The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1911-12-12
The System

BY the rivers and harbors act of
survey for a continuous waterway, in
land, along the Atlantic and Gulf
coasts, including across Florida.
District engineers have reported on
most of the distance. Some portions
of the chain are yet under consid-
Grafton.
The board of engineers for rivers
and harbors and the chief of engineers
will consider all the reports at the
same time, treating them together,
first, as forming complete system.
It becomes important therefore to ex-
anime the subject from that stand
point.
1. Speaking generally, the duty of
the federal government under the
commerce clause of the constitution,
is plain. When Chief Justice Mar
shall pheld that commerce includes
navigation and decided the case of
Gibbons VS.. Ogden, g Wheaton 1-1S9),
he not only placed beyond doubt that
commerce comes within the regulat
ing power of congress. and the power
to regulate II embraces all the instru-
ments by which such commerce may
be conducted (91 u. S. 275), but that
the navigable waters of the country
were under the care and guardianship
and control, for purposes of naviga-
ton, for commercial intercourse, of the
general government.
The duty devolves upon congress,
possessing such power and authority,
to have the navigable waters placed
and maintained in such condition, as
an agency of commerce, as to meet
the demands of increasing population
and wealth. (96 U. S. u.
Separate and isolated navigable wa
tiers are no more sufficient, however
desirable in each instance, than would
be separate pieces of railroad, each
having different width and varying
equipment.
One great step in making useful and
efficient the railroad service of the
country was standardizing them and
making them available-practically as
if the lines were connected into sys-
TENS. Thus cars could move across
the country and freight be transported,
from one point to another, however
distant, without breaking bulk.
So the government falls short of it's
duty in respect to the waterways I'M
less it connects the disable portions
wherever practicable, in such sort as
will make a continuous system. If the
navy yard at Pensacola needs supplies
produced on the Alabama river, that
river serves only a part of it's function
unless 1t is extended by utilizing the
bays and lakes and streams which
need only to be connected up to extend
merchant in Jacksonville wants the
product of the mills at Columbus, the
Flint and Apala chicola rivers should
bring them to him, and the govern
ment fails to make the most of these
rivers unless it sees them connected
with the st. Johns river. Nature has
so plainly pointed the way and made
the task so easy it is positively waste
full and shiftless not to take advantage
of the condition, and by removing a few
yards of sand have these rivers meet
and it made possible for boats to carry
the products Of the country back and
forth.
So, all along the Atlantic coast, in
the making, with only here and there
a slight obstruction, little back from
the ocean, as if providing for escape
from the dangers and risks by smaller
craft incident to ventures upon the
great highway, nature built a passage
along which much of the commerce,
most of the pleasure craft and the
smaller boats, including a fiotilla which
might be used in protecting the coast
settlements from an enemy, can move
with safety and dispatch, convenience
and profit.
If the pepole of Florida would like
to exchange their fruits or phosphates
for the rice or sugar of Louisiana, they
should be able to do it with a mini
OIL anu
has provided the water on which to
float these commodities if the govern
ment will assume its responsibilities
and remove the few barriers to unin-
terrupted navigation between the
shipping points. The father of waters.
reaching to the center of farm pro-
duction in this country, extending by
the cotton center to the center of pop
ulation and. by its tributaries, to the
corn center and the geographical cen
ter, will be made vastly more service
able. if in addition to flowing into the
Gulf, it is, by comparatively little eff
fort and expense, following the clear
indications of Providence, made to join
the Atlantic as we'll.
1t may be urged that as the naviga-
BILE waters in the state and the lands
under such waters are the property of
the state and are held in trust for the
use of all the people of the state for