The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-01-25
THE FARMER: JANUARY. .25. 1910

ert Tulton's first steamboat. designed in 1907 to carry fourteen through pas sengers on the perilous journey CD up the Hudson River, and this in a sec tlon of the country where the greatest volume of commerce comes and goes, and where the greatest revenue of the country are produced-revenues that are absolutely essential to the distri- button of appropriations throughout this country not only for the improve
 ment of rivers and harbors, but for the
 maintenance of the army and navy, for 1 the payment to the pensioners of the country. and a thousand other things to which the public money is ap- piled.
 We looked further into the reasons why nothing had been done along our coast; we took the map from Philadel-
 phia to Baltimore, the link to the South, and observed that today there is a canal connecting the Delaware River with tho Chesapeake Bay, a cut
 across solid ground, thirteen miles, but that cut is of such minimum depth i that the vessels which I have de- scribed could little more pass through it than they could through the Della ware and Raritan Canal; and we said, 'fWhy is it that in this great center of population and activity we must sail out of the Delaware River and , waste SIS miles in an effort to get to
 Baltimore, when. if we could have this short cut from the Delaware to the Chesapeake widened and deepened sufficiently we could reduce the dis tance as bird flies to ninety miles?" To a certain extent we have aroused the people of the Atlantic seaboard. We have started them to thinking, and we have made them understand 1 through this commendable agitation throughout the West for a deeper Mississippi and along the Pacific slope for better waterways there-that there is something for them to do along the Atlantic seaboard. We have made comparisons as between what has been
 done elsewhere and what has been left ! Undone here We have said to our selves, What indeed. if there is no further awakening than this? Are l they willing to permit their streams | to fill up and their canals to fall into decay? Are they willing to say that the creative power of man along the seaboard has reached it's limit and that we can produce no more? Have they reached the point where there is no incentive to have two blades of
 grass grow where but one grew be- fore?''
 have been terrific storms along the Atlantic coast. Vessels have gone
 ashore upon Cape Hatteras; they have gone ashore upon Cape Cod. Is it not 1 worth the while of the Government
 Of the United States to give some con- sideration to the lives of men and to the value of property lost? Is it not worth while that in the event of war we should be enabled to pass vessels out of the navy yards of the country, l vessels charged with our armament and
 our fighting men, without having them stick in the mud of our streams be-
 cause the Government has not suff1- cient1v deeDened them?
 That thirteen mile cut across the State of Delaware to link up the Del l aware River with Chesapeake Bay, ac- cording to all naval experts possesses
 great value in a strategic way for the use of the army and the navy.
 We hope there will be no war with any foreign nation. We hope there will be no war upon the seas; but if there should be a war it will mean war
 upon the Atlantic seaboard and our l own vessels might have to run for
 shelter. We might have to employ the tactics that are universal in war fare. If we were compelled to meet or to drive back an enemy or. our selves to fall back, the Delaware and
 Chesapeake Canal would give an ad-
 vantage to any American fleet that would be absolutely necessary 1n con- flict with a foe of our own size upon the waters of the broad Atlantic
 The President in his address at Nor folk spoke of the unprotected nature of our coast, and of the necessity of
 putting an island in the middle of the Chesapeake in order that that region
 might be amply protected in time of war. If the mouth of the Chesapeake is to be protected. then afford an out let to the North, else the protection
 proposed may be to "bottle up'' an
 American fleet just as Cervera's feet was bottled up in Santiago Harbor. Apart from it's commercial advantages the connecting link with the Delaware i would seem to be of the very greatest
 military and naval significance. If war were upon us we would inmed- lately realize it's importance. Why should we not provide for it now? l My friends, the East is not "effete." It has been necessary recently to state few plain truths with regar1 to ap- propriations and in reference to the activity of our friends elsewhere, in
 order to make our own tremendous population of 30,000000 of people un-
 derstand that they have been tagging far behind in the matter of waterway l improvement in this country. We are not done yet. We have not yet done
 our best.
 The opportunity is open for us all, come and the means must be provid- i ployed to the full; and the develop
 ment of waterways is one way in | which the youth of the country may find new avenues of employment by which their enterprises and their abil | sL