Palestine daily herald. [volume] (Palestine, Tex.) 1902-1949, 1910-05-16
White Serge Skirts, S5.98
MR.. GREGG REPLIES
To Circular Being Put Out BY His
Opponent, Mr.. Stevens.

To the Voters of Anderson County:
One of my opponents, Mr. Stevens
or some one for him, has circulate
over Anderson county a circular crit
cising the fact that the work of i'm
proving the Trinity river began at tn
Dallas or upper section, instead o
near the mouth.
If this criticism is left unanswered
people of the district may think tina
have not been as watchful of thei
interests as l should have been.
think, however, that a brief statemen
by me will not only disprove any sucl
inference, but will show that l have
acted with good judgment and in the
only way to insure the ultimate i'm
lprovement of the river.
The 57th Congress in 1902 made al
bpriation to begin the improve
fs,5s par
ii It should be expended upon the
| Dallas section, and the balance was to
be used in erecting lock and dam on
the lower section at such places as
offered the greatest obstruction to nav,
| igation, not at tide water as suggested
| by Mr. Stevens. When the 5Sth con
gress met in Dec, 1904, no substan
tial part of the appropriation for the
lower portion had been expended. In
the meantime (between 1902 and 1904
a board of engineers had made fur
| Their examination of the river, and had
submitted report greatly increasing
the estimated cost of the project, and
majority of that board reported adj
versely to the continued Improvement
of the river When the Rivers and
Harbors Committee of that Congress
had its bill under consideration in
1904, Mr.. Burton, chairman of the
committee, openly announced that he
opposed any further improvement of
the Trinity river, and favored per-
hitting the money already appropri-
as his reason that he did not believe
the upper section could be made nav
igable and he did not think there was
any reasonable prospect of there being
enough commerce on the lower sec
ton to justify its improvement. This
was a bomb in the ranks of those of
us who favored improving the river,
for we knew that his influence was so
great he would be able to control the
matter. All of us were anxious to
find some plan which would be ac-
ceptable to Mr. Burton. Mr.. Burgess,
the Texas member of the committee,
was particularly active in the matter,
and after conference with the chief
of the government engineers, he sug-
gested to Mr.. Burton to make the
experiment on the upper section by
appropriated and supplementing it
with enough to build two locks and
dams Mr.. Burgess was satisfied if
the experiment was made it would
demonstrate that the upper section
could be made navigable and subse-
quent developments have shown he
was right in this Mr.. Burton finally
agreed to this on condition that Dial
las contributed $4,000 toward the ex-
pense. Mr. Burgess Informed me and
others that unless this proposition was
accepted the entire project would be
and the money already APP, |
returned to the treasury. |
The plan was accepted as an ultima !
tum and as the only way to have any !
further work done on the river. 1t |
was no longer question of how the !
should be made, but it
was a question of having it improved |
in this way or not at all. If Mr.. Stev
ems had been here, would he have