FROM
y
/Lake Michigan
to the
Mississippi River.
REASONS
FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE NEW CANAL FROM
THE TERMINUS OF THE ILLINOIS AND MICH¬
IGAN CANAL, AT HENNEPIN, TO A
POINT NEAR ROCK ISLAND,
as presented in the official report of ma;. W. H. H.
Benyaurd, U. S. Civil Engineer.
published by the
Michigan and Mississippi Canal Commission.
office of the secretary,
davenport, iowa.
GLASS & HOOVER, PRINTERS AND BINDERS,
DAVENPORT, IOWA.
COMMERCIAL STATISTICS AND GENERAL CONSIDERA¬
TION OF THE BENEFITS TO BE DERIVED BY THE
CONSTRUCTION OF THE CANAL BETWEEN
THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE LAKES.
The construction of a canal to connect the waters of the Upper Mississippi
with those of the lakes, by way of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, has long
been earnestly desired by the people occupying the vast area lying west of
Chicago and seeking improved channels of communication with that city
and the East. Four times — in 1864, 1870,1874, and 1882, respectively — has
the general assembly of Iowa, by concurrent action on the part of each of
its branches, specifically memorialized Congress for the opening of such a
canal by the General Government. The legislature of Illinois has also
similarly addressed its appeal to Congress repeatedly, the last occasion
being that of the special session of that body last year. These two States,
thus speaking through their representatives, embrace more than 5,000,000
of people. Their expression of opinion and desire have been earnestly sup¬
ported, too, by resolutions adopted by such Boards of Trade as those of
Saint Paul, La Crosse, Duluth, Davenport, Rock Island, and Chicago, in
the Northwest, and those of Buffalo, Syracuse, and New York, in the East,
and by the resolution of the senate branch of the New York assembly last
May, which would have been concurred in by the house had the session had
two days longer continuance. In the city of New York, particularly, not
only the Board of Trade and Transportation, but the " Produce Exchange,"
a body numbering in its membership nearly 3,000 of the produce commis¬
sion and other business men of that city, have addressed Congress in urgent
appeals in behalf of the canal in question, usually denominated the "Hen¬
nepin Canal." In May, 1881, there assembled in Davenport, Iowa, a dele¬
gate body of about four hundred members, representing commercial bodies,
municipal corporations, and farmers' associations, of seven different States,
expressly to urge upon the attention of the country the desirability of, and
necessity for, the construction of the said canal by the General Government.
That convention, attended and addressed by governors of States, members
of Congress, and prominent business men, emphatically urged upon Con¬
gress the great importance of the proposed canal as a means to secure to
the people a greatly needed improvement of facilities for the transportation
of their products and commodities.
The reasons which have been and are presented in support of this action
and these appeals may be thus summarized:
4
1. Cheap transportation to the East is even more an absolute necessity
to the Upper Mississippi Valley than is such transportation to the South.
In the direction of securing the latter, very much has been done during the
past fifteen years. The improvement of the Bock Island and the Des
Moines Bapids, the removal or the reduction of numerous sandbars, etc.,
and the construction of the jetties at the mouth of the river, have each been
of great advantage to those whose products seek a Southern market, or can
be transported to Europe by way of New Orleans. But it is urged that,
after all, the main articles of commerce flow from the West to the East and
from the East to the West. Several cooperative causes are responsible for
this:
a. The greater shipping ports of European markets are on the Eastern
Atlantic seaboard, for to these are made the larger number of imports, so
that the vessel leaving thence laden with cereals and provisions from the West
can offer to these cheaper freightage, because sure of return cargoes at rates
which are the most remunerative, as a result of the shorter ocean voyage, as
compared with that required from ports more distant from Liverpool, or
London, or Bremen.
b. In the East are the manufacturing centers and the populous cities,
the necessities of which make constant demand for the grains and bread-
stuffs, the meats, and the dairy products, of the Northwest. From the East,
also, the Northwest most largely draws its supplies of manufactured articles,
machinery, staple goods, etc.
c. In the East are the strong competitors for the products of the North¬
west— the markets at Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Port¬
land, Montreal, and Quebec — which are not only connected with the North¬
west by the great trunk railroad lines which stretch from Chicago to the
ocean, but which enjoy, also, more or less directly, the free use of the lakes,
the Erie or the Welland Canal, the Hudson or the Saint Lawrence.
These and other notable facts press upon attention the truth that if the
Upper Mississippi Valley is to at all attain the development so unmistak¬
ably promised in the wealth of its resources and the energies of its people,
it must have opportunities for transportation of its products and commodi¬
ties which shall be equally direct and inexpensive eastward or southward.
2. It is the particular misfortune of the Upper Mississippi Valley that
it has no share in the vast benefits which accrue to the lake region in the
matter of competition and cheap transportation, secured through the use of
a water route which has its western terminus at Chicago and its eastern
in New York Harbor. The potency of the competition in freight charges
maintained by the water route of the lakes, the Erie Canal, and the Hudson,
stands confessed. Yet the striking facts pertaining thereto are worthy of
special reference here. Thus, in a letter to the Hon. William Windom,
United States Senator for Minnesota, Mr. Albert Fink, the well-known rail¬
road commissioner, wrote in 1878: * * * "You are aware that when the
rates are reduced between Chicago and New York on account of the opening
of the canal, this reduction applies not only to Chicago, but to all interior
cities (Saint Louis, Indianapolis, Cincinnati) to New York. If that was not
5
the rule, the result would be that the roads running, say, from Saint Louis,
Indianapolis, and Cincinnati, to Chicago, would carry the freight to Chi¬
cago, from which point low rates would take it to the East, and leave the
direct road from the interior points to the seaboard without any business.
Hence, whenever the rates are reduced on account of the opening of naviga¬
tion from Chicago and lake ports, the same reduction is made to all interior
cities, not only to New York, where the canal runs, but to Philadelphia and
Baltimore. Although the latter cities have no direct water-route communi¬
cation with the West, yet they receive the benefit, as far as railroad rates
are concerned, the same as if a canal were running from the lakes direct to
these cities, because whenever rates from Chicago to New York are reduced,
it is necessary to reduce the rates from Chicago to Boston, Philadelphia,
and Baltimore; otherwise, the business would all go to New York. The
reduction of the rates from Chicago and Saint Louis to Baltimore causes a
reduction in rates on shipment via Baltimore to Atlantic ports — Norfolk,
Wilmington, Port Boyal, Savannah, Brunswick, and Pernandina—and from
there into the interior of the Gulf States — Augusta, Atlanta, Macon, Mont¬
gomery, Selma, etc. * * * These roads * * * are obliged to follow
the reduction made via the Baltimore road, and which were primarily made
on account of the existence of the Erie Canal and the opening of navigation.
The same way in regard to the west-bound business, * * * so that it
may be said that the rail rates are kept in check by water transportation."
Were it necessary so to do, such citations of eminent authority as is thus
quoted might be multiplied indefinitely. But, while this potential influence
of the water-route competition of the lakes and of the Erie Canal is widely
felt at Chicago, and all over the country eastward and southward from Chi¬
cago, its westward trend practically ends at Chicago. It so ends at Chicago,
so far as the Upper Mississippi Valley is concerned, because there is no
water route open to the Upper Mississippi by which Chicago and the lakes
can be reached. It is to meet that difficulty that the Hennepin Canal is
necessary. In a word, the construction of the Hennepin Canal and the use
of the Illinois and Michigan Canal will extend to the Upper Mississippi
Biver the water-route competition in freight charges now terminating west¬
ward at Chicago.
3. The great gain to the entire region west of Chicago to result from
the extension to the water-route competition and cheapness to which atten¬
tion has been directed may be approximately estimated on comparison of
railroad freight charges on lines of commerce with which water routes of
transportation come into competition and those on which no such competi¬
tion is known.
The reports of the leading trunk lines, collated by Mr. Joseph Nimmo,
Jr., in a table illustrating the successive reduction of freight charges on
those roads and on the Erie Canal, respectively, furnish striking evidence on
this point. (Internal Commerce of the United States for 1880, Appendix,
page 230.)
Of twelve of the railroads therein enumerated, maintaining an average
freight charge of from 1.85 to 3.168 cents per ton per mile, respectively, in
6
1868, the only ones maintaining for the year 1880 an average freight charge
of .88 of a cent per ton per mile were those having no water-route competi¬
tion. This is a summary of that exhibit as to the charges for 1880 per ton
per mile:
RAILROADS HAVING COMPETITION IN WATER ROUTES.
Per ton per mile.
New York Central Railroad $0 00.88
Pennsylvania Railroad 00.88
New York, Erie, and Western Railroad 00.84
Philadelphia and Erie Railroad 00.56
Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad 00.75
Michigan Central Railroad 00.842
Pittsburgh and Port Wayne Railroad (for 1879, for 1880 not given), 00.76
RAILROADS NOT COMPELLED TO MEET WATER-ROUTE COMPETITION.
Per ton per mile.
Boston and Albany Railroad $0 01.20
Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad (for 1879, for 1880 not
given) 01.023
Chicago and Northwestern Railroad (for 1879, for 1880 not given), 01.49
Chicago, Milwaukee, and Saint Paul Railroad (for 1879, for 1880
not given) 01.76
Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Railroad (for 1879, for 1880 not
given) 01.21
Erie Canal rate for 1880 $0 00.49
Thus it will be seen that the four leading trunk railroads running to
Chicago from the Upper Mississippi Valley States maintained an average
of .63 of a cent per ton per mile freight charge in excess of the average
freight charge of seven other trunk railroads eastward of Chicago, where
tariff rates were, as Mr. Fink has explained, constantly under the control of
the potentially operative competition of the water routes of the lakes and
the Erie Canal. The fact thus cited to attention is a very important one.
Its existence is urged as furnishing an argument for the opening up of an
extension of the water route of the lakes to the Upper Mississippi so strong
that its force can neither be moderated nor escaped. Assessed upon the
entire cereal products of the States from which that extra freight charge is
collected, the annual aggregate would alone reach the sum of $3,482,687, if
only the crop yield of the principal cereals of Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas,
Nebraska, and one-half of that of Illinois and Wisconsin, be taken into the
account, estimating these products at 2,785,350 tons weight, and the in¬
creased cost at $1.25 per ton, average.
But that added freight charge, thus resulting from the absence of water-
route competition from the Upper Mississippi to the lakes at Chicago, is
not alone collected on the cereal products of the States enumerated. It is
none the less chargeable upon and collected on the exported oattle and
hogs, the cured and barrelled meats, the dairy products, and the imported
articles of those several states. A just computation of those oharges would
give a total of annual loss to the people which would be deemed altogether
fabulous and impossible by those who have not given attention to the facts
actually involved,
7
These facts find earnest enforcement, moreover, in yet others directly
illustrating the beneficent results to producers and consumers attendant
upon the maintenance of water-route competition with railroads. For ex¬
ample, the freight charges by rail during the past season, on wheat from
Saint Paul to Chicago or Milwaukee, were 20 cents per 100 pounds in car¬
load lots, or 12 cents per bushel. Prom Saint Paul to Davenport or Rock
Island, by the Mississippi River, the charges were 3 cents to 4 cents per
bushel for wheat, although lower rates were frequently accepted. From
La Salle, on the Illinois River, and the northern terminus of the Illinois
and Michigan Canal, as also from Henry, 30 miles south of La Salle, the
charges of last season on wheat were 3 cents per bushel, including State
tolls on canal. Deducting the State tolls, 1% mills per 1,000 pounds per
mile, and three cents per mile on boats, or 7 mills per bushel of wheat, the
actual charge for transportation would have been 2.3 cents per bushel.
Now, estimating the cost of transportation on the proposed Hennepin
Canal, from at or near Rock Island to the Illinois River at or near Henne¬
pin, say 63 miles, at the same rate per bushel per mile charged on the 100
miles of the Hlinois and Michigan Canal, free of tolls, at 1% cents per
bushel of wheat, then, by an all-water route from the Upper Mississippi to
the Illinois River and thence to Chicago, the freight from Rock Island to
Chicago would be 3.8 cents per bushel. But this estimate, it is to be noted,
is based upon the present use of canal boats of only 160 tons on the Illinois
and Michigan Canal. The proposed Hennepin Canal, however, contem¬
plates use of boats of 280 tons; and an enlargement of the Illinois and
Michigan Canal to an equal accommodation of tonnage would secure a re¬
duction in freight charges of fully 25 per cent on the 100 miles from La
Salle to Chicago. This would lessen the charge to an extent of nine-tenths
of a cent per bushel. The actual charge per bushel from Saint Paul to
Chicago, via the Mississippi River and Hennepin Canal, would then be as
follows:
Cents.
Saint Paul to western terminus of Hennepin Canal 3
Mississippi River to Chicago, via Hennepin and Illinois and Mich¬
igan Canals 2.9 or 3
. Total from Saint Paul to Chicago 6
Thus, there would be effected a saving of six cents per bushel on wheat
from the Upper Mississippi River districts to Chicago, and so, on the vast
aggregate of that cereal now compelled to seek entrance upon the water
route of the lakes only through transportation by railroad.
Actual results are shown already, it may be further urged, as due to the
direct competition of oanal and railroad, in the case of the Illinois and
Michigan Canal and the railroads by which it is paralleled. The railroad
commissioners of Illinois established the freight charge on wheat by rail
last season at 11 cents per 100 pounds, or 6.6 cents per bushel, for 100 miles,
the distance from La Salle to Chicago; for 130 miles, the distance from
Henry, on the Illinois river, to Chicago, 12 cents per 100 pounds, or 7.2 cents
per bushel; for 182 miles, the distance from Rock Island to Chicago, 13.4
8
cents per 100 pounds, or 8.2 cents per bushel. It has been freely stated, and
generally believed, that the railroads have regarded these rates of the com¬
missioners as too low. Yet wheat was last season taken from Henry and
from Peoria, each on the Illinois River, for 3 cents per bushel by rail, while
the schedule rates were 7.2 cents per bushel. Thus were the rates of the
railroad compelled to fall to a point of equality with those of the canal;
while on lines not so placed in competition with that water route, the rates
from shipping stations of equal distance from Chicago with those of Peoria,
Henry, and La Salle were required to pay the full schedule rate as estab¬
lished by the commissioners.
These illustrations give emphasis to, but do not at all exhaust, the facts
which are relied upon to support to the utmost this the third reason thus
urged by which the desire for the construction of the Hennepin Canal is
enforced.
4. The vast volume attained by the annual cereal product of the States
directly tributary to the Upper Mississippi, presents yet additional support
to the plea for an all-water transportation route to the East. The annual
report of the Chicago Board of Trade for 1882 estimates the crop yield thus:
Illinois: Bushels.
Wheat 52,302,900
Com 187,336,900
Oats 18,696,000
Total 258,335,800
Iowa:
Wheat 25,487,200
Com 178,487,600
Oats 99,141,000
Total 303,115,800
Kansas :
Wheat 33,248,000
Corn 150,452,600
Oats 29,700,000
Total 213,400,600
Nebbaska:
Wheat 14,947,200
Corn 82,478,200
Oats 44,555,700
Total 141,981,100
Minnesota:
Wheat 37,030,500
Corn 21,127,600
Oats 9,417,650
Total 67,575,750
9
Wisconsin:
Wheat
Corn ..
Oats..,
20,145,400
30,201,600
12,780,800
Total
63,127,800
Thus is presented a grand total of 1,047,536,850 bushels as the product
of three cereals only, in a single year, from six States, constituting only a
part of the widely extended area certain to be affected and benefited by an
extension to the Upper Mississippi of the water-route system of transporta¬
tion reaching westward from New York, but now having its western ter¬
minus at Chicago. But consideration of these facts would be seriously in¬
complete were it not made to include the fact that, vast as are the aggregates
of productions in the States named for the year 1882, they are certain to be
yet largely increased year by year. Comparative statistics are almost start¬
ling in that regard. Thus, as a single illustration where many might be
given, the wheat product of Iowa from 1849 to 1860, as shown by carefully
compiled statistics, aggregated 50,000,000 bushels; from 1860 to 1870,
195,000,000; from 1870 to 1881, 375,000,000 bushels. Of corn the yield was,
from 1849 to 1860, 250,000,000; from 1860 to 1870, 550,000,000; and from 1870
to 1881,1,800,000,000 bushels. Estimating the wheat at 85 cents per bushel
and the corn at 35 cents, a curious statistician has recently shown (see Clin¬
ton Iowa Agriculturist, February 2, 1883) that the total value of these two
crops in Iowa, excluding those of 1882, would equal $1,177,000,000, or more
than the highest estimate of the value of all the gold product of California
from its discovery, on June 19, 1848, to June 30, 1881.
In this connection, too, may be cited the fact that, while the total wheat
crop of the United States inoreased from 181,199,000 bushels in 1867 to
498,549,000 bushels in 1881, the larger part of that increase was signalized in
the States of the Upper Mississippi Valley.
This astonishing development in the great growth of a single cereal,
however, does but faintly indicate the wondrously rapid advance of these
States in relation to other productions; for corn, cattle, hogs, butter, cheese,
fruits, etc., are, it is notorious, largely enlisting effort for their increase on
the part of the farmers of the Northwest, and that with great success.
5. The fact that the producers of the Northwest do and must increas¬
ingly look to the exportation of their cereals, provisions, dairy products, and
cattle, as offering the surest market and the largest profit, has also great
weight in the argument urged in behalf of the Hennepin Canal. Those
European markets are no longer left to supply by American producers.
These are invited, but only in competition with those of other countries.
The freight rates to be paid in transporting products from the Upper Mis¬
sissippi to Liverpool often alone determine the possibility or impossibility
of profitable exportation. On this point, the evidence taken in New York
by a committee of the State senate, appointed to investigate the facts as to
the relative advantages to commerce of the Erie Canal, was conclusive.
That committee, which had its sessions in September, 1881, recorded the tes¬
timony of prominent members of the New York Produce Exchange, which
10
asserted that it frequently happened that the difference of one cent per
bushel in the price of wheat in New York City determined the ability or in¬
ability of the commission men and dealers to make shipments to European
markets. One shipper placed that controlling difference as low as one-
fourth of a cent per bushel. It was also the concurrent statement of several
of the gentlemen testifying that advance in freight rates frequently estopped
grain exportations, while freight reductions stimulated such movements of
cereals, and gave legitimate impetus to the grain markets of the entire
country. (See printed report of New York senate committee on Erie Canal,
submitted to general assembly of 1882.)
So manifestly correct are these several testimonies, that they were even
anticipated by Mr. Joseph Nimmo, Jr., of the Bureau of Statistics, when he
said, in his report on the commerce of the United States for 1880 (page 154):
" The price of all commodities of low value in proportion to weight is in
every market greatly affected by the cost of transportation.
"Especially is this the case in regard to the surplus agricultural pro¬
ducts of the Western and Northwestern States. The low rates which pre¬
vail for transportation upon the Northern water lines, therefore, exercises
an important regulating influence over the price of all the products of the
West, not only in the markets of the Atlantic seaboard States, but also in
foreign countries. It is due chiefly to this fact, during the last ten years,
that the value of domestic exports from the United States has greatly in¬
creased, and that since the year ended June 30,1875, the value of exports
from the United States has largely exceeded the value of imports to the
United States."
Testimony and statement in this direction could here be indefinitely
cited in addition, from official and unofficial authorities, did the limits
assigned to this paper permit. It must suffice, however, to suggest thus the
mere outlines of fact and argument cooperating in urgent appeal for the
construction of a canal the needs for which are really national, and the
directly beneficent influence of which, were it completed and in operation
would be realized from the Missouri to the Hudson.
6. Scarcely less important to the Upper Mississippi Valley region than
the export of its products, rendered possible and profitable only when cheap
transportation is secured, is the ready and inexpensive delivery of its im¬
ports. The aggregate of these increases year by year, while it has already
reached proportion and value which are literally immense. Thus, not only
are vast totals of anthracite coal and crude and manufactured iron from
Pennsylvania, pottery from New Jersey and Ohio, hard woods from Indiana,
and stone and bituminous coal from Eastern Hlinois, shipped in large quan¬
tities to the Upper Mississippi Valley States, but the cotton goods of Mas¬
sachusetts, the woolens of Khode Island, the machinery of Connecticut, the
agricultural implements of New York, all constituting heavy bulk freights,
are constantly adding to the number of their consumers in the wide area of
territory to be more immediately benefited by the construction of the Hen¬
nepin Canal.
A single locality may here be specifically mentioned as furnishing signif-
11
ioant illustration of the general fact thus urged to attention. The tri-cities
of Moline, Davenport, and Bock Island (to name each in the order of its
manufacturing importance) have had their respective business interests care¬
fully revised, in statistical form, at the close of each year, for the columns of
the Davenport Gazette. The last of these reports — that of January 1,1883,
for the year 1882 —presents some noteworthy figures. A single plow manu¬
factory establishment at Moline (Deere & Co.) consumed, in 1882, 1,110 tons
of steel, 3,000 tons of wrought iron, 900 tons of pig iron, 300 tons of mallea¬
ble iron, 2,000,000 feet of oak and ash lumber, 400 tons of grindstones, 30
tons of emery, and 250 barrels of oil and varnish, employing weekly 700 men.
Another establishment (the Moline Plow Company's works) used only a less
aggregate of similar material, the value of the product of these two estab¬
lishments footing up to $2,500,000 for the year. The Moline Wagon Com¬
pany manufactured goods to the value of $625,000; the Deere & Mansur
Planter Company, to the value of $600,000; the two malleable iron compa¬
nies, to the value of $280,000; the machine, engine, and boiler shops, to the
value of $480,000; the paper mills, to the value of $150,000; the pump fac¬
tory, to the value of $125,000; while the saw-mills and other establishments
aggregated a yield of products exceeding in value a million dollars more.
In Davenport, the enumerated manufactures of the year — agricultural im¬
plements, lumber, flour, oatmeal, glucose, carriages, woolen goods, cigars,
clothing, etc.— aggregated avalué of $5,864,876; and the value by jobbing
houses, the sum of $8,046,730; the shipments of local freight by three rail¬
roads, 17,536 car-loads, and the receipts, 16,653 car-loads. In Bock Island,
the plow works manufactured goods in excess of a million dollars in value;
the glass works, to the value of $200,000; stove works, to the value of
$100,000; the saw-mills, 80,031,866 feet of lumber only, 18,328,750 shingles,
16,653,000 lath, and 198,650 pickets. If to this partial exhibit of the manu¬
facturing interest of Bock Island City were added those of the United States
Arsenal, on Bock Island, the aggregate of railroad shipments would be
17,982 car-loads shipped and 18,258 forwarded, by four roads, including the
receipts and exports of coal, largely mined from the extensive coal-fields
lying within an area of fifteen miles east and southeast of Bock Island.
It is important to note, in this connection, that even the wholesale dry
goods houses of such Upper Mississippi cities as Keokuk and Dubuque,
also—as, indeed, those of the entire region west of Chicago—are accus¬
tomed to direct that shipments to them of baled goods sheetings, muslins,
calicoes, etc. — of which they purchase largely in early summer, shall
be sent to Chicago from New York wholly by water-route transportation.
It is the constant experience of these business men that their freight charges
from Chicago west to their respective cities equal from one-half to two-thirds
of the entirety of such charges from New York to Chicago; indeed, it is in
proof that for distances of only 200 miles and less from Chicago, the freight
charges have, in many instances, exceeded those made from New York to
Chicago. As a result, it can be conclusively established that the extension
to the Upper Mississippi of the water-route transportation enjoyed from
New York to Chicago would considerably enhance the legitimate profits of
12
all dealers in staple manufactured goods, while largely reducing the cost of
these to consumers.
In illustration of the undeniable fact thus cited to attention, it may be
stated that anthracite coal, transported from the Lackawanna mines, in
Pennsylvania, to Chicago at a net freight charge of $1.40 per ton, has con¬
tinuously cost $2.00 per ton additional as its freight charge to the Upper
Mississippi River from Chicago. When it is remembered that the use of
this Pennsylvania coal throughout the entire Northwest, even to Denver,
Colorado, is constantly increasing, year by year, it will be seen that the cer¬
tain reduction of freight charges from Chicago to the Upper Mississippi, to
the extent of at least one dollar per ton, to follow the construction of the
Hennepin Canal, would constitute a great boon to hundreds of distant com¬
munities, and to many thousands of people scattered over a widely-extended
area of country. Similarly, also, a large aggregate of Northwestern citizen¬
ship would be greatly benefited by the reduction in the cost of bituminous
coal taken from the Illinois River coal-fields, sure to result, in all the Upper
Mississippi River cities and towns, and the communities having ready com¬
munication therewith, from the transfer of loaded coal-barges from the
former river to the latter river by way of the proposed canal. Such barges
could readily be towed from the western outlet of that canal direct to Saint
Paul and Minneapolis, so as to place the Illinois River coal in those cities
at a cost of at least one dollar a ton less than that now paid therein. Such
is the demonstrable fact of unquestionable computation of all expenses to
be incurred in such a transfer of coal products from the miners to the con¬
sumers.
7. It is essential to a correct understanding of the demand for the con¬
struction of the proposed canal, that the fact be fully comprehended that
Chicago is the natural and the inevitable center of the commerce of the en¬
tire Northwest. In that city is found not only the best market for all the
products of the Upper Mississippi Valley region, but the market for such
products. There is really purchased, as the reports of Mr. Charles Ran¬
dolph, secretary of the Chicago Board of Trade, conclusively show, eight-
tenths of all the grain and provisions moved eastward for export to Europe.
To reach that central market readily, directly, and cheaply, is, therefore,
a prime concern of the producing classes of the Upper Mississippi Valley.
8. During the past few years, there has resulted a radical change in the
methods of transporting cereals. Grain is no longer sacked for shipment.
Instead, it is carried in bulk from the various points in Minnesota, Wiscon¬
sin, and Iowa, on the Upper Mississippi. The grain is loaded into barges
in bulk, and is in them floated down to railroad elevators at such other
points as La Crosse, Dunleith, and Savanna, there to be transferred to rail¬
road cars and carried to Chicago, or moved further down the river to Saint
Louis, there to be transferred to larger barges and in these carried to New
Orleans. In the instance of one contract, executed in the summer of 1881,
a large quantity of wheat was thus taken from Saint Paul to New Orleans
without breaking of cargoes; but such a transit can be made only during
13
seasons of high water on the Upper Mississippi, since the grain barges used
on the river below Saint Louis draw 6 to 7 feet of water, while the depth of
the Upper Mississippi channel admits passage of barges drawing 4 feet only
in ordinary stages of navigation. Therefore, during by far the greater part
of each season, it is impracticable to carry grain in barges from Upper Mis¬
sissippi River points to New Orleans without breaking bulk—just as it is
impracticable to carry such cargoes to Chicago without similar breakage of
bulk. What is needed, then, is that grain-laden barges shall be enabled to
float from any Mississippi River point direct to Chicago just as originally
placed in cargo. This is what the canal under consideration will permit
and render certain, reliable, and inexpensive. Such barges loaded with
grain in bulk will, after reaching Chicago by way of the Mississippi River,
the Hennepin Canal, the Hlinois River, and the Illinois and Michigan Canal,
return to their starting points bearing cargoes of iron, coal, machinery, agri¬
cultural implements, heavy case goods, crockery crates, etc., leaving freight
charges largely less than can possibly be obtained where railroads are alone
the transportation agents.
9. It is not pretended by any intelligent advocate of the proposed canal
that it will, or can, compete with railroads in the transportation of light
freights or perishable goods. It is not, therefore, "opposition to railroads"
which inspires the movement for the canal, which has, during the past few
years, increasingly enlisted the sympathy and support of the people of Illi¬
nois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, with more or less earnestness. On
the contrary, there are not wanting very sagacious friends of existing rail¬
roads, and zealous advocates of the projection and completion of still other
and new railroads, who are clear in the conviction that the extension to the
Upper Mississippi of the water-route transportation system of the Erie
Canal and the lakes will so greatly enhance the prosperity of the Northwest,
will so develop the country immediately tributary to such extended water
route, and will so increase the lighter freight traffic and passenger travel of
the railroads occupying territory contiguous to the route of the canal under
consideration, that the railroad interests will be really benefited by the con¬
struction of the canal rather than otherwise. In support of this view, it is
insisted that the actual saving in annual freight charges on cereals, provi¬
sions, and other heavy products, together with similar savings quite as cer¬
tain to result on the cost of transportation on bulky and weighty commodi¬
ties to be purchased by the people raising such products, will so greatly in¬
crease their ability to expend money in other directions, that the receipts of
the railroads will find increase, rather than reduction, as a result of the
water-route extension under consideration. The aggregate of such savings
annually would unquestionably be very large; the amount can only be
approximately estimated. A moderate competition on the actual shipment
of the grain alone raised in the States of Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Minne¬
sota, the western half of Missouri, and the western half of Wisconsin, must
place that annual raising to the producer, in the matter of freight charges
solely, at much more than 83,000,000. Such an estimate will be much below
the actual sum total, rather than at all in excess thereof. If, then, to that
14
sum is added a just estimate of the saving certain to result on the freight
charges on commodities imported into the States named, which freights are
relatively much higher on such importations than on the cereal exports, it
will be seen, it is insisted, that the saving to the people of the Upper Missis¬
sippi River States to be effected as a result of the building and operation of
the Hennepin Canal cannot be less annually than $5,000,000. These are the
additions to the wealth of the people in which the railroads used by the
people benefited would so certainly share.
10. So rapidly are the yearly products of the Northwest increasing, that,
as is well known to shippers and business men generally, it has already be¬
come a serious question, during the periods in which grain and stock are
being pressed forward to a market, whether the limits of capacity in rail¬
road freight transportation have not been nearly reached. Were it neces¬
sary so to do, a series of statistical facts could here be given, as quoted from
official sources, showing a constant increase of productions in the Northwest
which is really marvelous, and which unmistakably indicates the necessity,
no less than the wisdom, of more generous efforts to extend and increase the
facilities afforded for the transportation of those products to the chief mar¬
ket they so inevitably and pressingly seek — the markets of Chicago and the
Eastern Atlantic ports.
11. A single point only remains to be noticed. This is that the rail¬
roads cannot possibly carry brdky and heavy freights as cheaply as these
can be transported on canal, river, and lake. This is as true as to the rail¬
roads which have been made the recipients of generous aid from the General
Government, through grants of public lands, which in themselves would to¬
day constitute a princely domain, as it is of roads built wholly through the
investment of private and corporate moneys. This is shown in the fact that
while the freight charges on the Erie Canal were successively reduced from
.872 cent per ton per mile in 1868 to .49 cent per ton per mile in 1880, as
already shown herein (including tolls to the State), the land-grant roads of
the Northwest maintain their routes at an excess of 1.20 cents per ton per
mile. Later reports of these roads than those hereinafter cited show only
slight reduction, and so furnish even additional proof of this. For instance,
for 1882 the average freight charge of the Illinois Central was 1.41 cents per
ton per mile; that of the Chicago and Alton, 1.031 cents; that of the Chi¬
cago, Burlington, and Quincy, 1.19 cents; the Chicago, Rock Island, and
Pacific, 1.22 cents; the Chicago and Northwestern, 1.465 cents; and the Chi¬
cago, Milwaukee, and Saint Paul, 1.77 cents per ton per mile.
This last consideration gives emphasis to the argument, it is urged, which
presses upon the General Government the duty of securing to the people
that cheap transportation which is possible only in the use of the natural
water-ways of the country, and of such connections of these with one another
as can be readily made, at a relatively small expense, and which will, when
made, open up to wide areas of territory established water-routes to which
they are now practically denied access.
15
These are some of the considerations which are pressed in support of the
request for the construction of the proposed Hennepin Canal. It is urged
with much earnestness, by citizens of careful thought and extended business
observation and experience, that these and other considerations not herein
enumerated justly entitle the canal in question to approval and support as
a national enterprise of great merit and increasing importance.