Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1910-08-29
FOR DEEPER WATERWAYS
Inland Deep Water COmmuniGa
ton Between Boston And
Florida Via Annapolis
SENTIMENTS IN ITS FAVOR
MIR. Melvin Says The Success OF The
Project Means A Great Feature For
Annapolis

/ Annapolis prom Uses 70 De wen rep
| resented at the fourth annual con-
vention of the Atlantic Deeper
Waterways Association, which meets
at Providence. K. l., from August 81
to September 3. The delegates ap-
pointed by Governor Crothers from
this county include State Senator A.
Theodore Brady, former Senators j.
| Writ Randall, Robert Moss, Mr.. James
NJ. Munroe, Mr.. George 7. Melvin
and Mr.. Henry C. Keidel.
In the presidents Office of the An
napolis Banking and Trust Company
this morning, Mr. Melvin said that
although pressing business affairs
were occupying his time, he expected
| to leave for Providence tomorrow
night and participate in the work of
the association.
1.-The people of Maryland, as one of
the Atlantic Coast states, said Mr..
| Melvin, "have peculiar and practi-
cal interest in the great project of
| public improvement to support which
the Atlantic Deeper Waterways Asso-
citation was formed. For a long period
of years the idea of an internal water
way from New England to the South
| has been discussed as a sort of aca-
demic question, but lately the entire
| feasibility and the manifold advant-
ages of the project have been thor
oughly gone into and demonstrated,
and an active campaign Of education
carried on.
"The proposition, as may be famil-
lar to most newspaper readers, is to
unite the bays, sounds and navigable
rivers along the Atlantic coast by
deep canals. This would give to the
coast states, in time of peace as well
as of war, safe deepwater communi-
cation from Boston to Florida. The
scheme is one which has attracted
the earnest attention of the business
men of the states lying on the At
lantic seaboard, and it has bfen shown
that commercially it would be highly
profitable by the cheap transporta-
tion of various products. among
them cotton, lumber and coal. 1t
would go far, in many instances, to
solve vexatious questions of trans
portation, and be of wide benefit to
a great range of producers and con-
sumers, as Well as developing in an
extraordinary degree the resources of
all sections within reach Lof the great
inland waterway.
I'm Maryland we have the most
important part of the deeper water
way (the Chesapeake Bay and also
the link which first gave rise to the
idea of the gigantic project (the
chesapeake and Delaware Canal. }
More than a century ago, in a memoir
ial to the Congress, praying aid in
the construction of this canal, its Off
GERS suggested it's position in great
system of Accommodation inside
the Atlantic coast by the states
which then were nearly the whole
United States. The memorialists
pointed out that if the important 18TH
mus between those waters-the Ches-
apeake and Delaware Bays and an
other between Trenton and the Rari
| tan in New Jersey be reduced to
peaceful navigation, and easy and di-
rect communication will be establish
ed from the southern limits of the
Chesapeake to New York, and from
thence by the river Hudson to Albany
on the one hand, and by the Sound
to the New England states on the
other; which communication may be
extended both to the southwark and
northward, so as to form direct
and easy internal navigation from
the lakes of Canada through the whole
eastern boundary of the United
States.
Senator George Logan, of Penn
sylvania, James Bayard. of Delaware
and Stephen Bradley of Vermont, to
whom the memorial was referred, re-
ported favorably upon it, and to ok
occasion to say, after narrating the
advantages to be derived by the
States of Maryland, Delaware and
New Jersey, that the Importance of
the proposed canal, though great
in itself, is not justly appreciated
by considering it as a separate
work; it must be viewed as the
basis of a vast scheme of interior
navigation, connecting the waters of
the lakes with those of the most
southern states; a plan certainly
within the compass of industry and
art, and if beyond the present means,
unquestionable within the growing
resources of the country.
Although the project was from
time to time lost sight of, and especial
| ~ as the years of railroad develop
ment engrossed capital and energy. it
is now revived and is being strongly
urged. Both in the East and the
Middle West routes of water transpor-
tation are interesting state govern
ments and business bodies, and the
scheme of a deep waterway from the
Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico is
the western complement of the At
lantic coast project. Nature has done
much in providing a coastwise chan
mel, from Buzzard's Bay to Florida,
and the Raritan, Chesapeake and Del
aware, Dismal Swamp Canals and
other connecting links are only to be
widened and deepened, and a few
short cuts made to provide a deep
waterway traversing all the eastern
states.
"As one of the most important of
the smaller cities on the route, and
as one which would be vastly bene-
fitted, it is entirely proper that local
interest in and support of the inland
waterway should be given by Us. /
have long been firm believer in
/ the reality and scope of the future of