Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1930-05-22

Of that amount Europe took $685.
900 tons, and, by way of contrast,
South America took 85,S12 tons. Eu-
rope took 20 per cent of the agricul-
tural products named and South
America took eight-tenths OF l per
cent. Europe took so tons to every
ton of these same products sent to
South America. / cite these figures,
Mr.. Chairman, merely to emphasize
West ask for a road to the sea, we
are not asking for road to New
York or a road to Montreal or high
way that stops anywhere short of the
other side of the ocean-the shortest
road, the best road, the natural road,
the most economical road.
The editorial in question would in
dictate that there is some benefit to
be derived from passing an ocean
steamer, through long, tortuous, con-
gested, and dangerous miles of re-
stricted channel and down river and
through the crowded port of New
York. When this boat is loaded with
products destined for Liverpool or the
Mediterranean, or the Baltic, what
the benefit may be of routing it past
New York l can not see, and what is
lost to US by sending this same ship
down the st. Lawrence l can not see
either. The cheaper our transporta-
tion the more money there is left to
our producers, and it is that addi-
tional money which they need to lift
them out of the agricultural depres-
sion in which they now find them
selves. Whatever of benefit to New
York there could be from passing
| through restricted canal, up hill
and down hill, all the way across the
state of New York, leaving national
waterway for a ditch and going out
of it's way more than 500 miles in
order to take a look at the skyscrap
ers on Manhattan Island and at the
port of New York, the most cOngested
and most expensive port in the world
"a port whose daily prayer should
be, Deliver us from this load of mid
western traffic in order that we may
take care, in a decent and live and
let-live way, of the natural business
that belongs to us!'-such benefits,
squeezed out of the freight passing
through, would be money taken from
the pockets of the producers in the
Middle West and deposited in the
banks of Wall Street.
But if New York is going to be fair
with the West, if New York actually
gives the West an open seaway to the
worlds markets, then there will be no
direct cash benefit to her people or
her port, because of the passage of
ocean ships from the Lakes to the
ocean. Her benefits will come indi-
rectly and from the growth in buying
power of the Middle West, for con-
slider what happens when a ship pass
es from port TO port.
To-day, when ship leaves the har-
Dor of Duluth, Mimi and many ships
do leave the harbor of Duluth; during
the year 1925 we shipped from the
twin ports of Duluth and Superior
24,000,000 tons of iron ore, III 900, 600
bushels of grain, in addition to lum-
Der, package freight, and other COM
modities; so you see ships do leave
Duluth quite frequently during the
navigation season-en route for But
falo, it steams straight away across
Lake Superior, never touching land
until it arrives at the 500 locks. at
the head of the st. Marys river The
ship steams into the locks and goes
through them without l cent of bene-
fit to either the Canadians on one side
or the Americans on the other. 1t
proceeds from Lake Huron. passes
through the St. Clair river with Port
Huron on one side and Sarnia on the
other, and neither Port Huron nor
Sarnia get 1 cent of benefit from its
passage. 1t goes on down past the
great city of Detroit and the fine
Canadian city of Winisor and to Meth