Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1914-11-01

SnOulQ nave access upon payment Vi IedSO1l-
able charges. Only two ports in the United
States, New Orleans and San Francisco,
have established the public control of ter
ninals.
Herein we have much to learn from the
example furnished us in continental Europe.
In such countries as Belgium, Germany, and
France the ter1nini are either owned or con-
trolled by the public, and are equipped with
modern warehouses, elevators, rolling by
draulic. and electric cranes, as well as
hydraulic floating cranes, and ample track
age for loading and unloading and transfer
ring cargoes between boats and railroad
cars. In some recent inland waterway I'M
provements in France fifty per cent. of the
cost must be contributed by local interests,
while the national government supplies the
rest. We are facing this problem of proper
terminals in the United States, and must
take steps for its early solution.
Yet it is rather question for local munich
palities than for the nation. There should
be, as in Europe, proper division between
the national and the local functions in the
Improvements of Our waterways. The fed
eral government should bear a reasonable
part of the expense for improving and main
tanning channels, while the local commune
ties should furnish at least adequate docks
and terminal facilities. In view of the fact
that the indifference of municipalities to
their obligation in this regard largely nulli-
fes the benefits that would accrue otherwise
from the vast appropriations for improving
Our rivers, it would be wise innovation for
the national government to declare that it
would make no further improvements in
rivers and harbors unless it should receive
undoubted assurances that local public or
private enterprise would provide adequate
terminal facilities and equipment.
Manifestly the whole nation ought not to
be taxed for an essentially local improve
ment. Many of the projects now urged
with the greatest insistence would be ignored
if the localities interested were forced to
share the cost of any Improvements that
might be undertaken.
1T is not enough to say that the methods
of loading and unloading freight on the
rivers of the United States are crude. They
are almost as crude as they were in the days
Of Noah and the Ark, when the loading and
unloading, as now, were done on mans
back. Our rivers are without wharves,
without tackle, without cranes, without any
of those modern appliances which are abso-
lutely necessary for the economical handling
of freight. On many of our rivers the boats
merely run their prows into the banks and
throw out plank On our Southern rivers,
even at such large ports as St. Louis and
Memphis, we are still loading and unloading
our boats by @roustabouts,7 just as we did
before the Civil War, or by block and tackle
operated by hand.
On most of our rivers the antiquated
packets of fifty or sixty years ago are still
in use; though barges are employed on con-
siderable scale in the higher stages of water.
Half century has brought no improve
ments. The contrast is all the more marked
when we consider the wonderful progress
made in that era in the railroad world, with
steel freight cars, enormous mogul engines,
ock-ballastroadb and standard trackage.
Our condition appeals with singular force
to the student of European waterway
methods. In Europe steel barges in enor-
nous tows are seen on all rivers and canals.
On the Rhine, the most famous inland water
route in the world from six to ten of these
barges loaded with coal, iron ore, grain, and
similar bulk freight constitute a single tow.
These barges have capacity of from 900
to 400 tons each. On the German canals,
such as the Tetlow Canal, near Berlin, the
barges are frequently propelled by motor
cars running on tracks parallel to the canals.
In the United States canal boats are still