The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-09-05
Start Is Being Made Which
Will Develop Into Ex-
tensive Projects
LOWER MICHIGAN
ONE OF HIS HOBBIES
Comparatively Little Work Is Neces-
sary to Complete the Inter-
coastal Project Along the
Atlantic Seaboard
ny HOLLAND

New York, September 4.-(Special 1.-The
late Maj. Frank S. Bond lived long enough
10 KNOW that a plan which he for years
warmly advocated-the purchase by the
FEDERAL government of the Albermarle and
chesapeake canal, which connects Nor
FOLK with the sounds of North Carolina
and which, when improved, will give a
perfectly safe inside group beyond Cape
datteras-became an accomplished fact.
The enthusiasm with which Major Bond
often spoke of canal construction in the
United States, especially east of the Mis-
sissiopi river, caused some of his friends
to be astonished They looked upon him
as one of the highly successful railroad
managers. All his life, excepting when
he was in service in the civil war, he
was identified with very successful rail-
road management. His career covered
much of the country east of the Missis-
sippi and some sections west, for he was
at one time president of the Texas and
Pacific Railroad company. He was prom
inently identified with the Reading rail-
road. and was one of the strongest intel
leetual forces associated with the Chicago,
Milwaukee and st. Paul railroad.
1t was this varied and always highly
successful career railroad manager
which caused his friends often to wonder
why he should speak with such enthus-
iasm of canal development in the United
States.
In a conversation with the present
writer few years before his DEATH Major
Bond outlined his view of what the
American canal system on broad, compre-
hensive lines should be. He spoke par
ticularly of the inevitable construction of
a canal across Cape Cod of the necessary
enlargement of the existing canal across
New Jersey the building of another
which would be a true ship canal, of an
Improvement of the canal across the Della
ware peninsula, which would make it nav
igablc for the largest vessels engaged in
coastwise trade, and particularly of the
Improvement of the ditch dug across Dis
NAL swamp, already navigable for small
craft, whereby it would be possible to
avoid Cape Hatteras and secure a safe
and shortened passage between the sounds
of North Carolina and Boston by way of
Baltimore. Philadelphia and New York.
The Great Canal
Major Bord then said that If the gov
ernment were to be called upon to con-
struct an intercoastal canal system, even
though it did that in cooperation with
the states which would be especially BEN
efitted by such canal construction, the
people would rightfully insist that the
government share in certain interior canal
development which he regarded as OF the
highest Importance for the commercial
development of the country. Major Bond
confessed that he had in mind the con-
struction of ship canal across the lower
peninsula of Michigan which would con-
meet Lake Michigan with Lake Erie and
make thereby the long passage north
and south by way of the Straits of Mack
inaw through the whole length of Lake
Huron and also Lake Michigan unneces-
sary.
Supplementing the Railroads
Major Bond said that as he was al
ready advanced in years, he could not
reasonably expect to live long enough to
see the government in cooperation with
some of the states undertake the con-
struction of a ship canal across lower
Michigan. But he regarded its construc-
tion as inevitable in a future not distant,
and he declared that instead of impair
ing the earning capacity of railroads.
canal facilities, when properly handled,
ought always to supplement the railroad
and the railroad to supplement the canal.
He meant by thstt clat the waterways and
the railroads would each create traffic to
mutual advantage, and there is distinct
recollection of the earnestness with which
Major Bond said, II speak as a railway