Monroe City Democrat. (Monroe City, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1911-11-16
so SAYS LYMAN &. COOLEY, RY.
DRAuLlc ENGINEER OF
CHICAGO.
MISSISSIPPI RIVER DAMS
Proposed Waterway Dams Would
Yield 100000 Annually to
State Revenue If Utilized
for Power.

II the present watchdogs of our
state treasury should suddenly be
slipped up on and told that eight
millions of yellow dollars were each
year dripping through their out
stretched fingers there would be a
howl raised which would reverberate
from the stone bluffs at Jefferson
City to the uttermost confines of Cal
laway county. Likewise there would
be many wild-eyed state employees
running amuck with handfuls of ochre
to plug up the aforesaid leaks, and all
of General Rumboldt's newly-uni-
formed minions, not to mention Gov
ernor Hadley's colonies, would be set
a-watching until each and every vel.
low dollar had been found, officially
pinched, and sealed with the thumb
nail mark Of the pinching officials.
Yet that there are just that many dol
lars slipping by the state is said to
be true, and no less a parsonage than
the Hon. Lyman E. Cooley Of Chicago,
engineer extraordinary, has the honor
of so informing us.
state of Illinois, the Lakes-to-the-Gulf
Deep Waterway Association, and 9th
er organizations to report upon
the method, cost ETC., of building the
proposed fourteen-foot waterway from
Chicago to the Gulf. In his report,
now a matter of newspaper history
and engineering discussion. Mr.. Cooley
hr,in
have to be built at two places along
the Missouri border-one at Jefferson
Barracks, and one at Commerce.
Taking the dimensions of these pro-
posed dams on large sheet of paper
in one hand. and a blue pencil in the
other, the Missouri Waterway Com
| mission, which for the past year has
| been digging and wading-mostly
! wading-into the water resources of
| the state, began figuring what all Of
| this water which was to go over the
( jumps would do if properly harnessed.
The figures arrived at eclipse even
the automobile advertisements and
the Missouri egg permutations.
1t takes a lot to hold down a chunk
| of water a mile wide, more or less,
and twenty feet thick, when it falls
eight feet straight down. The result
in electric horse power is the trifiing
sum of two hundred thousand for
each dam, making four hundred thou
sand for two-adding being our strong
point-whfch figure brings with it the
realization that there are thousands
of manufacturers painfully aching for
chance to pay $4,000 per year for
each one of these electric horse pow.
multiplier in the third reader class
can easily ascertain that four hun
dred thousand horse power multiplied
by twenty dollars equals eight mil
lion dollars, not eight million horse
power.
l. Here is where the state of Missouri
comes inAthat is, it has not yet, but
could. All Of this much yearned for
eight million dollars belongs to Uncle
Sam, who owns the navigable waters
in the earth beneath and all that in
them is. But the state of Illinois has
voted twenty million dollars to Uncle
Sam to help build the fourteen-boot
channel through their state In ex
change for the water power on the
Illinois river. Begin to catch the idea
Uncle Sam does not much want water
power being some powerful already
but might care for a few millions 70
held build "a waterway which Mis-
souri, and other states concernee
seem determined to get.
Mr. Cooley has suggested that the
two dams could be built and equipped
with power plants for ten million dol.
lars, hence the Missouri Waterway
Commission is butily engaged getting
ali the facts and figures ready to
show the Legislators what can be done
IL they are disposed 70 build two
dams and present them to the United
States, taking in return a quit claim
deed to two power bouaes, which
power houses will yield the trining
sum Of eight million dollars per year
In reVenue--all Of which probably
means no state deficits, maybe no
school taxes. and maybe q cheaper
cost Of living in the dim but certain
future.