Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1911-11-16
BURKE URGES IMPROVEMENT
Continued from page IL

Continued from page l.
were again reminded that the same
ratio continued to exist. This is al
most sixteen to one, and l want to
say at the outset that it will not be
necessary to repeat it in the future
for remembering the ratio We will
keep our places.
Interstate commerce on our naViga'
BILE rivers Is exclusively under the
control of congress, and in congress
is vested the power and the only pow
er for their improvement; and the
governors only desire to aid and as
sist in creating public sentiment that
will support and endorse any reason
able action congress may take for the
improvement of our navigable waters,
told you at the Memphis conver'
ton that we had one river running
down from Canada into our state
some sixty or seventy miles, and then.
apparently disguised with the neglect
and Indifference of the American
people, turned around and flowed back
into Canada. That river still flows
back into Canada. l have been up at
the turn in the river since the recent
Canadian election and as I watched
it ripping by it seemed to me that !
could hear it murmuring and gurgling
on it's way-no reciprocity. And |
wondered what turn it would take
after the speaker of the national house
of representatives had annexed Can
ada.
did not tell you all about this
river On its way back into Canada.
apparently in spirit Of retaliation, it
flows out over the country and inun-
dates some $4,000 acres of as fine ag-
ricultural land as there is in the
world. Under the drainage laws
drainage district in our state, in order
to get sufficient fall to carry off the
water, has undertaken to improve and
deepen this river distance OF Is
miles into Canada, or Manitoba, of
course with the permission of the
Manitoba government, and our SUI
preme court has sustained its action.
l mention this because so far as
know it is the only case on record
where such work has been carried on
in foreign land, and to show how
far legislation and courts may 60 when
the general welfare Of the public de-
mands it.
The improvement of ocr rivers is
in harmony with the general plan OF
our natural resources.
Properly improved they are great re-
sources for the benefit and use OF all
the people. We have been so afili-
ated with commercialism and the de-
sire to convert our natural resources
into cash that we have been working
in and for the present with no thought
for the future. We have granted to
private corporations large part OF
the public domain, and assisted in
other ways in the building of trans
lines of rilyway. am not
any act Of the government
in encouraging the building of rail-
ways, for the railroad is necessary to
secure the settlement and develop
ment of the country and they are
often built into localities where they
operated at loss for time at least.
l call attention to it for in spite OF
all this assistance and encouragement
the railroads could not keep pace with
the general development of the coun-
try, and as early as 1906 it was ap-
parent to every producer that the
railroads had ceased to be an ade-
luate means of transportation. 1t
was along about this time that we be-
gan to take an inventory of our as
sets and among other things We dis
covered that while railroad building
1ad increased only Is per cent in ten
years prior to 1907, that freight pro-
AUCTIONS had increased $50 per cent
That the cost of all material which
enters into the construction of rail-
Dad was increasing enormously in
yalue; that the timber from which the
'ailroad ties are made would be ex-
lausted within twenty-five years, and
hat there was no possibility of the
railroads. ever overtaking the develop
nent in other lines and becoming ad.
,quate means of transportation. In