Los Angeles herald., 1909-10-29

the Mississippi and ending at Chicago.
The occasion will be the speech of
President Taft at the Lakes-to-the
Gulf waterway convention at New
Orleans. He probably will go even
further than Mr.. Roosevelt in urging
that all lake ports be given seaboard
outlets, and that lake commerce be
allowed to sail the seas to the ends
of the earth.
That the slogan fourteen feet
through the valley will ultimately be-
came a living realization everyone
must know. How far away that time
is depends upon congress, but with
Chicago and the great middle west
and south back OF it, there is little
doubt that it will be soon. AL
ready Illinois and Chicago have
adopted the course of New York-what
the federal authorities will not do for
them they will do themselves. Chi
cago has built I. drainage canal to
Lockport-built it with view to its
becoming part of the great inland
waterway system of the Mississippi
basin. And now Illinois has decided to
carry the work on from Lockport to
Utica, distance of over sixty miles,
at a cost of more than $20,0O0,00O.
The United States can we'll afford to
consider the question of constructing
a deep waterway from the gulf to the
Great Lakes, for the national defense
is destined to require it as much as
national commerce demands it. Can
ada is now engaged in building sys-
tenn Of canals, the completion of
which will permit the English navy
to send it's fleets into the Great Lakes
themselves. For many years there mas
been a treaty between the United
States and Great Britain providing
that there should be no war vessels
oh hU either A.
tion. But If Canada is to extend her
seaboard into the Great Lakes by ca
nails, the United States would be
placed at an enormous disadvantage
in case of war.
Much has been heard about the great
expenditures that the government has
been asked to make for river and har-
Dor improvements, but when it comes
to a comparison of the outlay of the
government for improving natural
waterways with the outlay OF private
C. pital for the construction of rail-
roads, it is found that the federal
government has spent only $3.50
where private capital has spent $lOO.
In the whole history of the nation
the government has spent but little
more than $20O,00O,000 on all the
waters Of the Mississippi valley, and
perhaps half of this has gone, not to
making navigable waters. but to the
building of levees, revetment work,
etc.
A vast sum might we'll be spent on
the waterways of the Mississippi basin.
It is the largest valley in the world,
the most populous, the most product
i've. 1t contains more than half the
people in the United States; 1t raises
more corn than all the rest of the world
together, and has a capacity of wealth
production amounting to ten billion dol
lars a year. When the jetty construc--
ton at the mouth of the Mississippi
river was completed it was estimated
that the annual value of the work to
commerce amounted to at least $780,
O0O, ,000 and everybody comedies that
deep. waterway would be worth even
more 1t is estimated that the trans
portation charges from Chicago to the
seaboard would be cut to one-third of
the present rates-a reduction that
would profit nearly every individual in
the country There are hundred GOOD
and sufficient reasons why the United
States should have a deep waterway
between the Gulf and the Lakes.
But Uncle Sam may well hesitate be-
fore doing anything rash in the ex-
penditure of money for such work. He
has seen millions of dollars worth OF
work wasted by flood. He has seen
sandbars wipe out the labor of a dozen
giant dredgers, and if this work is done
he has no assurance that 1t will not be
obliterated. That is why he has been
seemingly SLOW.
The Mississippi is a winding stream.
From Cairo to the sea it is twelve hun
dred miles by the way Mark Twain
had to travel it in his steamboat days,
yet the crow flies it in 600 miles, The
main channel is forever changing. AS
- i CD
gradually eats its way into the outer
bank at every curve, carrying the
eroded material to some place further
down to make a sandbar or on to the
sea as silt. Thus on the inner bank of
the curves there never can be wharves
and landings, while those on the outer
hanks are built only to be undermined.
OF this latter condition Greenville,
Miss, affords notable instance. There
are two curves in its neighborhood
making two narrow necks of land.
Gradually the river Is eating through
both Of them. If It cuts through the
lower neck of land first, Greenville will
be left high and. dry five miles inland
from the river.
A well known engineer has suggest
ed that there is only one way to make
the Mississippi a really great water
way whose cost of upkeep is not pro-
hibitive. In the first place he would
straighten out it's kinks as was done
with the Rhine, cutting across all the
narrow necks of the river and giving
it's waters direct and free course to
the sea. After this he would control
the floods by a series of impounding
reservoirs ON the headwaters of the
various big streams. The flood dam
age of the Ohio river in 1907 was
wrought by only twenty-three billion
feet of surplus water. 1t would re-
uuire a reservoir only half as large as
the great Pathfinder dam on the Platte
river to impound that quantity of wat
er. The dam of the Salt river irriga-
ton reservoir impounds three times
as much water as would suffice to
effectively control the Ohio at its high
est flood stage; while the Engle dam,
a hundred miles above Ell Paso, on
the Rio Grande, is five times as large
as would be required to hold back the
mad waters of the Ohio at it's high
est stages. Yet all three of these dams
have been built for an aggregate out
Law of less than sixteen million dol
lars.
Sooner or later the government prob
ably will adopt a system of flood con-
troll and will straighten the river and
its tributaries. With each passing year
il becomes more evident that the rail-
roads will not be able to handle all the
commerce of the Mississippi basin in
the wears to come, and that the only
hone of the future is water transporta-
tion. It has proved the salvation of
Europe. But in the meantime -four
teen feet through the valley" will suf-
es-. = ~ oo+ +ha dannapds of fha irnn1a-