The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1915-02-18
Our Rivers and Harbors.
Speaker Champ Clark Favors the Improve.
ment of our Waterways.

"ohir>HAON, -. ", L Gu Aos A0Aos
"God Almighty in His infinite wisdom
and goodness has given US the most mag
nificent system of waterways that was
ever vouchsafed to any people in the his
tory of the world, and we have been
more negligent in improving and using
them than any other civilized people on
on the face of the globe" 1t was 1.-The
Speaker" speaking Champ Clark, as he
is Familiarity known from one end of the
country to the other-who has been a
member of the House of Represent
tives for twenty years, was Speaker of
the Sixty-second Congress, is speaker of
the Sixty-third, and will undoubtedly be
the Speaker of the Sixty-fourth as well.
"Of course l am in favor of improving
our rivers and harbors," continued the
Speaker. "No imam who wasn't could
represent my constituents, for my dis
trict skirts the Mississippi for 160 miles,
and straddles the Missouri for ITO more.
But that is not the only reason, nor even
the most important reason, why | am
interested in waterways, for | consider
that the conservation, improvement and
development of our national resources
affecting, as it does, not only ourselves,
but our childen to the remotest genera
tion-Is the greatest problem before the
American people.
81 have asserted time and again, both
in Congress and out of it, that it would
be profitable investment for the Amer
ican people to make these rivers navig
able; in fact, if there never was another
passenger or pound of freight carried
over them, because they would regulate
freight rates. But do net believe that
there will be any lack IF passengers or
freight to use them when they are i'm
proved, nor do believe that their i'm
provement will injure the railroads in
the long run. Ii we ever make these
rivers navigable, here is what will hap
pen: the heavy freight, the stuff that is
not'perishable Immediately, will be carried
by the boats, and the perishable freight
and passengers, most of them, will be
carried on the railroads.
"a man who has travelled over this
country as much as | have in the last
twenty years knows that one of these
two things must happen-ei the
railroads have got to double-track or
uuadruple- track their roads; or the riv-
ers have got to be made navigable. if
the freight of this country is to be
carried. The United States has not COM
pleted its growth-it is still in its in
fancy. This nation is not finshed-it
has hardly been begun. The principal
trouble of the railroads today is not so
much track as terminals, and the time
is coming when the railroads, no matter
how many tracks they have, will not be
able to do the business.
1--WE are inclined to boast of the o.
600, 900 people which we had at the time
of the last census, or the 100, 900, 600
which we probably have today, but let
US take a little look into the future.
Until a short time ago the farmers of
this country were trying to spread them
selves out over as many acres as posi-
BILE. Now they are beginning to see that
what they have got to do is to go down
into the soil and get as much out of every
acre as possible. Some years ago James
Wilson of Iowa, who for sixteen years
was Secretary of Agriculture, made
speech in which he said that if the Mis-
sissippi Valley were cultivated for all it
is worth, each acre on the average
would sustain one human being. Do you
know how many people that would give
US? 1t would give US 1850, 900, 900 peo-
pie between the top of the Rockies and
the crest of the Alleghenies.
During the twenty years that l have
been in Congress a good many Rivers
and Harbor bills have been passed, and
every one of them has been derlded and
denounced and called "Pork Barrel"
If there ever was time when that epi-
tibet applied to river and harbor lie gisla-
ton, that time has passed. The chief
trouble in the past has been not that too
much money was appropriated for river
and harbor work, but too little; and the
appropriations came too far apart. The
old policy of river and harbor appropria-
tons biennially, or at even longer inter-
gass, was a serious mistake. The inter-
vening years, without appropriations by
Congress, witnessed the might of the
waters undoing the work done under
previous appropriations. Since its COM
mencement, five years ago, the wisdom
of the policy of annual appropriations
for rivers and harbors has been convinc-
ingly demonstrated and completely JUS
titled.
"The Rivers and Harbors bill which
recently passed the House, and is now
pending in the Senate, makes appropria-
tons for no new projects and carries a
total of only $34, 900, 600, in round num-
bers. Economy was probably necessary
this year, under existing conditions, but
in ordinary times the $50, 100000 annual
ly asked for by the National Rivers and
Harbor Congress ought to be the mini