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About The Oregon daily journal. (Portland, Or.) 1902-1972 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 2, 1908)
SUNDAY' PORTLAND, OREGOH SUNDAY MORNING FEBRUARY 2, 1908 '.V"y"''WXllf; to IP! .1 1 . ,HT 5 i SU s I Connection of a Hundred Rivers Greatest Water way Project of the Age TpiGHTEEN thousand miles of op tl portunityl Half a billion dollars the price of grasping it! Congress) at its present session, is face to face with the greatest scheme for the aggrandizement of the commerce of the nation that was ever presented. No more wonderful engineering feat could be con ceived than the plan to establish, for all time, a waterway route extending along the A tlantic and Gulf coasts, coupling up rivers with l8,000 or more miles of opportunity for commerce and the extension of the com mercial wealth of the nation. With the intercoastal canal lines par alleling the ' shores of the Atlantic and the Gulf, the swelling tides of commerce will flow north, south, east and west in ever growing volume. Without it, there can be only bleak stagnation, chafing im potence, probably disaster. There' is danger, grave danger. Yet the dashing courage which was equal to the impossibilities of Panama bids fair to suf fice for the herculean toil of the intercoastal canal. And the prize, once won, is of a richness exceeding computation. 7; fa mm 1 I'M." .. 'lii'i; Hl mm III' i mm mm -zm wmfflmmmmsmfflKs 111 lllfe fce,ton-1 I 9 yyoj77 spasms? rr y&jrsrn mmar. 1 . - - -i i wmm 1 ,L f . Jt- Aj : i. if 1 l"'l( 1-' 1 I'l 'I- I ;i.5 1 ?rrewfc Jt: ..fcijU,"" it"' i 1 nwHww I. ' ' lt,J; " . w-r V J9J -1,1 i;ii;!ijlj1!!lllil!if'iii,i iWUifcS38s J'S-."' iiJI 1' "K ' I I jF b m I Br mt'..,j -a.m m r ill,' v f y-; i V;- i.V l.'(i v.. j. ' . S.j 111 f V lij"""",'!""' t"j'i-lfa"i,l'!-a- "-' ' c lONGIJESS has now before it the bill o'f Senator Newlands, of Nevada, creating a first fund of $50,000,000 for the in land waterway, and contemplating the expenditure of 500,000,000 within the next ten years. Jt may not pass at this session. But that It must pass, or that some measure of commen surate magnitude must speedily be adopted, every man in American public life, from minor politician to far-seeing statesman, has already conceded. Thefe is no choice, no alternative, unless it be the choice of purblind folly. The man who introduced the bill, far from being the dreamer, the visionary held up to the gaze of shortsighted economy by the hucenesa of the sums he demands, ia one of the experts was not merely indorsed by some scattered individ ual opinions, held by men convinced through their study of the sub ject; it' was the settled sentiment of the people of the United States. What he said was true; yet the popular sentiment, existent and pro nnimppfl da it ia. still has' for its foundation rather an acquiescence in the general principles of enterprise, and an indorsement of the opinion of its chosen leaders, than a through comprehension of the vastness of ! i in TrrrT itTi iiinrt aw rMtriTiMriiiTTrnrii finf r ' ll" I t,i"'"'. 4 I I I ,- blniii.M ij i j i Tpr iifji'a miiij tr:-i jiif , o lii't)--1 rW'lJw.... '.m-loJ I I IiW selected by the President as specially oua ifird 118 c.nosen J,ea?er?' lDaa .n. for membership in the inland waterways com- tfl0 iect ana ne. en!e5"ff" mission the .Nevada authority whose broad knowledge of the subject ranks him with Fred erick II. Newell, the director of the reclama tion service ; Dr. W: J. McQee, the distinguished expert of the Geological Bureau; Gifford Pin chot, the government forester; Senator Warner, of Missouri, who has been one of the most thoroughly versed students of the plan, and Representative Burton, long acknowledged as the congressman qualified to speak the last word of wisdom upon the needs cf the country's rivers and harbors. "In the next tenycara," declarer Senator Newlands,"the United States should spend at least $500,000,000 in Yho improvement of inland waters. The government should enter into this work in every section of the country, on the Pacific coast, the Atlantic coast, the Gulf coast, and along the Mississippi river and its 'tributaries." i It was Senator Newlsnda who announced that the expediency! of the huge expenditure ;-'....-. f The nronosal i9 to cut a channel at the northern end of the inter coastal canal, from Barnstable bay, north of Cape Cod, to Buzzard's bay, giving access to the comparatively smooth waters of Buzzard's bay and an inner passage down Long Island sound to the Delaware and Raritan Canal, at Perth Amboy. The Delaware and Earitan, deepened, is to give access to the Dela ware river at Trenton, New Jersey, whence there will be the route of natural water courses to tho Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, which extends across the narrow neck of Delaware and the Eastern Shore of Maryland. This will provide a ship route from the Delaware river to the Chesapeake bay. Down the Chesapeake bay the route proceeds to Norfolk and down the south branch of the Elizabeth river. It is likely, to cut across Curri tuck sound, through Coanjock bay, across North Carolina, into Albemarle sound and on through Croatan sound into Pamlico sound. Cutting through to Beaufort, it has access, by means of various cut tings, to an inland route paralleling the whole southern Atlantic coast line down to Florida, and then on, skirting the gulf of Mexico and ad mitting the enormous traffic of tho Mississippi, to Texas and the mouth ' of the Rio. Grande. It is like some necromancer's dream in its immensity--like some cecromancer's dream in its seeming intangibleness. But the marvel of it is that, the more the entire project is analyzed, the more its: feasibility tr-iwriniriiWiiMiiriiTrrtri'rij? 1 1 i r it fi f m 3 'i' l 1 1 UK. h becomes apparent. Dredgings that seemed madness to contemplate prove trivial to mod ern mechanical appliances. The most conspicuous example among all the subsidiary canal work that would be called for is that of the Gulf coast construction. The Texas coast, peculiar in its forma tion, is bounded by numerous long, narrow islands, while a chain of navigable bayous is available in Louisiana. It has been estimated that the almost ludicrous sum of $4,000,000 would be enough to fur nish here a charmed sixty feet wide and nine feet in depth. The contention, however, will not be for any such slight depth throughout the canal. A minimum of twelve feet was urged by all en gineers upon tho last Congress, when it recognized the North Carolina Virginia inland waterway, which circumvents the historio dangers of tho "Deadly Diamond" Shoal and the terrible "Saw Teeth" of Cape Hatteras the notorious "graveyard of the Atlantic." Appropriations which,, were then made provided for only a ten-foot waterway. But, m spite of the fact that the advocates of the canal route were seriously chagrined at the shallowness of the channel, the project has been advanced to the com' pletion of all surveys and to the granting of a con, tion of $55U,uuu lor the work requisite on the third Pamlico sound to the ocean. Here alone the triflingjtppropriation of half a million dollars snfflcrt "SI,, h St- I' ll i...;:..i.i. ... . iit-!-' 'if ii:-wif,uaiffT for the purchase of right of way over 600 acrea of ground necessary for the work, for cuta amounting to fourteen miles in length and 4,120,000 cubic yards in content, and for afford ing a total length of route of fifty miles. It is a fair instance of the remarkable ease with which many obstacles, formerly deemed! insurmountable, prove chimeras when approach ed with the practical eyo-of 'modern--science. f Another difficulty, far more- serious than the physical ones that loomed so long ia the imagination of the country's legislators, was the danger of the clash of sectional inter ests. The history of the country, and especial ly those portions of its conquests over Nature which have found their record in the appropria tions for rivers and -harbors during recent dec ades, is filled with memoranda of enterprises which were of the utmost national importance,; yet were rendered abortive by claims of rival projects wielding a more insistent political power. i But the adoption of the motto, 'a policy, not a project," proved from the beginning a suf ficient safeguard to all the diverse and intensely jealous interests that were concerned. The in disputable, necessities of the West, with the un doubted advantages of tho mighty Mississippi, found their place beside tho great vested inter ests of the Enst, with their millions of trade directly with Europe. Tho claims of the incessantly active "North were prevented from outweighing the urgent necessities of the eagerly recrudescent South. As in the cose of the North Carolina-Virginia inland waterway, all injerests concerned real ized the necessity of sinking individual rivalries in the endeavor to secure a practical recogni-, tion of the enterprise as a whole. A NATIONAL POLICY Its magnitude and the length of time whicS must be required to carry it to completion, to-' gether with the-unending labor and expense of maintenance, improvement and extension which must be the logical consequences, all combined to elevate the plan to the importance, of a na tional policy, a policy which, once inaugurated, ' must of its own momentum compel unflagging pursuit. The intercoastal canal is as direct a cor ollary of the Panama Canal as is tho compul sion of safeguards by the possession of wealth. The world waited doubtfully whilo the United States was assuring itself of the possession of Panama, and let loose its chorus of congratu- ! lations only when it had the American assur ance that the Panama route would bo the abso lutely fair and American "open door." . Then Europe and Asia were pleased, for : Europe and Asia, with merchant marines in ex istence and in prospect that left the United States high and dry between the Rockies and v the Alleghenies, could make all preparations for the fierce competition which must infallibly , be inaugurated on the instant when the waters of the two world oceans should meet. 1 ' - ' ; Even today the majority of Americans have not the least inkling of tho giant strug gle for trade that awaits the opening of the Panama Canal that .cyclopean labor on which they are pouring forth their lavish wealth; that prize of commerce which, already theirs, will tax their utmost resources in the endeavor to) retain it. . " ,.w . ' Germany and England, intrenched in South' America, are already so fortified in their posi tions by, efficient merchant -marines, , banking -systems - and - perfected selling organization that the, allied commerce and manufactures of the United States t must xert their utmost . powers if they are to dislodge them. f Japan is establishing a steamship lino from Yokohama to Venezuela ana Argentina, win.-: gressional apprppria-. shall use the ranama vanai uxo buuw n division, which opens : opened to tramc. xnoyoom jpssv v uu n -i-- sv-;e;3v-try. depending on Panama for its avenue t tit (CONTINUED ON INSIDS TAOS.) : j . ,. ' ' -ft 1 .----'..' . I' 4
