Bisbee daily review., 1911-09-20
RIVERS WILL SOLVE
 RAILROAD PROBLEM
TeneSSee Congressman Be- lieVeS There is a National
 Awakening 10 that Fact
NAVIGABILlTY IS COMING

WASHINGTON, D. C., Sept. I9.- q confidently expect that the next ten years will witness a degree of ITogress in waterway improvements ln this country which VIII contribute enormously to its prosperity said Representative Richard w. Austin, of Tennessee. Mir. Austin is a member from the second Tennessee district which always elects republicans, but he stands highly among his people of both parties as a public spirited, pro gressive citizen. Reared near the Muscle. Shoals, of the Tennessee Riy- CT in Alabama, and long a resident of Knoxville on the upper Tennessee, he has been aLsays an ardent advocate of river and hakboT improvements and has been a constant attendant upon conventions devoted to the sub ject.
 T base my sanguine look ahead, added MT. Austin, upon the plainly apparent national awakening to the importance of this public work which has gone forward within the last few years. l recall that during the time when the railway rate question was at the height of its agitation in congress, Alabama's great American statesman, Senator John T. Morgan, declared that to his mind the safest step toward a solution of transpoTta- ton problems was in the adequate improvement and care for navigation Of our unsurpassed system of water ways. With that idea l fully agree. The most poorly informed man who lives on, the bank of a river can float 8 freight carrying boat; who is any where near a railroad, knows that it is the river that gives him a cheaper freight rate than his brother who hap pens to live n a western town or a railroad, bat remote from Q naviga- bic river. He Eas come to know that railroad rate regulation has not yet solved the problem to the satisfac- ton of his brother, and if the latter be man of discerning intelligence he will know that he will be somewhat at the mercy of the railroad, if it operates without competition. Agita. tion for complete regulation of the
 
 Roosevelt administration, will con tinue, and ought to continue, stopping only at a livo-andIet-live policy, and avoiding everything that savers of confscation. That will go on, and we might as well realize it. We have yet to learn what is fair be- tween the carrier as a public servant and the public, To my mind it would be best for the railways, as well as for business peace and stability, that the government should go ahead pur- suing a liberal policy of improvements to the end of completing a nation wide, harmonious waterway system, and that by annual improvements. 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 har- tors we have a high-ciass court of last resort, to which we can appeal wnsE our business people see a fault to find in the report any recommenda- ton or lack Of recommendation by the local engineer.
 Another, and a very important question incidental to waterway i'm pTovement which, the ill-considered debate of the extra session developed when the bill for the improvement of the Black Warrior River in Alabama,