Polk County observer. (Monmouth, Polk County, Or.) 1888-1927, 1910-11-15
.FAVORS SAN FRANCISCO
CANAL EXPOSITION SHOULD BE
HELD ON PACIFIC COAST.
Prominent Railroad Man Says Claims
OF New Orleans or Other Gulf
Cities are Ridiculous.

The matter of the selection of site
for worlds exposition to celebrate
the completion of the Panama Canal
will come before Congress for decis-
ion next month and the two rival
claimants for the honor have for
months past been marshalling their
forces for the final struggle. Both are
confident of winning the coveted en-
dorsement and both will have repre-
sentatives on the ground to present
their respective claims before the COM
mittees of the Senate and House.
On the one hand is San Francisco,
the hustling metropolis of the Pacific
coast, the city which stands to profit
more through the completion of the
canal than almost any other city in
the United States.
On the other hand is New Orleans,
the Louisiana metropolis, located on
the Mississippi, sixty miles from the
gulf of Mexico, which will add moth
ing to its export trade through the
ODCnilS VI iAC IuAAdA ot1A UAIOhA Will
derive no direct benefit from it.
Ninety per cent of the exports from
New Orleans go to New York or Eu-
rope, and they will continue to go that
way after the canal is opened to the
commerce of the world Ships from
the Atlantic seaboard and from Eu-
ropean ports, with cargoes for the Pa
ci1c coast or the Orient will not APP
proach New Orleans on their way
through the canal, either going or
coming. The great majority of them
will touch San Francisco, and in the
case of many of the larger ships, San
Francisco will undoubtedly be made
regular port of call.
The Panama canal was designed pri-
marily to promote trade between the
Atlantic coast and European ports
with the Pacific coast and with the
Orient, by providing shorter and
cheaper route. From a commercial
point of view New Orleans interest in
the canal, compared with that of San
Francisco, is nil.
Guy M Walker of New York City,
prominent capitalist and railroad Or
ganizer, well known throughout the
east and southeast, is emphatically
and enthusiastically for San Francisco
as the site for the proposed Panama
exposition in 1915. Mr.. Walker re-
Gently visited San Francisco and while
there expressed his preference in un-
mistakable terms at the same time
giving strong reasons for his opposi-
tion to New Orleans.
II am for San Francisco first, last
and all the time as the site for the
Panama exposition" said Mr.. Walker,
'and am unalterably opposed to New
Orleans. For New Orleans, or any
other gulf city to advance a claim to
the proposed exposition to celebrate
the opening of the Panama canal is
ridiculous.
New Orleans handles the exports of
the Mississippi Valley, and the cotton
and wheat of Texas, and SO per cent
OF that goes to either New York or
Europe. 1t will never go through the
canal and the attempts of. the New
Orleans boosters to get the exposition
on the ground that the canal will add
materially to the export trade of that
city is preposterous
'grhe Panama canal is essentially
West coast proposition. 1t was con-
ceived and is being built with the pri-
mary object of enabling eastern man
ufacturers to ship their products to
the Pacific coast and to Oriental ports
by a shorter and more economical
route, and to facilitate trade between
the Pacific coast and European ports.
II will benefit San Francisco ten times
as much as 1t will benefit New Orleans.
The summer time is the time for
vacations and travel, yet the mere idea
OF New Orleans attempting to hold an
exposition in the summer is prepos-
ferrous. What with the heat, the
plague of mosquitoes and the fever
New Orleans is in the summer what
General sherman called war"
Walker is chairman of the reorgan-
lzation committee of the Columbus,
Delaware and Marion Railroad of
Ohio and also of the reorganization
committee of the Indianapolis. Craw-
fordsvllie and Western Indiana Rail-
road Company.
Il am interested I'm railroads in
Texas. Mississippi and Louisiana and
have been in New Orleans dozens of
times, so ] think I am qualified to
Judge. am going to New Orleans
again in a few days. ] shall wear a
Panama Pacific Booster button on my
cost and let the people down there
know that ! am a san Francisco
Booster and good one.
From an educational point Of view
San Francisco is immeasurably su-
perior to New Orleans as a site for
great exposition. People coming TO San
Francisco will be afforded a splendid
opportunity 10 see the wonders Of the
west, wonders that are unequalled
anywhere on earth. People going to
New Orleans will see the exposition
nothing more. And having seen the
exposition they will return home as
soon as possible.
IF the exposition IS held In San
Francisco It will draw double the NUM-
Der OF visitors from the far east that
an exposition IN New orleans would.
Notwithstanding the widely advertised
fact that that city r. nearer the cen-
ter OF population"