Morgan County republican., 1911-02-23
90 SAYS LYMAN e. COOLEY, nv.
pRAULic ENGINEER OF
CHICAGO.
RIVER DAMS
Proposed Waterway Dams Would
Yield $s,ooo,o 900 Annually to
State Revenue ~ Utillxed
Tor Power.

II the present watchdogs Of our
state treasury should suddenly be
4 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 bluns at Jefferson
City to the uttermost c0nfnes 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 Rumboldts newly.uni.
formed minions. not to mention Gov
ernor Hadley's colonels, would be set
a-watching until each and every vel.
| low dollar had been found, officially
pinchsd. 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 hopNr
of SO informing us.
Mr.. Cooley vas engaged by the
state OF Illinois, the Lakes.tothe-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 q matter OF newspaper history
and engineering discussion. Mr.. Cooley
hSskaHv M
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 wadins-- mostly
wading-into the water resources Of
the state. began figuring what all OF
this water which was to 60 over the
Jumps would do II properly .harnessed.
The figures arrived at eclipse even
the automobile advertisements and
the Missouri egg permutations.
II takes q lot to hold down q chunk
of water a mile wide. more or less.
and twenty Feet thick, when II falls
eight feet straight down. The result
Ia electric horse power 10 the trifiing
sum OF two hundred thousand for
each dam. making four hundred thou
sand for two-adding being our strong
point-which figure brings with It the
realization that there are thousands
Of manufacturers painfully aching for
. chance to pay 5000 per year for
each one Of these electric horse pow.
ers. or horses power. The poorest
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.
Here 10 where the state Of Missouri
comes in-thst 10. 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.foot
channel through their state In ex-
change for the water power ON tho
Illinois river. Begin to catch the idea!
Uncle Sam does not much want water
power. being SOME powerful already,
but might care Tor . few millions to
held build waterway which Mis-.
souri, and other states concerned
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 busily engaged getting
all the facts and figures ready to
show the legislators what can be done
II they are disposed to build two
dams and present them to the United
States. taking In return q quit claim
deed to two power houses. which
power houses will yield the trining
sum Of eight million dollars per year
In revenue-sll Of which probably
means no state deficits. maybe NO
school taxes. and maybe q cheaper
cost Of living in the dim but certain
future.