The Washington herald., 1913-06-15
Rich, Energetic, and Practical
Men Are Working Toward
This Great Economical
Goal-Members Of Rivers
and Harbors Congress.
By JAMES B. MORROW.

Some day when leisurely and
scrutinizing American wants to see
the inside and outside OF his coun-
try, he will go aboard a ship at
Boston, not an ocean liner, but a
steamer towing a row of steel barges
loaded with New England granite, or,
perhaps, Nova Scotia coal. He will sail
along the rim of the Atlantic Coast,
through rivers, bays, sounds, and con-
Meeting canals. Storms will not endanger
his life.
Following the sea. from port to port,
up and down the wild Atlantic, is dan
gerous business. Coastal vessels hug
ging the shore and rounding treacherous
capes are wrecked on reefs and bars.
During the first decade of this century,
200 vessels met with disaster between
Fassamaquoday Bay and the Strait OF
Florida. Twenty-Five hundred lives were
lost Forty millions of property was de-
stroyed.
The vocational and curious American
will journey through the pine thickets
Of New Jersey and into Delaware and
Maryland. New canals and old ones,
cleaned out and deepened, will have
shortened his voyage 40 miles and taken
him below the twisting and hazardous
currents of Cape Hatteras.
Thence Southwark he will be without
peril. II 1t be winter, he will see robins
and other familiar birds among the
trees: also flowers blooming in fields
and gardens. And all the while, it must
be remembered, he will be sitting on
the deck OF a steamboat.
A canal through the State Of Florida
will save him a sail Of a thousand miles
by way of Key West and bring him into
the calm waters of the Gulf OF Mexico.
Entering the Mississippi River, we will
ascend to the mouth of the Missouri.
above st. Louis.
4 Westward course from that point
will carry him to Kansas City. Here the
Missouri Strengthens out toward the
North and he will pass Omaha, in Ne
braska, and finally reach Sioux City in
Iowa. Perhaps he may go onward to
Bismark, up against the border line OF
Canada. Whether his boat stops at Sioux
city or not. he has made a remarkagle
journey.
Into the Middle West by Boat.
Groups of the ablest men in the coun-
try are working now TO make the jour
ney possible. Other groups are working
toward journeys equally as wonderful
4 ship canal will be dug from Chicago
TO the Illinois River. When that has
been done. a barge under its own steam
will be enabled to leave New York City
by the Hudson River and return by the
coastal route, already men
toned, touching in its voyage at Albany,
Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit. Milwaukee,
Chicago. St Louis, New Orleans, Bal
timore and Philadelphia.
These men, rich, energetic, and prac-
teal. are organized into associations.
Each association has its own project.
But all OF the associations and all of the
men belong to the National Rivers and
Harbors Congress. The object of the
single and collective projectors is TO es-
Ia blish a national system of connected |
There are 81 harbors in the !
United States. and 5000 miles of navi- !
gable rivers and canals. All are to be |
developed.
New canals are to be constructed. !
Freights are 20 come down. Living, II
is phophesied, will be made cheaper.
it is said. costs the peo-
pie of this country three times as much
as government-municipal State, and
The man who pays so in taxes, !
local and national, pays $50 for trans |
portation in wagons, on railways and in
vessels. 1t is figured in the flour. out
Of which his bread is baked; in his but |
ter, meat, and milk in his shoes, coat. !
and hat; in the visits he makes to rela- |
tives and friends, and in his excursions |
for business or pleasure. Transporta- |
ton has kept Legislators. judges, law |
yers orators, and writer's busy for years |