Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1911-03-10
II WREckLNd OF 7nE NORRIS CANAL.

0Ta HE State of New Jersey now has under construction a canal
waterway between Bay Head and Cape May, about the same
length as the Morris canal. There il q bill In the Legisla-
ture for an appropriation for the construction of another canal
or, rather, an extension, from Bay Head to the Highlands. Newark
liz about to build a canal across the meadows. All the cities OF the
State that border on navigable waters are intent upon waterway
improvements. The Legislature is debating a bill for a large ap
preparation with which the State can buy the right OF way for a
ship canal across New Jersey and present it to the federal govern
ment. Just at this time Senator Fielder, of Hudson county, who is
sponsor of corporate bills, introduces in the Legislature a bill
authorizing the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company, the lessee Of
the Morris canal, to complete the wrecking of the canal and appro-
pirate all the canal assets, including the large equities OF the state.
We have it on the word of the corporation that secured control OF
the Morris canal, with no other purpose except to secure Its terminal
at tidewater and destroy its business, that canal navigation is
"obsdete" Then why build other canals in New Jersey II canal
navigation is a thing of the past? Why undergo the expense of the
inland waterway? Why should the State appropriate half a mil
lion for the right of way for a ship canal? Why should New York
expend sos, OO0, 900 for new canal construction? What h the sense
of the national waterways movement and of the building OF a
coastal canal from Massachusetts, bay TO Florida? But then, again,
why should we take the unsupported testimony of the party most
interested in the destruction of the Morris canal and the exploita.
ton of it's assets as to the uselessness of canal navigation? There
of successful canal enterprise in Europe, the constant extension of
the canal system there and the new canals projected or in course
of construction in this country. The late Cortlandt Parker, the
Nestor of the New Jersey bar, in two notable addresses in 1905 on
the subject of a canal bill, of which the Fielder bill is almost q
counterpart, pronounced the wrecking of the Morris canal by the
Lehigh Valley Railroad Company to be a "crime," and he branded
those responsible for it as Criminals" He described the acts by
which the canal had been wrecked and showed by numerous citations
from legal authorities that any and all of these acts would involve
The forfeiture of the canal charter. He Indignantly demanded to
know whether the men who had committed this crime against the
State should receive a colossal reward for their work. That question
recurs again. There has been no investigation of the wrecking of
the Morris canal. The Governors commission admittedly made only
a cursory examination of the canal lessees property and admittedly
did not investigate the acts of the lessees or the causes for canal
decadence. Upon what principle of right and of justice to the State
could a legislature accept without question the interested plea Of
the trustee of this great property, adopt without investigation an
explanation that is utterly inconsistent with the trustees acts as
well as with known facts, and surrender the wrecked property to
him for his private enrichment?