Evening star., 1926-02-02

For the first time in decades the
traditional pork barrel Of Congress
has been lifted out OF its sectional
and porcine character ana become a
great national concern.
The Secretary Of Commerce. Mr.,
Hoover. appeared before the House
committee on rivers and harborS I>St
SATURDAY and explained the i'm
portance Of developing Two closely
allied projectS-the -. Lawrence
River ship Canal, 10y which the At
lautic Ocean would he carried inland
10 Duluth and all intervening ports
of the Great Lakes. and the eXten-
sion of the Gulf Of Mexico. via the
Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, north
ward To Chicago. with branch routes
running up the Mississippi 10 Min
neapoNs, UP the Missouri River to
the green fields of Kansas Iowa and
the Dakotas, and up the Ohio to
Pittsburgh.
There has been more or less jeal-
ousy between the advocates Of the
development of the Mississippi River
and those supporting the greater
project of a ship canal via the ST.
Lawrence and the Great Lakes. Sec
retary Hoover urged that these two
pro jects should never be considered
as competitive. nor be alternated 50
that either would he constructed
without simultaneous construction
and development of the other, since
both have TO do with maintenance of
the lake levels and with the retention
of production III the Midwest.
Mr. Hoover predicted that within a
quarter Of a century the population
of the United States will increase
40 900 .000 and the railroads will be
unable to handle the traffic of the
production of the region between the
AlleghenieS and the Rockies. He
urged the development of the system
of waterways, from Pittsburgh via
Cairo TO st. Louis and Kansas City
a stretch of 800 miles-and from
Chicago TO New Orleans via the
Drainage Canal, the Illinois River
and the Nississippi-alto giving
a system of 5000 miles Of trunk lines
and 5000 miles of lateralS.
This river system would coordinate
with the lake system Of deep chan
nels from Chicago and Duluth and all
other ports on the Great Lakes.
through which ocean vessels OF - TO
y feet draft would take on through
cargoes 70 all ports of the world, or
bring in cargoeS to their lake
terminals in the center of the conti-
nent for distribution via the river
routes.
* x =
The immense economies of such
traffic via water are shown by the cost
of hauling wheat ], 900 miles by rail or
water. Railroad rates on 1000 bushels
l 900 miles amount to from $3.50 to
5000, while the same via the Great
Lakes costs only $40 to $50.
But that is not the whole story. The
present means of reaching the export
market with wheat do not work near
ly so great hardship as in the case of
flour and most other commodities.
Wheat is now loaded on q boat at
Duluth, transferred to rail at Buffalo
and transferred again from rail to ship
at New York, making SIX landings.
These transfers are made by suction,
through mechanical elevators. at a cost
of $3.50 Il ton. Flour cannot be SO
handled. When ii is transferred it
must be handled by manual labor at
double the cost of handling the wheat.
x
The milling industry. which made
Minneapolis the greatest four-produc-
ing center of the world. is declining
and moving eastward to Buffalo and
New York City. While that tendency
takes the mills a long way from the
grain fields, it brings them nearer
their export markets, nearer, also, to
the greater domestic markets. But it
brings the by-products of the grain,
also, far from the prairies and thus
strikes down the livestock feeding of
the Midwest. 1t tends toward further
congestion of the East and the depres-
sion of production in the richest pro-
ductive area in the world.
The outcome of this tendency has
shown in the decrease of farm values
in the Midwest and the increase of
farm bankruptcies. According to the
report of the Federal Reserve Bank
of Minneapolis the value of farm lands
in Minnesota, the two DakotaS and
Montana has lost $1,000, 100000 since
1920. The present value is 60.4 per
cent that of 1920. The farm bank
ruptcies in those four States in 1910