The Alaska daily empire., 1918-08-28
Canalizing the Rivers.


 The greatest victory ever by those who have earnestly advocated revival of river traffic IS the decision of Director General McAdoo to estaoilsn Government boat and barge line on the Msslssppi between St Louis and New Orleans This decisoin, together with the appointment Of M J oahuers o New Orleans Federal manager of the boat me and the energetic measures already taken by MT Sanders to acquire the equipment ana naugura'e 'ne
 It has been brought home to the business men of the valley, also that the success or failure or the boat line depends upon them If river transportation is to be established permanent scale and for longer time than the period of the war. It must be handled business proposition. In other words the traffic must pay for the service and yield such returns that private capital may be ln- if the Government decides to dispose of it, after the
 Passing beynd this phase of the subject. which is well understood, face the question of what IS to done about the navigation of other streams Government boats and barges are already In use to a limited etxent the Upper Mississippi, but the service is still largely experimental If the service on the lower river is success, as seems inevitable there will be a demand for Government control on the Ohio, the Upper Mississippi, the Missouri, the Illinois, the Tennessee. Arkansas and other streams Lower Mississippi has, and each of them offers prob lems that different from the others In a gen nine to eleven months of the and if enough light draft boats and barges can be built to maintain a regular service all of them will produce traffic enough to warrant the expenditure from the start.
 In this connection is timely to recall that the War Department has minute details of the engineer ing problems presented by each of the navigable streams of the great inland valley These data have
 
 ice, graduates of West Point and the most capable in their line
 Practically problem presented by the shifting currents of the streams of this country has been studied and solution suggested. The plans are in blue print form and require only little revision to make them available for immediate This mass of work, which the army engineers were engaged for years before the war. has never been made of because Congress has appropriated the money to carry the plans out fully. They are in existence, however, and under the stress of trans portation needs, calling upon every stream to do it's duty, they will be found to a vast amount of detail work and great deal of time for those river improvement.
 The complete canalization of the rivers of the valley has long been dream of the army engineers In the archives of the Department complete plans fo rcontrolling the flow and regulating the depth of every stream of any size in the Middle West Some these plans have been put into effect partially but with a continuous appropriation of the kind necessary to complete them
 On the whole, where the process of equalization has been further carried out than elsewhere, the plans call for damming the streams intervals, as means of increasing the depth On other streams swing dams recommended Wherever built, they have proved fully successful in dehecting the rent and causing the river to out its own channel. Competent engineers believe they represent the cheapest and most practicable method of dealing the greatest degree of navigablity
 United States army engineers, who the best mathematicans in their classes West Point, built the Panama Canal They doing wonderful serv ice at the front in France When the country to river navigation in this country in a serious way legacy of faithful and accurate work left by these men, who have studied the river problems on paper that Congress has never given them the money to solve in actuality