4ssaAs, LAA[Asb ZOE SltS years -Cne enc
of waterways conventions that have
for their purpose the advocacy Off
particular waterways PROJECT. -',''',s
These conventions. beginning in
September on the Pacific Coast, have
been held during the past s months
in practically every important sec
siOn of the country and on Dec. s, 8
and 10 the special advocates of DIFF
ferent waterways improvement pro-
jects will assemble at Washington,
at the Sixth Annual Convention Of
the National Rivers and Harbors
Congress, to advocate in contradis-
tinction of what the local conven-
tiOns have been held for, waterway
policy and not a waterway project.
At this convention there viii come
together representatives from all sec
tons who will forget for the time be-
ing local project and uniting viii de-
mand of the Federal lawmakers that
a waterway policy be enacted and
put into effect which they know will
in turn benefit their particular pro-
ject as they can, demonstrate the
worth of same.
President Taft who addressed the
Norfolk Convention has attended 8
different waterway conventions IN the
past 40 days and his utterances on
the subject of waterway improve
ment has shown a depth of under
standing and study of the. subject
p ,ssessed, if at all but by few men in
public life. At>corpus Christi, Tex,
he characterized tersely the past deal
ing by Congress with river and har-
Dor improvements, '.as as a procession
of Jerks, AtNew orleanshe plainly
stated that the worth of any particu-.
lar river or harbor improvement, no
matter how strongly advocated, must
first be carefully examined by board
of United States engineers and by
them favorably reported upon before
the government can be expected to
begin work thereon.
In this statement, he assumed the
exact position of the National Rivers
and Harbors Congress, for in its adj
vocacy of improved waterways and
the adoption of policy that would
provide the funds for same, it has all
ways held that every waterway pro-
ject should be endorsed by the en-
gineer corps and accepted by the
United States Congress before it
could participate in the benefits of
the policy.
During the pzst FIVE years there
has been a wonderful awakening of
public sentiment toward the necess-
ity ofimproving the natural channels
of transportation of the country, for
with the growth of population, and
the consequent growth of tonnage to
be moved, the railroads have proven
themselves, under normal conditions,
to be entirely inadequate. and the
inadeuate, and the serious freight
congestion of three years ago, which
practically paralized that industries
of the nation, seems in the renewed
prosperity and activity of the people
to be again rapidly approaching.
The waterway sentiment which has
been aroused has been done by true
friends of the cause who have reaE-
zed that until there has been adopt
ed and put into effect general wa
terway policy, no special projects, no
matter how beneficial they may be
to special sections of the country, or
how strongly advocated by the friends
thereof, would move forward tocom-
pletion any faster in the future than
they have in the past, unless the old
order was changed.
The National Rivers and Harbors
Congress has beenpreaching this doc
trine until every section of the Union
is now fully aroused to the fact that