The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1910-02-17
RAILROADS SEE FOE
TO FEAR IN CANAL
TRANscoNTINENTAL SYSTEMS
WILL WAGE WAR ON THE
BIG DITCH, ADMIRAL
EVANS SAYS.

EVANS SAYS.
New York, Feb. 17.--Rear Admiral
Robley d. Evans, who has been ex-
planning the probable future of the
Panama canal in series OF articles
in Hampton's Magazine, concludes in
the forthcoming March number with a
direct attack upon the railroads and /
their rate-making methods.
There is no more important ques-
day." he says. than this OF making |
very sure that when they have in
vested their hundreds of millions of |
dollars in the canal. IL shall be per-
mitted to give them returns on the
investment.
1.-THE Panama canal will earn the re-
turns, albeit perhaps indirectly II it
Is given the chance. But 1t will not be
given the chance IL the transcontlnental
railroads can prevent.
decade after decade, the great east
and west railroad systems opposed and
prevented the building of the canal
They knew what It's competition would
mean In the reduction OF their freight
rates.
1.-THE canal, however, is being dug.
Not because the public rose to an acute
realization of the commercial necessity
for It, but because OF the Oregon's trip
from the Pacific to the Atlantic. That
one voyage of one battleship, in a
time OF national crisis, served to crys-
tallize a purpose in the national mind
that all the powers of railroad finance
and railroad politics could not thwart.
To-day we take a certain pride in
the fact that American genius and en-
terprise are achieving the most won
derful engineering work ever under
taken by man. But we are giving no
thought, much less taking any steps,
to assure to ourselves as a nation the
commercial benefits which that work
must bring If 1t shall not be disap-
pointment and a failure.
Railroads Are Hostile,
do not imagine that have become
afflicted with any populistic anti-rail-
road mania. There is not a transpor-
tation authority among all the rulers
of the rail who will claim more for the
steam railroad as factor in the de-
velopment of the country, past, pres
emit or future, than win concede. But
the truth will not be suppressed. The
railroads always have been hostile to
the canal, and they may be hostile to
| 1t In the future. / believe their hos
tility is based on a narrow conception,
or a short sighted view. But, reason
able or unreasonable, 1t is the fact.
eve are spending 40O,OOo,OOO digging
at a canal which ought to reduce
| freight rates across our continent to a
fraction of what they are now. The
commercial justification of that ex-
penditure viii never be found, as have
/ heretofore tried to show, in the impetus
that will be given our foreign trade.
1t must be found in benefit to our
domestic commerce.
Il water transportation is the cheap
4 est known to the world. Wherever
there is free and fair competition, the
II water highway takes the business
from the railroad. Yet for many years
we have consented. that the railroads
should monopoIize the transcontinenta
i traffic which canal would have car.
ried at greater speed and vastly less
cost. We have developed our cont
/ nent thus far without thought Of the
possibilities of the greatest transcon.
| tinental trade route-that via the At.
: lantic. the canal, and the Pacific-anC
!, without consideration of the possibili
ties Of our Imperial system of rivers.
Better Time by Water Route.
1.-THE distance from New York to Lo
!. Angeles via the Panama canal is, il
: round numbers, 5000 miles. A 500
ton capacity steamer loaded with or
anges or other fresh fruit, steaming a
rate of only twelve knots per hou
would cover this distance in eighteen
days. If we allow one day for tn
steamer passing through the canal, he
total time from port to port would b
nineteen days. If the vessel were rul
: specially for the fruit trade, this tim
0 could be reduced several days
ship OF sixteen knots speed, such a
those now used In the West Indi
fruit trade. would make the trip in jus
fourteen days, giving again the al
lowance for one day for passin
4 1.-THE time for rail freights across til
! continent varies from twenty to sixt
I days. It will be seen that the steamt
R GOuAQ 3A AAk N<GECs A<l10 A~A Al GAG&Ak
: a shorter time. This means that mar
= kinds OF freight would be delivered
r better condition and for one-thil
n the price now charged by the raj
Lr road"
Admiral Evans then goes into deta
quoting specific freight rates from Il
: Pacific coast to prove his contention
and then attacks the railroads vigo
ously for their policy of choking {
competition by water. Here Is a san
pie, he says, OF how the choking {
process is accomplished:
"The Panama railroad once blu
steamers, how many do not reca
to run In connection with the ros
across the Isthmus of Panama. The
steamers were to carry freight fro
New orleans to Colon.
Railroads Restore Rates.
when they were started. railro'
rates across the continent were c
down to such figure that the steame
could not be operated Merchants we
short sighted enough to accept the 10
rates and. as a result. the ships we
to the scrap heap or we're sold (
service in other waters. And the raj
road rates went back TO where tn
were before the steamship line w
projected"