The Leader, enterprise and press. (Fitzgerald, Ga.) 1915-1921, 1916-09-13

~ "N0 s. NoI1y lSllCNCQ WHICH,
1T was finally settled that the
threatened railroad strike would
not come off, but it is very doubt
ful, says statement issued by
the National Rivers and Harbors
Congress, whether ANYBODY
drew a deeper breath of relief
than certain people in the Navy
Department-and no one who
knows what the navy people were
up against will wonder that this
is so.
The work of building and re-
pairing battleships and other ma
val craft must, of course, be done
IN shlpyards located on the coast,
but practically all the material
used both for construction and re-
pair comes from the interior,
much of it from points hundreds
of miles from tidewater. For in
stance, armor plate comes from
Bethlehem, Pa, and steel. in
many shapes for many uses, from
Pittsburgh.
ut is vitality important that this
material shall be moved regular
ly and continuously from the
points where it is made to the
places where it is to be used,
and this movement has been en-
tirely by rail. Just as soon, chere-
tore, as it was seen that general
strike on the railroads OF the
country was actually impending,
an investigation was started to
see if there were any routes avail
able for its movements by water.
For instance, if work was to be
continued on the battleship New
Mexico, it would be necessary to
move $500 tons of steel within
six weeks from the mills at Pitts
burgh to the navy yard at Brook
Ign. Could it be done at all :? Was
there more than one route that
could be used? If so, what route
was the best, the shortest, and es-
pecially, the quickest?
"The first thing discovered was
that there is no map or document,
official or otherwise, that shows
or describes the waterways in the
United States. The reports of
the Chief of Engineers give the
fullest possiblexinformation as to
the rivers and Tarbors under con-
troll of the War Department, but
not, a word about state-owned or
private canals. The General
Staff and the War College have
maps showing all lines of trans
portation in certain areas, special
studies of which have been made
in working out problems of de-
tense, but no maps or data cover
ing the country as whole or any
considerable portions thereof.
Commercial maps and aliases
were found to be worse than use
less, since most of them do not
even pretend to show any water
ways except the principal rivers,
and of the rest no two agree in
what they show.
1t is only a little way from
Pittsburgh to Lake Erie and a
canal across this short cut has
been both proposed and opposed
for many years. So far the oppo-
sers have won, but if the Navy
Department could have got hold
of Aladdin's lamp two weeks ago,
that canal would have been built
quicker than a wink. With a sigh
for what might have been, and
ought to be, but isn't, the naval
Investigators turned hopefully to
the three canals across the state
of Ohio, only to find after a siren
uous search that the best of the
lot has sections twenty miles
long which have no water in
them, and that the only way to
get from Pittsburgh to the Lakes
by water is to go down the Ohio,
UP the Mississippi and the Hi
nois and through sixty miles OF
more of the out-of-date Illinois
and Michigan canal to Chicago
Another possible route from
Pittsburgh to Brooklyn was
down the Ohio and Mississippi
and then by ocean steamer from
New Orleans.
"a little further search reveal
ed the fact that no dependence
could be placed on the Ohio, be
cause this is the season of low
water and not one-third of the
dams needed to insure nine foo
channel have yet been completed
Material started down the Ohio