The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1911-09-16
Waterways WILL
SOLVE PROBLEM
Freight Rates Can Be Regulat-
ed by Develping the Wa.
ter Transportation

washington, sept. 16-"1 conf.
IDENTIFY expect that the next ten years
will witness a degree Of progress in
waterway improvements In this coun.
try which will contribute enormously
to Its prosperity" said Representative
Ricnard w. Austin Of Tennessee. Mr.
Austin Is a member from the second
Tennessee district, which always
elects Republicans. but he stands
highly among his people Of both par
ties as public spirited, progressive
citizen. Reared near the Muscle
Shoals Of the Tennessee river in Ala
bama. and long a resident of Knox-
Vile on the upper Tennessee, he has
been always an ardent advocate of
river and harbor improvements and
has been a constant attendant upon
conventions devoted to the subject.
II base my sanguine look ahead:
added Mr.. Austin, upon the plainiJ
apparent national awakening to the
Importance OF this public work which
has gone forward within the last few
years. recall that during the time
when the railway rate question was
at the height Of its agitation in con-
gress. Alabama's great American
statesman, Senator John T. Morgan,
declared that to his mind the safest
step toward solution of transpor-
tation problems was in the adequate
improvement and care for navigation
Of our unsurpassed system Of water
ways. With that idea I fully agree:
The most poorly Informed man who
lives. on the hank Of a river that can
float freight-carrying. boat, who is
anywhere near a railroad, knows that
1t is the river that gives him a cheap
er freight rate than his brother who
happens to live In Q western town on
a railroad, but remote from a navi-
gable river: He has come to know
that railroad rate regulation has not
yet solved the problem to the salts,
faction Of his brother, and II the lat
ter be man Of discerning intelli-
gence he will know that he will be
somewhat at the mercy Of the rail-
road, IL 1t operates without competi-
tiQn. Agitation for complete regula-
ti6n Of the railroads, begun effective
ly during the Roosevelt administra-
tton, will continue, and ought to con-
tinue. stopping only at live-and-let
live policy, and avoiding everything
that savors Of. confiscation. That will
go on, and we might as we'll realize
1t. We have yet to learn what is fair
between the carrier as a public serv-
ant and the public. To my mind it
would be best for the railways, as
we'll as for business peace and sta
bility, that the government should go
ahead pursuing a liberal policy Of
improvements to the end of complet-
ing nationwide, harmonious water
way system, and that by annual i'm
provements. We, in some localities
do not always agree with the army
engineers in charge of projects, but
they are our indispensable guides,
and In the board Of engineers for
rivers and harbors we have a high
class court of last resort, to which
we can appeal when our business
people see fault to find in the re-
port and recommendation or lack of
recommendation by the local engi-
neer.
Selling Water Power.
Another, and a very important
question incidental to waterway inn
provement which, the ill-considered
debate of the extra session developed
when the bill for the improvement of
the Black Warrior river in Alabama,
was pending is a satisfactory solu-
tion Of the water power problem. It
would be shameful discredit to our
practical craftsmanship If We should
have to confess that we never could
utilize our waterpowers because the
constitution inhibited the govern
ment from making sale of water
power. The government in it's pub
lie works on the rivers has been per-
suaded to construct dams and for
something else besides purposes of
navigation, as witness what has been
done in the irrigation Of arid lands
in the west, while in the reclama-
tion service It has gone into busi-
ness, just as would a private party
or a corporation securing fund
from the proceeds of the sales Of
public lands. I am not Of that class
who think at any time lightly or ir-
reverently Of the constitution of the
United States, but I am one Of those
who believe in the wise comment of
its greatest interpreter, John Mar
shall. when he said of it in a noted
opinion-in McCulloch Va. Maryland