ADDRESSES DELIVERED BEFORE THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON
RIVERS AND HARBORS, JANUARY 20, 22, AND 23, 1886.
[Reported Ijy Simon McPherson, stenographer.]
Hon. Mark H. Dunnell, of Minnesota, said :
Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, during the year just closed there
were held at Saint Paul, Now Orleaus, and Kansas City three largely attended con¬
ventions, held in the interest of the water-ways of the Mississiiipi and Missouri Val¬
leys. I have the honor to he a delegate from the Saint Paul convention, which was
convened in September last. With the eighteen a])ecial delegates from this conven¬
tion are like delegates from the New Orleans and Kansas City conventions.
These three classes of delegates have been in joint convention in this city during
the present week. You, gentlemen of the committee, have kindly consented tollsten
to us at this time, coining to plead for an improvement of the great water-ways of the
West, the object had in view by the conventions or bodies which have sent us here.
By agreement I was given the duty of opening this discussion. The convention
at Saint Paul was held the first week of September. It was composed of but tew
less than a thousand delegates from the seven States and the two Territoriessending
delegates. Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Da¬
kota, and Montana were represented. These States and Territories embrace what we
may call the Upper Mississiiipi and Missouri Valleys. The Saint Paul convention rep¬
resented 741,80« square miles, and not less than 13,000,000 peoplç. These people are
the producers of the vast agricultural products of that section, larger in quantity and
worth more than any equal section in the country. The annual products are not less
in value than 13,000,000,000. Why was this large gathering which I have the honor
to represent ?
It was because these immense products, or one-half at least, should have a market ;
it was that they might have a market at the least possible expense. The people of
this section had looked about them, and had beheld the vast rivers and lakes with
which nature had supplied the region. They had become aware that there were 7,000
miles of rivers which were and could be easily made navigable, and not less than
1,000 miles of lake coast.
1 n any section where products exist beyond its means for consumption freightage must
become a question of vital interest. All the conven tiens sending messengers to be heard
by you were held in a section of the Republic having a vast surplus of agricultural
products. To these sections, and, indeed, to the whole country, transportation is trans-
ceudently important. Here are the greatest number of the producers of the necessi¬
ties, the breadstnlfs of life. How to get their earnings to the markets at home and
abroad was the great underlying question. These producers must have protection to
the extent that the General Government in its own interest and that of all the people
should, as far as possible, lessen the expense of getting these products to the markets.
This is the plain, simple question which brought together these large bodies of
men, as ilitelligent and earnest as ever assembled in the country. When I speak
here as a representative of the Saint Paul convention, my words can be no dift'erent
from what they would be were 1 representing either of the other conventions in all I
may say on the general question. All the delegates here from the sources of the Mis-
sissipni and Missouri to t heir mouths have a voice in perfect accord. We have min¬
gled in the utmost harmony. We all represent a like general interest, and in calling
attention to local or special needs we do it in harmony with the greatest weal.
The representatives here before this committee deem it an honor to bear to it a
message from the producers of the great bulk of the breadstuffs of the country, for these
producersarenational benefactors. They love peace; they practice industry ; they seek
honest gains, and to this end they ask that their products may reach those in need of
them at the least possible expense. This is not strange, and this discussion is not
926 OONG——1
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vain. These producers are intelligent ; they have learned that water transportation
is vastly cheaper than railroad transportation. They ask that these rivers and lakes
may float their crops; that safe harbors may he made ready along the lakes, and that
bodies of water may be connected by the canal where nature has made easy and in¬
viting conditions, and where the through vrater roirte may be secured. These pro¬
ducers know that the mere existence of navigable rivers will vastly reduce the cost
of grain movement by rail. They understand the regulative effect of water rates upon
rail routes; they know the truthfulness of the following statement, which I clipped
from a morning paper of to-day:
"Rail rates on grain from Chicago to the Atlantic seaboard during the season of
navigation are controlled by lake rates. These rates fell from 24 cents per bushel in
1875 to 19 in 1880 and 13 in 1885. During the past season rates have averaged about
15 cents per hundred pounds from Chicago to New York, but since the closing of the
Lakes they have been advanced to 24 cents. Rates between Chicago and points five
hundred miles northwest are from 30 to 40 per cent, lower than from Chicago to points
five hundred miles southwest, because of the nearness of Duluth in the Northwest.
The rates west of the Mississippi River are fully 25 per cent, higher than east of that
stream, because of the effect of the Lakes in the other locality. Such facts as these
show the regulative effect of water rates upon rail routes, and show that by such im¬
provement of Western waterways as are now being asked for tradsportation would
be greatly cheapened in the West, which will restore our position in the world's
market, protect our export trade, and provide a market for Eastern manufactures in
the West."
These producers deem these rivers and lakes, and justly, as the grand conservators.
They know that the saving of 1 and 2 cents per bushel on grains would result in a
vast sum, in part going to the consumer and in part to them.
Labor is the base of all true wealth. A good government will study how it may
have its largest protection and surest outcome. Our markets are at home and abroad—
largely at home. The East can ask this legislation now plead for, with a voice as
lond as the West and South.
Allow me, respectfully, to call your attention to some facts stated in a paper fur¬
nished the Saint Paul convention, and found on pages 160 and 161 of its report, now
placed before you by Col. Utley, of Dixon, 111.
He thus wrote :
"The West and Northwest are now meeting with sharp competition for our cereals
in Europe, as is amply demonstrated by the present low prices for our products.
"Let us for one moment inquire into the causes for this depression in prices.
"Within a short time Germany has completed a ship-canal from Luckback Bay to
the North Sea, saving 500 miles of difficult and dangerous navigation to the Atlantic
ports, and reduced the cost of transporting wheat from the interior 6 cents per bushel.
She has also completed surveys and determined on the improvement of her rivers and
harbors, and the construction of canals, at a cost of more than ¡1100,000,000.
"Russia has just completed a ship-canal to connect with the Casperian Railway, and
he rengineers have finished the surveys and commenced work on the river Volga, from
the Caspian Sea up that river for 130 miles, to a pass in the highlands, and a canal
about 50 miles in length to the river Don, and down that river to the Black Sea and
out to the ocean.
"It is estimated that this improvement alone will reduce the cost of freight on wheat
from the great wheat fields about the Caspian Sea to the Atlantic ports fully 7 cents
per bushel. Previous to the construction of the Suez Canal the East Indies exported
to Europe less than 400,000 bushels of wheat annually. In 1882 they sent to the same
country over 33,000,000 bushels."
If Germany and Russia can give such attention to the needs of the wheat raisers of
these countries, why may not the United States pursue a like policy? Indeed, the
very genius of our Government cries out for a like liberal and far-reaching policy. It
would be in the interest of the people who are the Government. Their wealth is but
the wealth of the nation. A policy which compels the subjects or constituent elements
of a government to confer its beneficence, begets real, substantial patriotism. The
people are forthwith contented. Napoleon III was honored and loved in France, where
his policies were for the development of the material resources of the nation—when
labor was rewarded, when all the industries of the people were fostered and made
remunerative. He lost the throne when he left them uncared for, that he might have
the glories of war.
The highest weal of our Republic is reached when all the people feel that the Gov¬
ernment legislates for them, for their happine.ss, because it seeks to give them a full
return for all their labors ; when the harbors and rivers are made fit for the great pur¬
poses of commerce much is done for the people.
England, after her wars with Napoleon and while struggling under the burden of
her enormous debts, gave s])eclal attention to agriculture. She built canals, and so
fostered and built up a large internal commerce. This was, indeed, a new policy. It
3
was eminently successfnl. The increased facilities for internal commerce correspond¬
ingly augmented the products of agriculture. "The large products at the time enabled
English statesmen to avert many of the perils which then threatened the Kingdom.
It is within our memory that our large exports of agricultural products soon after
the close of the war turned the balance of trade in our favor, enabled the Govern¬
ment to resume her specie payments, and so reduced the public debt that it soon
ceased to be deemed a burden The energies of the people were turned to the grand
work of rebuilding.
Liberal policies are onr great want to-day. All questions affecting our internal
commerce should have immediate attention. Happily our Treasury is full, and fortu¬
nate will it be for the whole country if Congress shall let this Treasury meet all the
demands coming from the great necessities of the people.
It was mainly my duty to open this discussion. Others will deal more freely with
the arguments, horn of well arranged and well ascertained statistics. The gentlemen
who shall follow me have them and know how to use them.
In closing, gentlemen of the committee, allow me to predict that not two decades
will pass before the people of the United States will demand from Congress appro¬
priations for their internal commerce which will show in terrible clearness the meager-
ness of those of the last two decades. They will condemn parsimony, and demand
a generous, a large liberality in all that pertains to their good ; what shall be for
their good will be for the good of the Republic. You gentlemen will deserve well
of the people if you shall take a part in the inauguration of this mote liberal policy.
Yon will be sustained by the people, and by a consciousness that you have acted for
the greatest good of all the people of the entire Union.
James Phelan, of Memphis, Tenn., addressed the committee as follows:
Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I .shall not go into any details in
the discussion of this question, which has been already discussed by the gentlemen
who preceded me. Being called on somewhat suddenly to discuss the question, I shall
confine myself chiefly to one branch of the subject, which has not yet, I believe, been
broached, and that is the relation of the Mississippi River Commission to Congress
and the people.
As you all know, there have been various antagonistic influences which have come
into play in the discussion of this question, some being in favor of the Mississippi
River Commission and some opposed. Coming from the lower valley of the Missis¬
sippi, knowing somewhat of the work which the Commission has done, having also
heard the criticisms of those more competent than I am to form an accurate opinion,
I can say I am prepared to indorse absolutely and unreservedly the action of the
Mississippi River Commission. It is the almost unanimous sentiment of the people
from the lower Mississippi Valley that the Mississippi River Commission should be
sustained, that it should be regarded as their representative body, and that its action
should be indorsed by Congress. I wish to make this so much the clearer, so much
the more pointed, in view of the fact that questions on this subject have been raised.
Connected with a daily paper, having been interested for some years in this work,
having come in contact with these factors which form public opinion, being directly
influenced in my profession by public opiuion, I again repeat that whatever n ay
have been the errors of the Mississippi River Commission, whatever mistakes they
may have made in details, the people of the Lower Mississippi Valley undoubtedly
and heartily sustain them in their action.
Now, in so far as some questions of detail are concerned, I think, and those who
formed my opinion think, that the action of the Mississippi River Commission in some
things has not been exactly what it should have been, dictated by a sound and con¬
sidered judgment. The Mississippi River Commission has now been in existence sev¬
eral years. They have done some work which was exceedingly important, they have
accomplished decided and great results, but at the same time there are some things
whcih they should have doue which we believe, which we know, they have left un¬
done. The improvement of the Atchafalaya River, without going too far into de¬
tails, is a work of peculiar importance to the people of the extreme Lower Valley of
the Missipippi, the people of New Orleans, and other sections of that country, the
region tributary to New Orleans. Having been at work for some years, having
every facility for the collection of data, the Commission has failed to take any action
looking to the accomplishment of that work, which of all the work they have to
do is decidedly the most important. I do not wish to criticise the manner of their
work in other respects. I do not desire that this committee or Congress should regard
my remarks, or the remarks of anybody from the Mississippi River who has criticised
the Commission, as indicating an opinion that the Commission should be hampered
or restrained. Let them decide on the details of their work, but at the same time let
the committee and Congress force them, acting on their own judgment, to proceed to
make some definite improvement. In other words, I would not suggest to the com¬
mittee that it should tell them how they shall do the work, but I would suggest to
the committee and Congress that they should be told the work must be done imme-
4
diately. Leave to tlieni the plann, hut yon decide on the time. The Mississippi
Ei ver Commission as a body is indorsed,* and should be permanent. If the individuals
of the Commission are not competent to carry ont their work, then it is the duty of
Congress, it is the wish of the ])eople, that new members be appointed. Personally,
with possibly one exception, the Commission is thoroughly competent to carry out
this work. I think the adverse criticisms passeil on their action have rendered them
timid of undertaking the great work, which would be enormous and po.ssibly inade¬
quate ie.snlts accomplished. That may be an excuse for the apparent loitering on
their part. Btit if this Commission is capable of performing any work, then they
have all the material at their hands for the purpose of carrying out that work. I
would therefore suggest to the committee, in the interests of our people, whose
sentiments I know as to the value of the Commission, and which I think I have ex¬
pressed—I would suggest to Congress that the Mississippi River Commission itself
should be heartily indorsed : but I would also suggest, as the desire of those thor¬
oughly competent to form an opinion, that Congress should Insist on the Commission
taking immediate action looking towards these improvements, which are mostneces-
sary and urgent.
Mr. Gibson. In what respects, in youropinirm, has the Commission failed in the dis¬
charge of its duty ?
Mr. Phelan. Chiefly in the matter of the improvement of the Atchafalaya. That
is the vexed question. I, of course, am not in a position to say how the work should
he done, but at the same time 1 am prepared to say that some improvement should be
made—that it should be closed or opened, or that the discharge of water should be
regulated in some ma liner. They have admitted that something should be done to
regulate the discharge of w ater, but so far no attempt has been made to do it, as I
understand.
Mr. Gibson. Your principal point is that the imjirovementshould be made accord-
Bg to the ideas of the Commission.
Mr. Phklan. Yes, and to force the Commission to do it—to direct the Commission to
proceed with the work, but to leave the manner of procedure and details to them.
Now, ihere areother gentlemen to succeed me, and I will not trespass longer on your
time. I have not gone into details. I have suggested that which in my opinion is the
only point to be criticized.
Mr. Gibson. You live in Memphis ?
Mr. Phklan. Yes, sir.
Mr. g1b.son. In the last river and harbor bill, which became a law, a large ap¬
propriation, some $200,ÜUO, was made with the view of protecting that city against
encroachments of the river ; how has that work succeeded ?
Mr. Phelan. It has succeeded, as far as we can determine, brilliantly.
Mr. GiBSO^t. Has it met the expectations of those concerned ?
Mr. Phelan. It has more than met the expectations of the people of Memphis.
Mr. Gibson. Has any portion of that work done looking to the protection of the
city of Memphis been lost ; if so, what per cent. ?
Mr. Phelan. I do not know what per cent.; some accidents occurred by which
some part of it was torn away and lost; that was in carrying out the work. After
the mattresses were laid properly—after the engineer had accomplished what he de¬
sired—the results could not be observed immediately. As yet we have not had any
high flood. If you are acquainted with the action of the Mississippi River you will
know that the harmful work is gradual when it comes high water, and the results
are seen only after the water subsides. As yet, we have not had a flood of that kind.
The river there forms the three turnings of the letter " S," a kind of waving line.
There is one point juts above Memphis, and one juts towards Memphis here, and
lower down a point juts out towards the river where the river divides at President's
Island ; where the river comes down by the shank at the uppei projection, that pro¬
jects towards the Arkansas bank ; it there strikes the Arkansas bank ; it is then de¬
flected again towards the Memphis side; when the caving began near Memphis it
struck near the grain elevator and was undermining that. These mattresses were
laid, and it has been deflected again towards the Arkansasside. We bave noticed in
the last three months that where there is a large sand-bar, its upper edge has begun to
wear away.
Mr. liLANCHARD. Have you ever been up at Hopefleld Bend ?
' Mr. Phelan. Yes; that is what I have been speaking of. The money that has been
approiiriated was wholly inadequate, and has been expended. What we need is a
large and immediate appropriation to continue and complete.the work. I thank
you for your attention.
J. H. Flower, of New Orleans, La., said :
In lieu of Mr. E. K. Converse, I will read a paper prepared by him. The colonel is
a little indisposed this morning, and I will read the paper in his behalf, which is as
follows :
" Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I appear before you to urge, as
has been done by the gentleman before me, the improvement of all the navigable
5
higljways from tlie headwaters of the Missouri, the Ohio, and the Mississippi to their
coinmoi) and only outlet, the mouth of the Mississippi. I come to join my voice with
theirs in asking the attentive and favorable consideration of the memorials and reso¬
lutions that are presented as having been unanimously passed by the three conven¬
tions that were respectively held in New Orleans in April, at Saint Paul in Septem¬
ber, and at Kansas City iu December, and I come accredited as a representative from
the commercial exchanges of the city of New Orleans, and of the Produce Exchange
of that city in particular, who, at a meeting held on the 14th of this month, thus voiced
the opinion of every member of that large body of business men :
" ' New Orleans Produce Exchange,
" 'NewOrleans, January 14, 1886.
Whereas the business men of the city of New Orlean.s, and the citizens of the
State of Louisiana at large, feel most deeply interested in the proceedings of the con¬
ventions held iu this city. Saint Paul, and Kansas City, looking to the improvement
of the Western water-ways, and recognizing the importance of having their recom¬
mendations carried out—
Be it resolved, That we earuestly urge upon our Senators and Representatives in
Congress the necessity of having such appropriations made as will be in keeping with
the immense volume of trade involved.
And ie it further resolved, That we mo.st heartily concur in the appointment made
by the chairman of the executive committee of our worthy ex-president, E. K. Con¬
verse, esq., and fully indorse him as representing the sentiments of the exchange.
'"Yours, respectfully,
" ' N. D. WALLACE, President,
" ' By H. SMITH, Secretary.'
"Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, the story of our pressing needs
has been so well told already, and the benefits to follow their accomplishment so con¬
clusively proved by statistical facts and figures, that I feel nothing is needed from
those standpoints that can be advanced in argument by myself to induce you to con¬
viction ; but there is one matter not yet fully touched upon ; one that has largely
contributed to the commercial prosperity of New Orleans and of the Mississippi Valley,
a part that bears relation to the whole, the magnitude of which constantly asserts it¬
self, and the further discussion of which, in my judment, is proper at this moment;
the more so, because of the nature of a query propounded by one or more of your
committee on Wednesday morning. I refer, Mr. Chairman, to the jetties at the mouth
of the river. In all that I say of that work, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I speak sim¬
ply from my knowledge and experience as a business man, as a dealer in provisions
and breadstufts of the West since before the jetties were constructed. Intimately
and largely acquainted as I am with the business men of New Orleans, Saint Louis,
Kansas City, and other great centers of the Southwest, I liave yet to meet the first
dealer in my line who questions the present results of their construction. More than
by any other means of a local application has this work contributed to our welfare
and prosperity, and we would be recreant to the truth were we to say otherwise.
"The jetty proper embraces about thirteen miles of river, an infinitely small part of
the whole, 'tis true, but, Mr. Chairman, if the work upon all of the other portions of
the water-ways of the valley were as well and quickly doue, the increase in the com¬
merce of the Missouri, the Ohio, and the Mississippi valleys, the increased returns
upon the sale of the products consequent upon their increased and quickened means
of transportatiou, aud the increase iu the revenues to the General Government and of
its political jjower, that will follow such a consummation, will be far beyond what
can be comprehended by a statement at this time.
"The Mississippi Valley, as it is termed, embraces 1,'200,000 square miles of terri¬
tory, and its navigable water-courses over 14,000 miles. New Orleans has been for
years the exclusive seaport almost for the commerce of this vast domain, and be the
conditions what they may, the mighty river upon whose bank it lies is still and
will alwaj's continue to be the great avenue of commerce between the West and
South ; not with respect only to the commerce actually carried upon it, but in the in¬
fluence which it will ever exert towards regulating rates over competing routes.
" New Orleans being, as I have just said, the seaport of greater magnitude, the
jetties, upon which the Government has so wisely spent its millions, being an accom¬
plished result, it seems to me and to countless others, Mr. Chairman, as the essence
of statesinanship were the Government to preserve the re.sults already attained
throngh its expenditures, by preparing the way above for what seeks to pass through
that seaport and by the way of those jetties where the accommodation for that in¬
crease has been made so ample.
" In the success of the improvement of the mouth of the river, I have been un¬
stinted in my praise, Mr. Chairman, and in proof of my faith I will here give you a
)
few facts and figures. I may not make my |uesentation with that careful and or¬
derly detail that you are accustomed to, but none the less they will be found hard,
incontrovertible facts.
" Before the jetties, the depth of water through the passes did not exceed 18J feet
under the most favorable conditions. Now 30 feet may be found, and a narrowest
bottom width of äO feet.
" Before the jetties, the foreign steamship arrivals in 1873 numbered 83, with an
aggregate tonnage of 107,000 tons; in 18b3 they numbered 402, with an aggregate
tonnage of O.'iSjOOO tons,
" Before the jetties, a vessel of 1,500 or 2,000 tons capacity was above the average
in arrivals. Now vessels of 5,000 tons capacity are loaded at New Orleans.
" Before the jetties, vessels were loaded to not over 14 feet of draught. Now vessels
loaded to 26| and 27 feet pass ont to the sea.
" Before the jetties, skillful pilotage and management were of no avail, for the
channels were ever changing. Now, where a vessel is kept within the jetty channel,
detentions are unknown.
" Before the jetties, the towage on vessels was from |1.25 to |1.50 per ton. Now it
can and has been had for 50 cents a ton, and a proportionate reduction in the rates
of insurance on vessels and cargoes has also been made.
"Before the jetties, the exports of grain were 5.750,000 bushels in a year. Now
they are 14,2.50,000. The total exports were valued at $68,000,000. Now they amount
to $94,000,000, an increase of 50 per cent.
" Before the jetties, foreign freights were 18 to 24 cents per bushel. Now it isfrom
8 to 12 cents ; and right here I will state that although there has been a reduction to
some slight extent in the rates of river transportation, it is not nearly proportionate
to the reduction in ocean freights, because from the improved outlet to the sea, the
largest of steamers can come and go at will, while upon the rivers the need of im¬
proved navigation prevents it.
"And now, one more comparison, as to the effect of the improved navigation at the
mouth of the river upon that other great factor, the railroad. In 1873 the total
mileage of railroads to New Orleans was 570 miles. In 1883, after construction, the
mileage has increased to 10,227 miles.
"And now, one other reference, Mr. Chairman, and I will have done. It was asked
ou Wednesdaj' if the heated regions through which the grain passed in transit through
New Orleans to a foreign port was not an injury or a risk. I most unreservedly say
no. In 1879 or 1830 two barges were loaded with corn and wheat at Saint Paul, as
an experiment to test this very question. Its transit at points was purpo.sely delayed,
and it was held in New Orleans, iu the month of July, and was several months on
the way; yet on arrival at Liverpool it rated the same as to condition, upon inspec¬
tion. that it did at Saint Paul. Another instance ; a cargo of bulk grain and cotton
was loaded upon a steamship ; the steamer went ashore at or near the mouth, was
brought back to the city, and with cargo intact was placed in dock, repaired and
again went to sea, and iu about eighty days after shipment from New Orleans ar¬
rived at Liverpool iu a perfectly sound condition, all of which proved not only that
our southern climate does not affect its condition, but, as claimed by Mr. Ea<ls, that
a vessel with a full cargo can be taken from the water into a dock without injury.
"The citizens on the banks of great rivers pay their full quota of taxes and do
their part in the support of the Government, and are entitled to x^rotection as part of
this great country. We want cheaper transimrtatioii to the sea, which cau only be
secured by the improving -if navigation, all of which will be followed by increased
production, consequential increase of revenues to the Goverument, and a proxmrtiou-
ate benefit to all of tlie great sections of our country.
"To this end we ask at your hand a river and harbor bill commensurate with the
magnitude of the work in hand and of the im|(erative needs and demands of the
Xieople.
" Tlianking you for your attention to my remarks, I am, re,spectfully,
"E. H. CONVERSE."
Mr. Gibson. Have you any opinion you can give us in relation to fie increase of
the number of steamboats on the river i\Iis.sissii)[)i since the Goverument has under¬
taken to improve that .stream—the increase of the number of steamers that ply from
New Orleans u;), and the quantity of freight that- X)a.s.ses?
Mr. Bhyan. I have that data at the hotel and will furnish it. I cannot, iierhaps,
give it fully, but I can give yon, I think, what you want,
Mr. Blanciiakd. I nmlm'stand that in the last two or throe years there has been
a system of barge transportation inaugurated going esiiecially from fsaiut Louis to
New Orleans, and we would like to have the data as to that.
Mr. Buvan. I will furnish all I can.
Dr. Joti.v AnriiL'tt, of Kansas, said ;
I am here re]ue.senting th" Saint Paul, Minn., convention, and I am the reqire-
seutative here of the State of Kansiis—the only repre.scntative from that St.ate. How-
7
ever, I was delegated from the Saint Paul convention, and act in the capacity of the
two. I reside at Wyandotte City. I have manuscript here of the remarks I desire to
make to the committee.
Mr. President and gentlemen of the River and Harbor Committee : Pardon nie for
pursuing a more specific and detailed line of argument than that of my colleagues,
who have, as I conceive, exhausted the resources in that branch of our subject. I
shall endeavor to show that these freight rates affect the interest of each individual
producer: that the improvement of navigation is not antagonistic to railroads; that
it reclaims lands at no additional expense ; that the modus operandi, when understood,
brings convictions of its permanency and success of the enterprise ; that it removes
obstructions; is permanent in its effects on navigation if continuous, and if not con¬
tinuous a failure ; and, finally, that the land reclaimed by this continuous system of
river improvement will, by its own producing power and increased value when re¬
claimed, pay the entire cost of improvement.
We, the chosen representatives of the States of Arkansas, Iowa, Illinois, Kansas,
Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas, and
the Territories of Dakota, Colorado, and Montana, in convention assembled, on the
4th day of September, IÖ85, in the city of Saint Paul, State of Minnesota, for the pur¬
pose of considering the subject of transportation as affected by the present condition
of the natural water-ways, compared with the improvements of these natural avenues
of commerce, suggested by the late experiments—the skill and practical knowledge
of engineers and civilians of this the nineteenth century—do most respectfully sub¬
mit the following for your consideration as a justification for our appear.ance before
you this day, as well as a just and adequate incentive for you to render the monetary
aid which we seek to obtain.
The people of these States and Territories number 14,000,000. Their productions
for the year 188.5 were $3:{8,2Í):¿,79;5 in horses, as against $613,296,611 for all the States;
also of milch cows, $129,003,3.58, as against $279,899,420, the whole; also of oxen and
other cattle, $220,611,062, as against a total of $341,761,154 ; also of sheeji, $44,728,972,
as against $90,230,537; and also of hogs, $95,959,774, as against .$145,781,515 of the
whole nation.
They also produce more than two-thirds of all the corn, wheat, oats, and barley,
thus showing that these valley States contribute a large excess of one-third of all
the articles produced for the necessary and general co' sumption of this great nation.
As such contributors, we, as a matter of justice, should receive that proportional
part of your legislation and that proportional part of all benefits conferred and grow¬
ing out of your assembling together.
We admit the general principle upon which our Goveruineut is founded, viz, that
each and every person must of necessity concede certain inherent rights for the " good
of the whole." But at the same time we strongly insist, that in the general distribu¬
tion of "good," we should receive our pro rata of consideration.
Moreover, being, as before mentioned, such producers of natural prodircts, and like¬
wise gre.at consumers of articles produced and manufactured abroad, we regardait
matters touching trausportation of vital importance to us. So much so, indeed, do
we regard it that conventions are being hehl semi-annually in one or the other cities
of our valley, composed of from 500 to 3,000 of the most intelligent, influential, busi¬
ness, and wealthy citizens of that vast section of country, at heavy expense, for the
purpose of comparing thought, expressing their wants and their grievances, and de¬
termine the most practical, etficient, economic, and speedy means by which the in¬
terests of all can be subserved.
We are united in a knowledge of the fact that if our transportation is lessened it
can only be so done by the comsent and legislation of yourselves. We in and of our¬
selves are powerless to rernevly the evils complained of. That you may fully realize
our condition we now a.sk you to foi-get your repre.sentative individuality, and each
imagine himself a farmer upon the rich and fertile soil of that wonderful infant State
(Kansas), where you have a wife and several children, who have been your only help
in the cultivation of your fields ; where you are deeply exercised. The future of your
family is a subject of intense anxiety, and when you and your little ones have pro¬
duced a large crop of corn, wheat, jiotatoe.s, and stock, your home is mortgaged, and
to meet this debt these productions seek a market. Your commission merchant at
New Orleans gives you paying figures, if only you can get there at reasonable rates.
You ascertain the freight rates to Kansas City ; from thence to New Orleans. Yon
find railroad tariff 39 cents per bushel on your wheat and potatoes, and :I6 cents per
bushel on your corn, and 10 mills per ton per mile on your hogs and cattle. You fig¬
ure up the.se freight rates, together with other contingeucies, and fiud your net pro¬
ceeds from the sale of all your products will not clothe your children, much less pay
interest on incumbrances. You lie down at night, groaning .and worrying, with no
rest. The next morning you see adverti.sed by the Babbage Barge Company line of
transportation from Kansas City to New Orleans a rate of 7 cents per bushel on corn,
wheat, and potatoes, and 1 mill per ton per mile on cattle, hogs, &c. Yon ship immedi-
8
ateiy, take your products to market, sell at fair fi<>ures, retnru home, and begin to es -
tiuiatp. On 5,0ÜÜ bushels corn, 2,000 bushels wheat, and 1,000 bushels potatoes, which
you carried to market, your returns from savings on freight between railroads and
waterway have yielded you |2,400. How dilterent do you feel, and how changed the
future.
This IS not a figure of fancy. It is but the realiration of each and every producer
every year of his life, with the single exception that only in the year lb79 did he ever
And this advertisement of the Bahbage Barge Company in which freights were thus
reduced. But Prof. G. C. Pratt, in his annual report as railroad commissioner, assures
us that there is as great a promise of gain in transporting heavy freight on the water,
if navigation were imjtroved, at 1 mill per ton per mile, as by railways at .5 mills per
ton per mile, and no greater risk.
I omitted to add to the item of .savings the difference to the farmer in the cost of
all those articles which he is forced to purchase, which are brought from abroad to
him.
But permit me in this connection to state that while this dift'ereuce in cost of trans¬
portation by rail and wmter exists, tbere should nevertheless be no antagonism be¬
tween the railway interests and those of the water-ways, for the reason that the rail¬
roads permeate the whole country. The great earth, which God has made, is their
foundations from which to gather in their rapid course the vast productions there¬
from, draw tribute from every cultivated acre in their broad range, and deposit the
raw material in the graneries upon the banks of these rivers, if improved, to be borne
hence to all the markets of the globe. We would not if we could, and we could not if
we would, mar the usefulness of our great system of railways. They have been our
prosperity, they have contributed more to the development of the great West, which
I at this hour represent, than all other agencies now existing. They have brought
habitations and put into culture millions of acres of land, which but for these would
have been the play-ground of the buflalo, coyote, antelope, and jack rabbit for a
century to come. The sage brush, sand banks, and droughts are no longer the cry of
the lone travelers, but the meriy voice of happy children, the enchanting song of
angelic women, and the hoarse ' Go 'long" of hardy manhood, echo and re-echo from
1,325,000 acres of land in that mighty West.
Still, because these railways have brought us into existence, we now desire to reach
perfect manhood, and not, on account of high freights, to live only as sickly, puny,
and undeveloped bairns. These two basins would be the Croesus of the West for
agricultural purposes, if reclaimed by that system of riverimprovement adopted with¬
in the last five years by our engineers.
The obstacles to the continuous and successful navigation of the Mississippi and
Missouri Rivers and their tributaries should be removed. And in so doing these
valley lands would, at the same time, with no additional expense, be reclaimed, as I
shall now endeavor to prove.
These valleys are made land, formed by deposits from the annual river floods and
from the high lands contiguous during heavy rainfalls.
The soil, therefore, consists of loam, sand, silt, and drift, forming by combination
a texture remarkly rich and loose, and conseiiuently easily removed or displaced by
a current of water.
The current of the river, by virtue of an inherent attractive and repulsive prop¬
erty, seeks a tortuous course, iu which there is made invariably and necessarily a
concave bend on the one side and a gradually sloping convex bending surface imme¬
diately opposite on the other side. During the month of June of each year, when the
snow of the mountains is melting, the river swells and overflows the lower lands. If,
simultaneously, there is an unusual rainfall in the vicinity of these basins, as in
1879,1881, and 1883, uniting with the melting snows, the rivers assume an enormous
height, increasing the depth of channel to 30 feet above low-water gauge, in which
event the whole basin is submerged from bluff to bluff, thereby increasing the width
of the river from 1,000 feet ordinarily to 15 miles in some sections.
The seasons of excessive rainfall and melting snows, in which the whole valley is
inundated, usually occurs about the first of June, and by the 15th of July the river is
in its ba.nks, but it sometimes occurs that the overtlow commences in April and does
not subside until July or August 1.
There is no b.ank-washing as long as the water covers and con.seqnently su])ports
them, but so soon as the river falls within banks the concave bank, against which
only the current strikes and Hows raiddly downward, scouring and surging in its
progress for a di.stance of from two to live, itiih'S, washes off centrally not uufre-
queutly from one hundred feet of earth in width by one-half mile or more in length every
twenty four hours. By this process the, concavity is increased, the central diameter
stretciies towa.nls the bluff rapidly, for the simple re.ason that the velocity is greatest
at the current's center and diminishes as the distance from this central flow above
and below is incre.ased, until finally a terminal i)oint is reached, in which there is no
current and no excavation. Before reaching this terminal point below, the current
9
begins to deflect, preparatory to the crossing over to the opposite bank. The whole
volume of water is here laden with detritus, and, its velocity becoming diminished,
it can no longer carry its immense burden; it heaves and surges, rises and lalls,
scours and deposits, forming shoals and pools alternately, until it reaches the opposite
shore, where, having divested itself of the superabundant burden, it begins to at¬
tack upon that shore, to be foliowed by the same results, and so onward and onward
from Sioux City to the mouth, a distance of 762 miles. From Sioux City upwards the
characteristics of the river change. It is now apparent that but for these crossings
there would be no obstructions from shoals to navigation. It is highly important in
this connection to impress the fact, viz, that as the concave bank wash-s centrally,
the point of deflection below changes, producing a coriesponding change in the chan¬
nel of its course in its passage to the opposite shore. Hence arises the variableness
found in the channel at these points and the difficulty of navigation immediately fol¬
lowing floods, on the Missouri Kiver especially.
It is a common occurrence for the pilots of our Western steamboats, while running
with perfect freedom, to call for the sounding. The lead is thrown ; the response
comes, "Nobottom; no bottom; mark twain ; lOfeet; 6 feet; no foot atall,by G—d."
The vessel is fast aground ; time is lost ; expenses go on ; damage is incurred ; heavy
loss is sustained, and as the result navigation is suspeniied."
How can this state of unprofltable navigation of our Western waterways be reme¬
died? How can the Missouri River, for instance, be so altered and changed that it
can be made navigable, as you desire, and what the cost attending it ?
The end can be attained by that system of river improvement called "revetment.
And, having stated the characteristics of the Missouri River especially, we are now
prepared to state how it can be improved.
The work consists in protecting the concave bank only from washing, which can
be done as follows : ,
In the first place, after having secured all necessary apparatus, consisting of boats,
barges, towboats, boats for sleeping and feeding the hands, boats for constructing
mattresses, machine boats, tools, &c., all of which have been bought at an ex¬
pense of $650,000, and which, when collected, is called for convenience "the plant,"
the engineers proceed to grade to a suitable slope the perpendicular concave bank,
by means of a jet of water thrown from a large gum pipe by an engine on board a
vessel prepared for the purpose; after which a mattress of willows and wireismade,
like a carpet woven in a loom from filling and warp. This is made seventy feet wide,
and is placed upon the bottom of the river the entire distance to which the work at
a given point will be required, and extends ont from the bank into the river. This is
confined to the bottom by large stones, conveyed from quarries on barges and thrown
overboard in sufficient quantity to hold the mattress immovably to the bottom. This
being done a similar mattress is woven of sufficient width to cover the sloped bank,
overlapping the mattress at the bottom for several feet, like shingles on the roof of a
house. The upper edge of this mattress extends over the top of the bank and is there
confined at every eight feet by a large and small wire rope alternately, the larger one
being one-half inch in size and is anchored ten feet backte a ponderous stone imbedded
several feet into the earth. In addition to these ropes are stakes eight feet long, driven
ten feet apart through the mattress into the sffiped bank, and the whole entirely cov¬
ered with stone weighing from 20 pounds minimum to 200 pounds maximum. When
this is finished the work presents the appearance of a uniform sloping bank nice'y rip-
rapped with stone. The first annual rise of the river covers this mass with silt, sand,
and drift, thus eft'ectually preventing all atmospheric influences and any decay conse¬
quent thereon. But to be permanent the reveting must commence at the source of the
stream or at points protected by high stone bluffs. In order that a change in the river
above cannot so alter the channel that it can be forced to strike above the point of
beginning and by so doing enable the channel to get behind the work done, in which
event the whole of the work is brought to naught. Thus is explained the cause of
so much work heretofore done on the Missouri River with such small results.
This likewise is the reason that the system of river improvement cannot begin at
the month and proceed upwards.
The effect of this system of river improvement continued to completion is three¬
fold ;
Ist. Material is no longer furni.shed in such immense quantity for the formation of
shoals or bars in the transition of the current from side to side, for the bank being
mattressed and overlaid with stone as aforesaid, no longer scours or falls in, as for¬
merly.
2d. At the spring floods, when the banks are overflowed, the detritus settles upou
the banks and adjacent valley lands, elevating the same from year to year, until even¬
tually a secondary formation is created of sufficient height and width to prevent over¬
flows altogether.
3d. The shoals at the crossing are washed oft', caused by a uniform deflection of the
current from this protected and concave surface, which h.as been made uniform in
curvature and stable in character.
10
• But in order to benetit navigation permanently, even at, the locality improved, it is
hazardous to stop the work at this one point for the purpose of benefiting a section
remote from this, for the reason that the river might make a cut-off in the first
bend above, in which event the channel wonld in all probability leave entirely the
shore thus protected and make an attack below at a different point altogether upon
the first side opposite the revetment.
Therefore it follows that, to be effective to navigation, the sys era must be contin¬
uous, most certainly to the extent of similarly improving the concave bank first below
and on the opposite bank from that improved.
One other point and I will have finished my remarks pertaining solely to navigation.
Yon remember, in niy description of the river and its channel before revetting was be¬
gan, we had at the section in which onr work was to begin a long concave, or half-
moon bank surface, a deep channel scouring this said bank, and a narrow river, while,
immediately below, at the crossing, we had a wide river, a scattered and changeable
current, numerous shoals and pools, and no fixed channel and no water on the shoals
over three feet. After revetting this concave bank surface we had the same deep,
strong current coursing our protected bank ; but below we had a fixed deflection of
current, producing a fixed channel in its crossing; which fixed channel, by virtue of
its own force, bereft of detritus, scours ofi' the sho.ils or bars, which uniform localized
scouring deepens the channel, throws to each side the sediment from the bottom until,
finally, a natural and permanent bank on either side of this ero.ssing current is thrown
up, thereby contracting the water surface within a leas width, and a depth of chan¬
nel from 8 to lá feet is obtained as a direct consequence of revetment performed as
above described. If this be true in this locality, so far improved, it must be equally
so in every other locality similarly situated, and if true in all, the result will be a
channel of B to 12 feet is obtained and fixed for all time to come.
In addition to securing a navigable river for large vessels 8 to 10 months in the
year, what besides does this grand and continuous system of river improvement ac-
comitlish ?
We have stated before, that there are two basins, the one the Mississippi, the other
the Missouri. The length of theMissouri River basin, from its mouth to Fort Buford, is
1,682 miles. The average width of the valley land now subject to overflow, comput¬
ing from a point of bluff on the one side of river to a corresponding bluff point on
the other side, an average distance of 2 miles, or 3,364 square miles. From the mouth
to Sioux City is 782 miles, or 1,564 square miles; from the cities of Kansas, Mo., and
Wyandotte, Kans., situated each ou the Missouri River, at the mouth of Kansas River
to Sionx City, is 400 miles, or 800 square miles of bottom laud This district, which
I directly represent, comprises a portion of Missouri, Kansas, Nebra.ska, and Iowa, in
which there are 512,000 acres of land directly and ince.ssantly afi'ected by the Missouri
Rît'er. There is in cultivation each year not to exceed one-third of this, nor could
there be more under existiiig contingencies. There could be another third success¬
fully cultivated two years out of three, the other third is wholly abandoned on
account of annual overflow. If the Missouri River, from the mouth of the Kansas
River, where the two cities aforesaid are situated, to Sioux City, were improved, the
amount of arable lands from and after three years, from date of improvement, wonld
be two-thirds successfully and annually, and one-third only subject to oecasioual sub-
mergation.
These bottom lands produce, on an average, 60 bushels of corn per acre, or 50 bush¬
els oat,s, 25 bushels wheat, 300 bushels Irish potatoes, or 1,500 pounds hemp, at the
will of the producer. The gross product as now situated for an average year in 6,
at the rate aforesaid, would be 533,000 bushels ; whereas if reclaimed, the average an¬
nual yield would be 25,575,666 bu.sbels as against 8,533,000 bushels at present—thus
increasing onr annual product 17,042,666 bushels in corn. The amount of production
thus increased, at the net value of 10 cents per bushel, amounts to 11,704,266 and 66f
cents each year ; and in ten years thereafter the whole bottom would be reclaimed at
no additional cost.
What, you may ask, will it cost to revet the bank of the Missouri River, from Sioux
City to the .said mouth of Kansas River. Pardon me, gentlemen, for having selected
these points for the basis of argunieut. I have done so solely for brevity and con¬
venience in computing amounts. That which is true for this .section isetjually so for
the sections above ami below. But, to proceed : The cost per mile, as reported by Maj.
Charles Suter, United States engineer, isflO.üOO—if made continuously—btit if done
in driblets, as heretofore, a little at one point this year, and a little at another point
next year, or, perhaps, none at all, the cost has been .|20,tl06 per mile. The distance
being, as aforesaid, 40Ü miles, the cost of improving this section would be .14,060,1)00—
from the, mouth of Mi.s.souri River to said Kansas City. l|3,860,000. Thus the whole
cost from Siou.x City to the mouth of Mi.ssouri River, .$7,860,000, and, in less ratio, if ex¬
tended thereby the whole distance improve<l to the mouth of the Yellowstone, a dis¬
tance of 000 miles farther, $7,200,000, or, total, |15,000,000, for 1,682 miles. The esti-
11
mated annual increased prodnction of the bottom land reclaimed would pay the whole
debt in less than 5 years.
Another feature in this estimate of results is the increase in the market value of
these bottom lands. The estimated taxable value of these lands does not exceed $5
per acre. But if reclaimed they would be the most valuable agricultural lauds of
those States, and accordingly their taxable value would by assessment increase to $15
or |:50 per acre, according to location.
From this showingof incontrovertible facts, statistics, and figures can we, gentlemen,
lay before you any more conclnsive arguments to induce you to originate a system of
river improvements to be annually executed, whereby this great Missouri River will
be made navigable unobstructedly during the carrying season for vessels and barges
drawing 8 feet or more of channel ?
Not only the improvement of navigation, but that these lands, now the generators
of malaria, covered with frog ponds and quicksands, may become the healthy homes
of 1,000,000 of people, well-to-do and happy, whose praise shall ascend continually
for these great ben-fits, and who.se millions of revenue will decrease the taxable drain¬
age from the pockets of our whole people.
Gentlemen, were the Missouri River to-day navigable, as we hope ere long to see it,
had we the railroad rates reduced as water compelition has done elsewhere, we would
not have heard tliat wail of suffering and distress from the frozen and dying men,
women and children who perished on the western borders of my State duriusr the late
cold wave. Produce can't of itself huild houses and clothe families ; cattle, hogs, and
sheep must be exchanged to bring comfort to owners. These must find a remunera¬
tive market through the arteries of trade, or neither producer nor consumer is bene¬
fited. We produce; you consume. Excessive rate transportation withholds these
supplies from you. Remember, gentlemen of the East—
You can live without poetry, music, or art.
You may live without conscience and iive without heart,
You may live without fri-nds. you may live without book;
But who can iive witliout something to cook ?
You may live without books—what is knowledge hut grieving—
You may live without hope—what is hope but deceiving—
You may live without love—what is passion but teasing—
But who of the earth can live without feeding?
Mr. Gibson. Is not one of the great difficulties with the Missouri River that in the
spring and summer floods yon speak of, it changes the bed of the river entirely in
some places ?
Dr. Arthur. I liave answered that question under the third section of my address,
and I hope you will find it a conclnsive reply.
Mr. Blanchard. Are you acquainted about Atchison ?
Dr. Arthur. Yes, sir.
Mr. Blanchard. Do you remember that a few miles above there the bed of the
river used to run into the Missouri side—some places 4 or 5 miles—and that it runs so
from nearly above Atchison to Weston, Mo. Now, is not the great difficulty with
the Missouri River, when these floods come, these gre.-it changes occur, not b.v any
great washing by the current itself, but by an entire change in the bed of the river ?
Dr. Arthur. This riprapping would prevent it. We have an instance of that kind
at Quindora. The i-iver there was threatened with cutting oil'. By our influence
the men commenced their work there. In fact, the channel was so swift yon could
not cross it with a canoe. In crossing a distance of 150 yards it would wash you
down 100 yards, it was so swift ; but so soon as this riprapping was done that was
obviated.
Mr. Blanchard. Do you call riprapping the revetment ?
Dr. Arthur. Yes, sir.
Mr. Blanchard. Has the work done in the way of revetment on tlie Missouri River
side been successful ?
Dr. Arthur. That which has been done recently seems to be a perfect success.
We have had no heavy ri.ses in the river as yet.
Mr. Blanchard. Has there been any test of it ?
Dr. Arthur. There has been no fnli test of that. Tliat which was done previous
to tliat they did not commence at a bluff bank, and the consequence was the change
of the channel above causes it to come beliind that and remove it. There was $150,000
of work done in the bend above Kansas City, begun in 1879 and finished in 188¿, and
the most of tliat work was removed when the present Commission was con.stituted ; in
fact, I do not think there was a ([uarter of a mile of that work remaining. They
comineuced at the curvature, or half ground, so to speak, but did not commence at a
blufl' point, and consequently the clianges coming on, the river being so rapid, threw
the current above that, and cut it all off. For a quarter of a mile tliere were trees
on that bank of the river tliat were on the opposite side of the river before.
12
Mr. Blanchard. Have you ever had occasion to observe the revetment on the Mis¬
sissippi River ?
Dr. Arthur. No, sir; I have confined my attention to the Missouri River. í have
not been since my early mauhood down the Mississippi River at all. I regret exceed¬
ingly that I am not more conversant with that work. I have takeu a great deal of
parus since being here to become so, but I have received no information that would
be of value to you.
Mr. Catchings. Are the views you have expressed the same as those of the engi¬
neer?
Dr. Arthur. Yes, sir: his efforts have been entirely at Saint Paul, and this is in ac¬
cordance with his plans. Mr. Younge has charge of the work ; he is the executor of
it. I understood from Mr. Younge that the rivers Rhine and Po had been improved
by this system of revetment, in the same manner as this, and with satisfactory re¬
sults. He assured me of that before I prepared this address.
Mr. Catchings. You have said nothing about contraction.
Dr. Arthur. The only point necessai y for contraction is at the crossing of the river
down there, out from a thousand feet to maybe a mile and a half, and the water is
scarcely ever exceeding 3 feet deep at low-water stage. At that time the water in
this bend is very deep because it is contracted. Now, the object of this revetment is
to make the channel in its crossing uniform—always the same, and in so doing—this
is the channel—it scours the bottom and throws the sediment from the bottom ; it
throws it on the sides where there is really no current. That continues to build up
in this way, and thus this contraction occurs.
Mr. Catchings. I wanted to know whether it was the o|)iuion of the River Com¬
mission that this evil could be rectified by using revetment work entirely, and whether
to adopt revetment and contraction work above,-or whether contraction work was
inefficient.
Dr. Arthur. You mean contraction by means of jettying ? I believe, as far as my
knowledge extends, on the Missouri river, there is no point on the river that the re¬
vetting on a concave surface will not produce the results you are wishing to attain.
Without any jetties or contraction or dredging, or anything of the kind, I think any
additional work can be done; that is the opinion of the present gentlemen in charge
of the work—that these jetties are superfluous, entirely so. We suggested that at
Qnindaro—that place which was threatened by cutting off so as to lose 2,000 acres
of valuable land—we suggested to Mr. Younge to see if it were not practic able to put
in a jetty at this point and another on the opposite side, so as to keep the water from
spreading out and thus injure the channel. He said it was not.
Mr. Blanchard. What is the other system of improvement—merely revetting?
Dr. Arthur. Entirely so. This contracting m the channel below isa consequence,
and it immediately follows ; it follows the first high water after the work has been
done ; but you will observe if it is done only in one point, the river above this point
may cut oft' and entirely leave this concave surface, against which the river is now
making its strongest attack. Because of the cutting off above, it may goon the other
side entirely ; but if it is continuously imjiroved there is no chance of its being out off
either above or below.
The Chairman. Do you mean that that improvement should commence atthepoint
where the Commission indicates and continue to the mouth ?
Dr. Arthur. Yes ; beginning .at any bluff point, and then continue downward, i ti-
proving the concave banks where they occur. But if you have not a bluff' bank as
the initial point, the work is liable to be removed at any time, because any change
that is ett'ected in that attack of the channel, if it falls above or below, is liable, as a
matter of course, to make an alteration in the channel.
The Chairman. You have not seen the last report of the Missouri River Commis¬
sion?
Dr. Arthur. I don't think I have. I saw Mr. Younge's report, but not Mr.
Souter's.
Mr. Catchings. As I understand you, the Missouri River Commission has not
adopted the plan of contraction excepi
Dr. Arthur. So far as I know, except up to Sioux City.
Mr. Catchings. Have these engineers explained to yon that they did not intend
to adopt the contraction i)lau of work, or do you merely infer it from the fact that
they have expended lilierally in making revetment ?
Dr. Arthur. I nuderatood that Irom the interview I had with Mr. Younge, who
lives in Kansas City. I had a good many interviews with him, as well as being con¬
nected with the work at that point. My actual knowledge extends only to that part
of the river; my knowledge is not so accurate about the work done elsewhere. I
only know of the points about which I speak.
Mr. Catchings. Doctor, you have evidently given this subject a great deal of study,
lean under.stand how you could make the concave bank strong enough that you might
prevent caving entirely, but I do not understand how that wouhl accomplish any
13
permauent enlargenient of the channel for the purpose of navigation. I would like
you to explain, if you can, how revetting can improve navigation.
Dr. Arthus. I will try to do it.
Mr. Catohings. I do not understand how you can have any great depth of water
unless you confine the current so as to decrease the friction and increase the area. I
don't see how revetment would produce that. The mere fact of stopping the caving
would not confine the water in any given channel. It would still have that friction
area, except in the immediate line". There would he no doubt some increase of depth,
but not enough lor navigation.
Dr. Arthur. In the concave surface there is a flow of water, usually even at low
water gauges, from 20 to as high as 30 feet throughout the entire course of this con-
cavitj". The shoal water is only in crossing from this concave surface to the other
side. Now your point is, what you want to know is, how we are going to contract
this volume of water in its passage from one side to the other. Is that your ques¬
tion ?
Mr. Catchinos. Yes.
Dr. Arthur. Well, you can see now, that as it is, the channel of the water in cross¬
ing from one side to the other is not a fixture; it is constantly shifting.
Sir. Catchings. The thread of the stream ?
Dr. Arthur. Yes ; and it is laden, by virtue of the friction against the bank with¬
out protection, it is laden with detritus, and becomes so entirely full of that that it
can no longer hold it in solution, and as it is passed across that it deposits it. Now,
stop this corroding of the bank and you have no detritus at all; thus, having nothing
to deposit, it flows in one direction, in one current, and in the transit from one side to
the other that naturally occurs will of itself make this bed, and will contract the
volume of water in that channel, and will give you a depth of from 10 to 12 feet; and
then the bottom is scoured at the same time ; the volume of water coming in keeps
scouring it until you have a channel fixed and permanent.
By permission. Dr. Arthur subsequently submitted the following supplementary re¬
marks :
Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the River and Harbor Committee, during my re¬
marks before you on the 22d instant I was asked if I did not propose to contract the
river width at its crossings. Before answering this question directly, let me call to
your attention the immensity of labor herein implied and comprehended.
Remember these crossings are frequent, taking place as they do every 5 or 10 miles
at farthest. The river rarely ever confines itself to one bank for a greater distance
than ñ miles, and occasionally fora much less distance. For example: To protect the
washing sur acie at Quindaro Point required miles, whereas at Kaw Bend, imme¬
diately below on the opposite side, required 4f miles. From this you perceive how
frequently this device, be it what it may, would be demanded if you undertook to
narrow the river at these various crossings. In a linear distance of 100 miles the
river would cross and recross from ten to twenty times. The character of work requi¬
site at these said transitions would necessarily differ widely from that on the bank,
for the reason that revetment must have either a bottom torestupon ora slopingbank.
But the work at these crossings must be self-sustaining, of the nature of wing-dams,
permeable dikes, stone pillars, and perhaps revetting could be used as an interme¬
diate appendage, but not as principal. These, combined with proper height and sta¬
bility, might effect the purpose. But apply such a system as this to each reach of
channel-crossing would require far more monetary aid than the unlimited coinage of
the silver dollar would afford. I therefore answer most emphatically that no such a
system is contemplated or is practical. The current is its own dredge-boat, the form¬
ater of its own channel, the builder of its own side-guards, and, as a consequence the
contractor of its own surface. It does this on a large and economic method. But to
do so the command to protect the banks against excoriating must be heeded. Ah,
gentlemen, do this, and I will guarantee the current will soon deepen and narrow the
line of escajte.
The bank erosion and the shifting current are combined forces to produce shoal
water in crossing. Why so? Answer: The'detritus from the banks, in the first
place, greatly increases the specific gravity, makes the water more dense, it becomes
exceedingly heavy, the velocity is very much decreased, not alone from this causb,
hut is also lessened by the direction which the current assumes, for be it remembered
that the current in its course runs towards every point of the compass. For these
reasons the deposit is very great.
Think of it, gentlemen ; according to the report of Engineers Cooley and Younge,
the amount of detritus held in solution during the flood of 1879, while passing by the
bridge at Saint Charles, Mo., where the estimate was made, was sufficient to have
formed a solid body of land one mile square and 200 feet high.
If, then, as I have endeavored to prove, the continual change in the current pro¬
duced by falling banks, the density of the water, and decreased velocity, are when
thus combined the causes of these shoals, is it not fair reasoning to assume, upon the
14
principle remove the canse and the removal of the effect will follow, that to revet the
banks continuously, and the shoals cannot exist, or will he removed ? Most certainly
revetment checks the supply of detritus, holds the velocity uniform, and establishes
an invariable point of deflection, thus forcing the current to scour the bottom in one
single line of travel, for it can follow no other.
This uniform current flowing during low tide, at the rates of 4 miles per hour and
8 in high tide, plowing unceasingly in the same channel, must and will produce a
uniforui roadway for large vessels and barges, amply sufficient for the demands of
commerce.
Moreover, the detritus from overflows, or floods, being confined where deposited,
would foym secondary and permanent banks on either side of the river, of sufficient
height to confine the water altogether. Tortuous and curving, to be sure; yet all-
sufficient for the task.
In conclusion, gentlemen, if, from our reasoning and the information you have
gathered from other sources you are convinced that to cheapen transportation will in¬
crease the commerce of the West, increase her population, increase production, increase
the market for manufactured articles,cheapen supplies for the consumer, and enable
the surplus products of our country to compete successfully with foreign products in
foreign markets; if, gentlemen, you believe the water-ways if improved would be
the most natural and economic method for accomplishing these objects, but are in
doubt as to whether these said water-ways are susceptible of such improvements
as this continuous and uninterrupted commerce would necessitate, would it not be
statesman-like, yea, would it not be commendable and heroic, to take a specific reach
of the Missouri Eiver, say 25, 50, or 100 miles, and upon that said reach concentrate the
plant, furnish money, and perfect speedily that stretch, and thus convince yourselves
of the plausibility, permanency, utility, and practicability of this system of river im¬
provement now being employed aud called revetment ? We submit our rights to your
earnest consideration.
For what greater to man may belong
Than the right to repair, in the future the wrong ?
A. L. Sullivan, of Plattsmouth, Nehr., said:
Gentlemen of the committee, I but carry the message of the people of Nebraska,
my own State, when I say it is a matter in which they feel that their pecuniary and
industrial interests very much depend on the success of the mission on which we are
here—that of improving the Western water-ways. As far as its practicability is con¬
cerned, that was demonstrated years ago. The Government transported its troops to
the seat of war before there was a railroad in the West. The frontiersman received
his coffee from New Orleans long before the sound of a railroad whistle was heard
there. It was only when competition drove these boats from the river that that
means of transport was discontinued, aud the river became unfit for navigation.
Now, it is said by some that if you improve the water-ways these artificial means
of transportation will drive them from the water. We say, let them do it. We
shall have the advantage of cheap transportation, aud it is immaterial to us from
what source it comes. Let it come from the railroads or boats, it is an instrumen¬
tality by which cheap transportation can be obtained. A few years ago in our own
city railroad rates were so exorbitant and oppressive that grain buyers and others
interested induced certain boats to come from Saint Louis bringing coal aud such
products as our country needs and taking in exchange our grain, cattle, aud hogs,
which resulted in this, that we received at that time a better rate than we ever re¬
ceived before, and never since has the railroad dared to charge exorbitant rates
when we had it in our power to rebuke them.
That is the situation out West. As far as the Mississippi River improvement is
concerned, we say it is a part of the system. The improvement of the Missouri River
without completing the remainder is only partial. We want a complete highway to
the Gulf. We are not sectional, not local. We are looking at the matter in its proper
national sense. We would not wish to improve the Mississippi and leave the Missouri
unimproved, but we wish them to be improved together.
Geutlemen, in the State of Nebraska there are 175,000,000 bushels of com in the
crib. The probable saving to our people will pay our share of the improvement of
the Missouri River, aud we are willing to stand it.
When I speak of the greatness of the We,st I speak of the greatness of the country
at large. It is a ji.art of the glory of the Massachusetts men as well as that of the
Nebraska men that we have the Garden of the West ; and to make that garden valu¬
able, to develop it properly, reijuires the improvement of the Mississippi River. The
improvement of these water-ways is e-SiSentii-il to the development of that country.
The water-way is the natural way provided by God for the transportatiou of goods.
Develop these rivers and the improvement, as marvellous as it has beeu in the past,
will be excelled in the future. As far as the expen.se, is concerned, we .are asking for it,
we are willing to incur it, and the whole natiou will be benefited as well as ourselves.
I but express the wishes of ray peophi when I say I hope the committee and this
Cougress will give this matter the aftentioii It deserves.
P. B. Walker, of Mlmieaiiolis, said :
Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of . the committee, I have the honor to have been ap¬
pointed as one of the delegates from the Missouri River Convention, held recently at
Kansas City, to present to you Minnesota's share in the interest in the improvement
of the Missouri River. I have also the honor of being one of the Permanent Water¬
way Commission, organized under the laws of our State, whose duty it is to attend to
such work as this. That commission has been in existence some ten years, during
which time I have devoted a large portion of my time to the study of these matters,
and while I am not here to-day to attempt a discussion of any engineering matters,
I will be glad to answer any question I can.
I am here to assure you, gentlemen, in behalf of the million and a quarter people
in my State that we are intensely in earnest in demanding at your hands relief—
speedy and perfect relief—and as a basis of that demand you will permit me to call
your attention to some general facts.
The first and most significant fact is this : A glance at the map will only emphasize
my words when I say that these Upper Mississippi and Missouri River Valleys consti¬
tute the great interior producing heart of this continent, more remote from the marts
of the world than any other portion of the American people. The long transporta¬
tion routes to reach our sea-boards, the Eastern States, or Europe, necessarily imposes
on us a burden of transportation which no other people shares with us. Our products
are rendered unprofitable to the producer, and at the same time they are made ex¬
pensive to the consumers of the Eastern States and Europe.
Competition with other countries and other sections of the United States is fast
bringing about the question whether this great new empire of the Northwest is to go
on in her career of unprecedented and marvelous prosperity. That is the great food-
producing part of the world, but it is not alone in this valley, and in the great Mis¬
souri Valley, the greatest valley of all the rivers on earth, save possibly the Yukon or
Amazon. There is another empire lying north and west of that, north of the Ne¬
braska and Iowa lines. These constitute a food-producing empire that can feed the
whole human family. I invite your attention to a map from our English hrethren,
who live north of us, and there is an empire equal in area to the Upper Mississippi
and Missouri Valleys, of which perhaps not half of the people of this country have
ever heard. A thousand miles north and west of us is the fiuest cereal-producing
country on the face of the earth. They can produce as much as any two valleys put
together, with our 900,000 square miles in these two valleys producing already such
an amount as to stagger credulity. In these two valleys, the Upper Mississippi and
Missouri River valleys, there was produced last year 339,000,000 bushels of wheat,
1,049,000,000 bushels of corn, 349,000,000 bushels of oats, 19,000,000 bushels of harley,
10,000,000 bushels of rye, 1,000,000 bushels of buckwheat, nearly 90,000,000 tons of hay,
nearly 39,000,000 tons of wool. We have raised there, according to the official figures,
nearly 6,0u0,000 horses, nearly 16,000,000 cattle, 26,000,000 hogs, 7,000,000 sheep; we
have produced in gold in that valley îj.5,000,000, in silver nearly .$24,000,000 ; we have
produced in lumber nearly |60,000,000, making a total aggregate of $2,500,000,000.
Every pound and every dollar of that is taxed in order to reach the markets to an ex¬
tent which, instead of enabling us to reap some profit, leaves us worse than where we
began. But for that we could produce enough to live handsomely and pay the na¬
tional debt in a single year. AVe have vast tracts of territory in that country where
wheat would not be worth ten cents a bushel or meat one cent a pound if it were
produced, because the charges of transportation are such that the cereal will not
bear it.
Hence, 1 suggest to you that we are desperately in earnest in coming here and de¬
manding relief. But 1 must hurry along. This Northwestern country has two
natural outlets—water-ways. One is by the chain of the Great Lakes to the East
or into Naw York by the Erie Canal. That is the one now most in use. The other
is that magnificent system of water-ways known as the Mississippi River and its
tributaries, which we are here to-day to consider. But, sir, our outlet as used now
is principally by Lake Superior or by the ports on the west front of Lake Michigan.
Our people have felt the burden so that they have constructed, reaching out into the
heart of this great producing country, nine lines of railway to Lake Superior. We
have nine more to Lake Michigan, and to-day a large part of the products of that
country are being sent over them to Lake Superior. Nearly 31,000,090 tons of freight
passed through the Sault Sainte Marie Canal in 1885 during the short season of navi¬
gation. All of these figures, gentlemen, are put down minutely and officially in the
water-way report, which 1 had the honor to compile; you can examine them further
at your leisure and you will find they are correctly stated, and 1 assure you they are
all official.
16
These nine lines of railway reach to the North, and as many more to the East, en¬
abling ns to transport a large portion of the products of Minne-ota; but it happens,
as has been told you here at a former meeting of the committee, these railway com¬
panies are pooled; there is no such thing as competition among them; and the
farmers out in that great river valley, about which Cqlonel Benton told you—a
greater valley, with its connections, than the whole Upper Mississippi and Missouri
River valleys—in that valley wheat has sold at 40 cents when it was worth $1.08 in
New York, and the difference between these sums represents the taxation imposed on
somebody. It has been my theory that this taxation was divided equally between
the consumer and producer; but as that is a question of philosophy, I don't care
which way you put it. If you gentlemen from Mas.sachn8ett8 are willing to consider
we lose it all when you buy our stiitf, it is equalized by the commodities sent us in ex¬
change. Although there is a düfereuce in the weight and bulk of what we get, that
difference is more than made up by rates of transportat ion on the goods we get back ;
so all we send and all we bring back is taxed in-that ratio.
Hence, I am here to insist in the name of my people that this work may go on
steadily that we may reach a time when we will have numerous routes to the-seaboard.
To-day with our forty millions bushels of wheat, principally handled in passing
through the great cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, to-day we are unable to reach
Saint Louis or the Gulf of Mexico for want of $1,500,000 to improve the portion of the
Mississippi River which lies between ns. Great and extensive improvements have
already been made ; immense results have been attained by the paltry sums allotted
to us. There are 800 miles of river, and the total sum appropriated, according to the
reports of the engineer, amounts to $875,000.
A valuable system of improvements has been going on since 1878, and under the
wise plans of the engineers most beneficial results have been attained. It has been
said that the river is of little consequence now as a navigalile stream. Let me tell
yon that all the railways that cross or touch the Mississippi River could not carry the
freight we have floated on the Mississippi River between Saint Paul and Saint Louis
in this year 1885. You will be astonished when you come to consider the extent of
that traffic; the particulars are all stated within this book, and I commend them to
your careful attention ; I have stated here as an official fact furnished me by my friend
and colleague—I refer to Capt. George Hays, our supervisor of steamboats for the fifth
district, who has charge of the matter, and who is prevented by his duties on the board
now in session from appearing before you—from his official records it appears that
in the Saint Louis district on that river, the district extending to Sioux City on the
Missouri and Saint Paul on the Mississippi, we have now :ilti steamboats with an ag¬
gregate tonnage of 65,000. In 1860 wo had 122; in 1864, 165; in 1875, 304 vessels,
and in 1884, the year ending last June, we have 316 vessels. It has been stated re¬
peatedly everywhere, and accepted as true, that the river was being neglected as a
means of passenger travel ; but the official figures will show that in these two dis¬
tricts last year there were 3,395,000 passengers rode on these boats. Two of these
boats, the largest two of the vessels running between Saint Paul and Saint Louis,
commencing April 23 to August 28, carried 49,000 tons up-stream and 44,000 down¬
stream, and nearly 40,000 passengers were carried in that period on these two boats ;
and still we have heard so long that we have almost learned to believe it that
the river was nseless. We are sending more than a thousand million feet of lumber
as a necessary part of the supplies of the people and another legitimate part of
commerce. We send by river all heavy goods which will not bear expensive
in transportation; and, if the work on this river which has been so glorionsly in¬
augurated is continued, we expect to see this trade magnified until there shall be a
perfect system of transportation from onr great State up there down to the Gulf at
minimum rates. We are just as much interested in the Upper Missouri. From Sioux
City there are 1,700 miles of navigable river up to Fort Benton ; there are 474 miles
of navigable stream of the Yellowstone ; so that there are over 2,100 miles of naviga¬
ble river on the Upper Missonri. That is the only part of the Missouri River itself
used to-day for the purpose of navigation or commerce, and I have the honor to here
represent the country that furnishes the large bulk of that comnierce. The travel
and traffic of the Missouri Valley comes by the way of the lakes and reaches it by rail.
The number of ve-ssels on the Missouri River above Sioux City to Bismarck during
the season of 1885 was only six, with an aggregate tonnage of 1,120 tons burthen.
These vessels can and do make the round trip in five days, and during the last season
of navigation these vessels have been nnable to handle the freight which has accumu¬
lated at the various points.
During the season of navigation they transported 16,000,000 ponnds of miscella¬
neous freight northward, only half of which went above Bismarck.
The passenger travel on this stretch of river has fallen off', owing to the uncertain¬
ties growing ont of removable obstructions.
This reach of the river is the only natural outlet or inlet to the south half of Da¬
kota, whose productions are now immense, and the productive possibilities of which
are simply incalculable.
17
This great region is now penetrated by the lines of two railway corporations, which
have entire control of all its transportation, save that small part now passing upon
the river, owing to existing obstructions to navigation.
On that stretch of the river between Bismarck and Fort Benton, a distance of 1,200
miles, besides the 474 milas of navigation, the Yellowstone, its principal tributary,
penetrates an empire as yet undeveloped, but whose resources, both in agriculture
and minerals, are so enormous as to give promise that it will one day be the richest
and most popnlous section of the continent.
This great region, lying as it does more remote from the markets of the world
and the seaboard than any other portion of the United States, constitutes the only
available territory into which the overcrowded Eastern States and foreign countries
may pour their tide of emigration and the multitudes find homes.
In this great country its mines are unworked and its fertile valleys nntilled be¬
cause there is no existing transportation by which its production can reach the mar¬
kets of the world.
Although lying within the great northern wheat belt, and having the finest graz¬
ing plains in the world, wheat raised in the northern half of it would not be worth
ten cents per bushel, or beef one cent per pound.
The only means of ingress or egress of this great country is the Missouri Kiver, or
overland by the methods of our fathers.
The navigation on this 2,100 miles of navigable river is rendered hazardous and ex¬
pensive by* reason of the fact that obstructions of various kinds e.xsit in the channel
of the river. Snags, sand-bars, bowlders, &c., all of which are easily removable at
trifling expense when compared with the enormous benefits which would result from
the free navigation from these plains and valleys to the markets of the world.
The lower section of the river, for some reason unexplainable to me, is not used.
That onr friends in Kansas City do not make nse of that river is unexplainable to
us. That great valley of the Upper Missouri is fertile ; it is capable of unlimited
production. To-day on its grazing plains the cattle are taking the place of the
herds of bufifalo that roamed over them for centuries; but what now ought to be
fertile fields and filled with happy homes for human beings are now, for want of the
improvements needed ou that stretch of river, almost a wilderness. Vast interests
of the Government are at stake. That great Indian country that has caused so
much trouble lies in this basin. The Government has used that river constantly for
the transportation of its men and supplies for half a century. All Indian supplies
have to be transported over that river. That valley is untouched by any rail trans¬
portation ; and we insist that this great river—two-thirds of the Missouri River—
shall receive at your hands the most careful consideration and utmost liberality in its
treatment. We are not here to offer any opposition or any criticism upon any other
part of the great works which have been inaugurated under the auspices of this com¬
mittee or the engineers of the United States. We are here simply to pre.sent our own
interests and to ask most earnestly for relief. The great reservoir system which has
now been fully inaugurated in Minnesota has proved a most wonderful succe s. It
has passed beyond the region of experiment, and is now an assured, positive, and ever¬
lasting success. The work on the channel made under the plans of wing-dams and
revetment is going on, and where we used to have in years gone by less than 3 feet,
we have not had a single day on the Upper Mississippi River less thau 4| feet, and
navigation has gone on uninterruptedly; not a boat has been delayed, and the steam¬
boats, by reason of the fact, have been unable to carry one-fourth of the traffic offered
them. There are some of the beneficial results that have accrued even with the lim¬
ited appropriations that have been made. W e ask that the Upper Mississippi section
shall receive your consideration.
One word more and I am done. Our people in the Northwest have been for years
friends of that great improvement known as the Hennepin Canal. It is just possible
we shall not make as free aud perfect n.se of it as our friends in Illinois, but we insist
upon it that we c.au use it as a means of competition with the railway. We think
it is essential to onr ))rosi)erity, and hence I am here in behalf of my State aud the
convention I represent to say we desire that to be consideied a legitimate part of the
developmeni of the Northwest.
Mr. Murphy. Is it not true that) when the Mi.s.sissippi River is closed by ice from
the 1st of November, say, until the 1st or lOth of April, the railroad ciiarges go up
and thati they increase from 30 to ,bO percent, over what they charge when the river
i.s open ?
Mr. WAl.lticii. More than that.
Mr. Murphy. Docs not that demonstrate that when you have a water road in o >-
position to the railroads, that the railroad carries freight for 50 per cent, less than
when there is no such oiipositiou f
■ Mr. Wai.iíer. As to the average rate we have secured this year on cereal products,
in my State amounts to about this : Wc are paying for transportation by lake route
by Butfalo 6 cents on grain from Dulutb, and I do not think we have had to pay the
920 CONG 2
18
railways less than 24 or 2ri cents, with the exception of short periods when there was
a railroad war. Although Ihave not made a stndy particularly to ascertain the com¬
parative rates, we can reach there by rail, 1 shonld say, at 24 as against ii cents by
water. And that question has brought to my mind another matter. There stand
to-day some of the heaviest capitalists on the continent»and some of the most ex¬
perienced steamboat men ready to guarantee, if we can secure five feet in the channel
of the Mississippi River between Saint Paul and Saint Louis—they gnanintee us a rate
of 7 cents from Minneapolis down to Belize. This would be about 24 cents saving on
the bushel, as against the New York rate. This we regard as our chief hope and de¬
pendence. At the reque,st of the Dakota delegation I will submit here a series of
resolutions adopted by the Board of Trade of Bismarck in relation to the improvement
of the upper Missouri.
" Résolutions passed at a convention held at Bismarck, Dak., Decemier 22, 1885.
"'Resolved, That a wise National governmental policy demands that liberal appro¬
priations be made and judiciously expended for the improvement of the great natural
water-ways of the Mississippi River and its important tributaries.
"That the great basin or area drained by the Father of Waters and his wonderful
tributaries, with its immense population, productive industry, wealth aud power,
render the welfare of its millions of people and the fostering aid aud protection of.
their productive resources a matter of the gravest and most indispensable national
importance.
"That a wise aud judicions expenditure of governmental appropriations demands
that the work of improvement should be prosecuted by the Government under the
direction and supervision of its corps of engineers, or that the appropriation should
be made with the express condition that the work of impiovement should be com¬
menced and proceeded with to a reasonable state of completion at the head waters of
.navigability of such tributaries or main stream as most needed improvement, and
proceeding thence downwards, or at least devote most of the immediate improve¬
ments along the line of those rivers which invariably ireeze over during the winter,
rather than such parts of said rivers as do not freeze over during the winter, for the
reason that to make the lower aud unfrozen portion of the river useful the produce
from the upper country must be taken to Saint Louis or Cairo before winter sets in,
therefore requiring efticient transportatiou above.
"That the eti'ective improvement of the Missouri River between its mouth and
Fort Benton so as to render it safely navigable during the eight months it remains
unfrozen would so facilitate the settlement of the whole area contained within its
respective water-sheds on either side of it as to speedily result in the settlement and
cultivation of the whole country along its banks for the entire distance, aud that this
settlement, with its concomitant culture aud growth of trees, and the preparation of
the ground by breaking aud cultivating of so vast an area, for the localization of the
vast quantity of water created by the melting snows and copious rainfalls in the
spring, instead of allowing it all to run off aud flood the lower river as it does in
every spring, while the vast prairies are left in a state of nature,' would do more good
as a preventive of the annual disasters by lower Mississippi floods than all the money
that has ever been spent by the Government for the construction of dikes and em¬
bankments.
"That while this course should be taken along the Missouri in the timbered ijor-
tions of Minnesota and Wisconsin, everything possible shonld be done to preserve a
fair proportion of the timber already left, and to continue the cultivation of trees in
the treeless portions for a similar purpose.
"That the construction of the Hennepin Canal is a necessity for the completion of
entire system of water-ways improvements and a necessity to the full enjoyment of
all other imorovemeuts.
"WM. THOMPSON,
" President Convention."
S. Y. TuPi'Hii, of Charleston, S. C., said ;
Gentlemen of the committee, we feel indebted to you for your courtesy in granting
this hearing, and I intend to be exceedingly brief.
We are. a 8|)ecial committee appointed by a convention held in November last, com¬
posed of delegates from seven .States iu the interest of harbors on the South Atlantic
coast. The purpo.se of that convention was to present to Congress the condition of
these harbors at this time, and to ask for a speedy and increased a))propriatiou to
complete and carry on the works commenced by the Government on these harbors.
We contend that our harbors have sutfered detriment and our commerce has been
seriously injured by delays in making these appro|)riatiou8 ; and, moreover, that the.
(loverninent of the United States has lost at least one or two millions by reason of
dehaying the work upon these harbors. Some of these harbors have been twelve and
19
eighteen months without any work being done on them. The work that had been
done will consequently have to be done over again, and there are now some of them
in a state of destruction.
In accordance with my promise, gentlemen, I propose to go no farther into this
matter than is embraced in our memorial, which 1 would ask the liberty to read. It
contains the text of our argument ; and I propose, after having read it to you, to give
yon a summary of the rejiorts of the United States engineers relating to these har¬
bors, and to leave other papers with the clerk of your committee for printing or ex¬
amination.
"A memorial to the honorable the Senate and House of liepresentatiees of the Congress of
the United States.
"The memorial of the undersigned, a special committee appointed by and in behalf
of delegates from the States of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South
Carolina, Tenne8.see, and Virginia, in convention assembled at Savannah, Ga., on the
25th day of November, 188,5, respectfully showeth—
" That they are charged with the duty of preparing and presenting to the Congress
of the United States a memorial praying for the passage of a relief bill, immediately
after its assembling and pending the passage of the regular river and harbor bill, pro¬
viding for the speedy prosecution of the works commenced by Government in the
harbors on the South Atlantic coast, and now in enforced sus|>Busion from the ex¬
haustion of available appropriations; that while your memorialists approve and rec¬
ommend the improvement of all such harbors and rivers as will facilitate the com¬
merce of the whole country and promote the general good, they cannot but regard
tht development of the harbors of the South Atlantic coast, and the approaches thereto,
as an object of paramount importance at this time.
"That in the expression of these views your memorialists have adopted the sense
and language of the convention as setforth in the following resolutions unanimously
adopted at Its recent session in Savannah :
" ' Resolved, That the development of these harbors and the approaches thereto isa
subject entitled to the highest consideration of the Congress of the United States.
That it is the manifest and imperative duty of the general Government to take im¬
mediate steps to secure the safe and easy navigation of these harbors by ve.ssels of
such burden as the large and growing commerce of the country demands, thus re¬
ducing the cost of freight and insurance, promoting the inland commerce of the na¬
tion, securing new avenues of foreign trade, and bringing general prosperity and in¬
creased wealth to the whole country.
" 'Resolved, That the work of improving the harbors of sandy coasts is aditiittedly
one of the most ditflcnlt problems in hydraulic engineering. That it is of the most
vital importance to the successful and economical prosecution of such works that
there should be no lack of needed funds, since the enforced suspension of operations
not only delays the work, but seriously endangers its safety.
" 'Resolved, That as nearly all our Atlantic harbors, and all upon the Southern coast,
are of a sandy type, we regard the stoppage of these works or the embarrassment of the
same from lack of t'unds as peculiarly deplorable, and in contravention of every law
of economy and good policy, and with great confidence in the skill, integritj , and en¬
ergy of the officers to whom the plans and work of harbor improvement is intrusted,
we earnestly recommend aud urge that in future adequate appropriations for these
harbors may be made in accordance with the official estimates of the total costof the
improvement, such appropriations to be applied in annual installmentsof such amounts
as the exigencies of the case may require, in order that these important works may
be prosecuted vigorously and in the speediest, best, and the most economical manner.
" 'Resolved, That while we regard the developmentof the harbors of the South Atlan¬
tic coast and the approaches thereto as an object of paramonut importance, we recom¬
mend the improvement of such other harbors and rivers as will facilitate the com¬
merce of the whole country and promote the general good.
" Resolved, That in view of the serious detriment likely to result to the various river
and harbor works now in progres.s from the exhaustion of available approiiriations
and the consetpient enforced smspension of work on the.se improvements, pending the
passage of the regular river and harbor bill, it is the sense of this convention that
Congress should, immediately after reassembling, pass a relief bill providing for the
pro.secntion of these works, and an aggregate sum to be made immediately available
in advance of the regular appropriation bill.
" Resolved, That a special committee of one from each State represented in the con¬
vention be appointed by the chairman, to pre))are and personally present to the Con¬
gress of the United States a memorial embodying the views set forth in the foregoing
resolutions, and to urge their early and favorable consideration.
20
"Your memorialists would further state that the territory they represent contaius
1Í80,817,100 acres of land, with a population of 11,824,000. Its annual cotton crop is
3,795,932 bales, which with other products of rice, wool, tobacco, naval stores, &c.,
aggregate the annual value of |287,110,628.
"The niimberot its manufacturing e8tal)lishmcnt8 is 31,187, with a capital invested
in them of $109,288,495.
" Its mines of iron and coal and its quarries of granite, slate, and marble are compar¬
atively undeveloped, but are assuming gigantic growth. Its forests are to day the
most valuable in this or any other country of the earth. Its railways completed and
iu actual operation comprise 17,667 miles, and have invested in them the sum of
$858,368,000. Its touuage, foreign and domestic, for the past year amounted to
2,311,42.3 tons. Its exhibits of commercial prosperity is encouraging and gratifying,
and would be greatly increased by the aid asked for at the hands of your honorable
body.
" From a report of the committee on information, made to and accepted by the harbor
convention, herein referred to, we extract the following;
" 'Our South Atlantic ports have had for some years past appropriations from the
Government for their improvement, and considerable benefit has resulted therefrom.
The officers of the Uuiteil States Array who have had these improvements in charge
have manifested great interest in the work, and have discharged their duties as effi¬
ciently as the limited appropriations would permit. If the funds were provided to
carry out their plans and specitícatious, the work would be speedily and thoroughly
accomplished. The amounts voted have been inadequate, and the cessation of work
for the lack of appropriation has greatly retarded its progress and increased the ulti¬
mate cost.
"' A careful examination of the record showsthat theNorth Atlantic States, Maine
to Maryland, inclusive, have received for appropriations for rivers and harbors up to
and including the year 1881 the sum of |24,410.5U0 ; the four States. Oliio, Wisconsin,
Illinois, and Michigan, $18,431,600; the South Atlantic States. Virginia to Florida,
inclusive, .$7,268,000. We do not complain of the liberal aid which these highly fa¬
vored and prosperous States have received. We rejoice at the great prosperity, wealth,
and increase of population which they enjoy as results of the wise and generous treat¬
ment they have received from the Government.'
" Your memorialists trust and believe that proper efforts will attain for us the same
recognition and aid, commensurate with the importance of our interests, as have been
extended by the Government to other sections of the country.
" Your memorialists therefore pray, as the voice of the convention they represent,
that a relief bill be passed by your honorable body in advance of the regular appro¬
priation bill, and as early in the session as possible, providing for the amount abso-
hitely required for the continuance of the works now iu progress and iu suspension.
And further, that in due course of legislation there may be provided adequate appro-
piiations, in accordance with the official estimates, for the completion of the work in
the harbors of the South Atlantic coast and approaches thereto, to be applied as set
forth iu the resolutions of the convention.
" And your memorialists will ever prav, &c.
"SAMUEL T. TUPFER,
" Of South Carolina.
"C. H. JONES,
" Of Florida.
."JOHN SCREVEN,
" Of Georgia.
"F. W. KERCHNER,
Of North Carolina'.
"TOMLINSON FORT,
" Of Tennessee.
"WILLIAM LAMB,
" Of Virginia."
Now I propose simply to present to the committee a summary of the reports of the
United States engineers in charge of these respective harbors. There are some six har¬
bors on our coast. I have as much ,as possible abbreviated the replies to the interroga¬
tories which our committee .submitted to them. Some of these rejilies are categorical
and short.
The Ctt airman. Are these reports from the otlicial reports of the engineers?
Mr. Toppkk. The official reports of the engineers in charge of the harbors, not the re¬
ports of General Gillmore or General Newton.
The Cit.viuman. I understand these are answers to interrogatories propounded by your
committee to the engineers not in the official reports.
Mr. Tui'PJSK. No, sir, not iu the reports; but they are the last reports of the condition
of the harbors. Here are the interrogatories and replies:
21
What is the present condition of the work, and are there any marked effects of the
same?
Richmond, James River: The present depth to Richmond is only about 122 feet at low
tide, and no marked effects have yet been produced, owing to the smallness of the only
appropriation thus far made to cariy out the project.
Norfolk: Condition good, and there are marked effects of the works.
Wilmington, N. C. : Eighteen feet high water, navigation over 28 miles where there
was only 10 feet before, and yearly foreign exports increased in last fourteen years by
$3,500,000.
Georgetown, S. C. : Twelve feet navigation, all year, from the ocean; obstructed by
bar, with narrow channel; commerce greatly increased. Winyaw Bay: Nine feet at
low water.
Charleston, S. C. : Satisfactory; a marked increase in the ebb currents through the
jetty channel. The channel has not yet been deepened by the jetties; they are incom¬
plete. The shoaler portions of the two shoals on the inside and on the outer slope have
been reduced in area and are being swept out of the channel-way between the jetties.
A succession of surveys indicate a mea.sure of activity on the part of the jetties in their
incomplete condition, an activity as great as could reasonably be expected.
Savannah, Ga. : Works in good condition, and their beneficial effects have been very
marked.
.Tacksonville, St. .John's River, Florida: The channel across the bar has been deepened
from an average of 10 I'eet to 13 feet. There has been less shifting of the channel than
formerly.
What time has been lost by delay from inadequate appropriations?
Richmond, .Tames River: It is difficult to .say. The object is to secure 22 feet at low
tide from Richmond to the sea. As the project was only adopted in 1884, the time lost
is of course very little.
Norfolk: None to speak of.
Wilmington, N. C. : Four years.
Georgetown, S. C. : Four years. Winyaw Bay, none.
Charleston, S. C. : For nine months and a half month work w.is entirely suspended
owing to the failure of the river and harbor bill in 1883. If appropriations had been
made in accordance with the recommendations of the Chief of Engineers, the work
would now have been completed.
Savannah, Ga. : Had adequate appropriations been granted the work could have been
completed from three to five years ago.
.Jacksonville, Saint .John's River, Florida: The work on the permanent or jetty channel
has been idle for sixteen months, or one and one-third years, from lack of funds, more
than one fourth of the time since commencement.
What amount of money has been lost to Government by delays in appropriations?
Richmond, .James River: Difficult to .say, as the project was only adopted in 1884.'
Same answer as to time lost.
Norfolk: None to spe.ak of.
Wilmington, N. C. : 3 per cent, of totals.
Georgetown, S. C. : 10 per cent, of totals. Winyaw Bay, none.
Charleston, S. C.: 20 per cent, of the whole amount, that is, §600,000.
.Savannah, Ga. : Under the pre.sent system the work costs 25 per cent. more.
.Jacksonville, Saint John's River, Florida: From inadequate appropriations, $250,000.
What amount of money has thus far been appropriated by Government?
^Richmond, .James River, $750,000; Norfolk, $435,000; Wilmington, N. C., $1,700,000;
Georgetown, S. C., $12,000; Ch.arleston, S. C., $1,29.5,000; Savannah, Ga., $882,000;
Jacksonville, Saint John's River, $525,000.
What amount can be profitably expended during the ne.xt twelve months?
Richmond, James River, $400,000; Norfolk, $763,300; Wilmington, N. C., $380,000;
Georgetown. S. C., $20,000; Winyaw Bay, $300,000; Charleston, S. C., $750,000; Savan¬
nah, $330,000 (a larger amount will be required under a resolution for a resurvey now
before Congress); Jacksonville, Saint .John's River, $600,000.
What amount will jirobably be required to complete the work?
Richmond, James River, $4,500,000; Norfolk, $763,300; Wilmington. N. C., $380,000:
Georgetown, S. C., $30,000; Winway Bay, $880,000; Charleston, S. C., $1,712,.500;
Sav.annah, $330,000; Jacksonville, Saint .John's River, $1,150,000.
What time will probably be needed to complete the work if funds were provided ?
Richmond, Janies River, about 11 years; Norfolk, 1 year; Wilmington, N. C., 1 year;
Georgetown, S. C., 2 years; Winyaw Bay, 3 years; Charleston, S. C., about 3 years;
Savannah, Ga., about 1 year; Jacksonville, Saint John's River, probably 31 years.
Col. John S. Scbevkn, of Savannah, Ga., said:
Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I do not propose to take up much of
the time of the committee. I know that its time is precious, and I presume the subject
M ¿A
has been already sufficiently presented in general terms to make the claim on the Gov¬
ernment on the part of the convention of these seven States apparently clear.
The statistics which have been already presented in the memorial of the convention
show sufficiently for themselves the importance of the commerce which depends on these
outlets to the ocean. I may add to these figures, taking the principal ports in question,
that the commerce of the city of Savannah amounts to $21,000,000 per annnm. The ton¬
nage passing in and out of that port amounts to 156,000 tons. The city of Charleston
carries a commerce of $17,000,000, with a tonnage of 106,000 tons ; the ports of Norfolk and
Portsmouth, $13,000,000; Wilmington, $4,000,000; and if we were to add the commerce
of the ports not enumerated in the statistics of the United States for 1884, the probability
is the sum total of these ports now before you asking for this help will amount to quite
$60,000,000. Now let us consider the value of these ports beyond the amount of com¬
merce which is now passing through them ; and I have been very much impressed by what
I have heard to-day from the gentlemen from the Northwest. They ask for the shortest
and best methods of transportation to the ocean. Their minds appear to be fixed on East¬
ern transportation, when geographically, and in fact the nearest points of transportation
to the Western section of this country, are the very ports now knocking at the doors of
Congress lor help. The ports of Savannah, Charleston, and Norfolk are greatly nearer
Saint Louis than any of the great Northern ports. I do not design in these remarks to
derogate the great importance of other ports in the United States. As an American, I
glory in their great usefulness, while at the same time I cannot conceal a wish that our
Southern ports should partake somewhat more largely of the advantages which the Al¬
mighty has given to them. Physically we are nearer; commercially we are farther off
than any other section of the country. It is easy to understand that this is due to com¬
mercial reasons; it is due to the great importance of the Western country, and the draft
from the Southern country to the Northwest. We find, for instance, that the commerce
of the port of Savannah ten years ago carried a commerce of $31,000,000; it now carries a
commerce of $21,000,000. What is the cause of this? It is in a great measure due to
the outlay of Southern products and their consumption in the Northwest, and going in a
northeasterly direction by the railroads that tap these ports as they existed ten years ago.
Now, if we accept this matter in that catholic and patriotic spirit which really oughr
to pertain to it, it is very plain that by opening these avenues to the whole commerce of
the country we give to the Northwest, and all parts of it—we give it the means of com¬
petition and of convenience which it could not possibly otherwise attain. But, Mr.
Chairman, I desire not so much to lay emphasis on these'points as I wish particularly
to call the attention of this committee to the marked wastefulness of the system under
which harbor improvements is conducted in this country, and in doing so I will be par¬
doned if I take occasion to make same local observations. I come here not as represent¬
ing Georgia or Savannah; I comeas the representative of the convention, deputed to lay
the memorial for the whole six or seven States we represented before this committee and
Congress.
Now, sir, the public improvements, for example in the harbor of Savannah, commenced
in the year 1876, and until the recent surveys, the works the Government was attempt¬
ing and in a great measure carried out, it may be said the whole expenditure of money,
including $200,000 expended by the city of Savannah, has literally been wasted. We
have given appropriations; the Government has thought itself generous, but first it be¬
gan with the difficulty of establishing the constitutionality of such appropriations; that
made them necessarily small, until finally the demands of the people—the demands of
this vast commerce—this unlimited power behind the Government has compelled a dif¬
ferent syetem. Now, what has been the result? In this harbor—and we see it in the
harbors of Charleston, Norfolk, Jacksonville—we see wherever the Government has in¬
telligently. upon a large and catholic scale, made its appropriations and carried them toa
proper application under surveys by competent and well equipped Government officers,
that the results of this work have been in a great measure satisfactory. But the great
difficulty under which the officers have labored is not altogether the smallness of the
appropriations; it is becau.se their work is very often undone almost as fastas it is done.
No jetty system—no such jetty .system at tidal harbors can be permanently successful,
especially as this is a sandy coast, unless the appropriations can be regular and perma¬
nent, and applied to subjects to be constructed in such a manner as to make the works
absolutely secure. Why, it was only in the past summer I had the misfortune to wit¬
ness where the Government had expended a large sum on an expensive jetty, 3 or 4
miles in length—a contracting jetty on the Savannah River—and one storm, which
lasted only a few hours, dragged the rock from the jetties, and indeed nearly all the
work of the Government was destroyed and lost. If in that instance the Government
officers had been supported, if they had had a sufficient amount of funds to make the work
permanent, there could have been but one result, and no storm could have affected it.
It is for these reasons that we come here under the letter of these resolutions and in
23
no other spirit that the scheme of the Government in regard to the application of its ap¬
propriations may be changed, and that a full sum under estimates looking to the final
and absolute completion of these works shall he made. A nd in order that I may make
myself entirely clear about this I will take the liberty of reading a printed extract
from a newspaper which I personally know comes direct from the pen of good scientific
authority.
(The speaker here read a long newspaper article entitled "Suggestions respecting
river and harbor legislation. " ) '
What I have to say here of the Savanna River will apply to other cities lying at the
mouths of silt-bearing streams on the South Atlantic'coast. This one is mentioned by
me simply because it falls under my observation every day.
'Phe Savannah River is a great sediment-bearing stream, and thousands of cubic yards
of sand are brought down and deposited in the channel every year. To give relief to
commerce this must be dredged away, and the first application of an appropriation is to
this purpose. If the appropriation is small, there will not then be enough money left
over to construct works of contraction to scour out these deposits (or prevent their Ibriua-
tion), and the result is that the dredging must be done every year. If suitable appro¬
priations were granted the improvements could be made permanent, and work once done
would be over with. At Savannah some contracting works have already been built and
their beneficial eifects have been very marked, but their development has been greatly
retarded and their cost greatly increased by insufficient funds. The plant needed to do
a small amount of work is j u.st about as large as that needed to do a Tnuch greater
amount, and it is evident that economical work cannot be done under these conditions
except with adequate grants of money. With small and irregular grants of money it
sometimes happens that the works, in their incomplete state, lie over one or more sea¬
sons. Great deterioration must necessarily take place, and thus the cost is increased.
John H. Leeds, of New Haven, Conn., said:
Mr. Chairman, I thank you for giving me permission at this time to fulfill my duty.
I appear, in connection with my associates, in behalf of the New Haven breakwater im¬
provements. This is a subject that has long been before the Government and recom¬
mended by its highest engineers; has been commenced, and is partially done; it is in
good progress, and in my opinion is a good work. I judge, gentlemen, it is a good work
by comparison with works abroad of the same character, and my observation of this
work is not limited; it is full, ample, and complete, and I beg your attention in behalf
of the harbor there of our interests and of our national interests.
Mr. Stone. Are you speaking of the harbor or breakwater?
Mr. Leeds. They are both incidentally the same. The built breakwater locks in the
ice in a manner very bad tor navigation at present; but when completed the breakwater
then turns the tide in such a manner as to secure a scour in the channel and destroy
the ice and deepen the water. Therefore dispatch, progress with the work, is abso¬
lutely necessary.
I have no pet theory to advance about this work. The work of the engineers, and
their reports of it as we have followed them for years, is full, ample, and sufficient, well
recommended, and, as I say, in my opinion in keeping with the best works of their
kind in this country and abroad, and of great national importance. I have nothing to
say against any other place that may want appropriations. From the remarks I have
heard here in relation to the Mississippi and Atlantic seaboard the points and recom¬
mendations are all well made, and I believe it is wise and judicious for this Government
to press forward in the direction of their improvement.
I speak as an importer, as a person vvho has charge of vast interests in foreign coun¬
tries, in producing crude materials brought to this country for manufacture, and having
had opportunities of observing the most extensive and important works of this kind—at
Alexandria, the mouth of the Nile, in Italy, France, and even in the little islands in the
Grecian Archipelago where the governments have done such work, to say nothing of the
great works going on in France on channel and seacoiist where their whole dependence
is breakwaters and works of this kind and character.
I know your time and patience do not admit of any details in this direction; they are
not necessary. I simply appear in behalf of our people to urge a liberal appropriation
in order that we may proceed with dispatch with a full corps of engineers. I am an en¬
gineer myself and know something of what I speak.
The Chairman. Who is the engineer in charge of the work ?
Mr. Leeds. Colonel McFarland.
Maj. C. W. Raymond, U. S. A., said:
Mr. Chairman, the report which was submitted to the Chief of Engineer on the 1st of
July last, and which I presume is before the committee, brings down everything to that
time; and since that time there has been some money expended, of course, on the harbor,
24
on works for which tliis money had been allotted previous to that time—some works of
protection, and also the hydraulic service, and in the upper harbor of Boston.
This year all along the New England coast, and I presume all along the Atlantic coast,
there were very serious storms. In November we had five days of northeartern storms,
which were said to he much heavier than any storm in 1851, which carried away the
Minot Rock light-house. Then after that I went up and down the coast, examining the
works in my charge. I examined them very carefully, but had scarcely got through
with that examination when we had another gale on the 26th of December, which was
worse than the ones in November, because the tide was 9 inches higher than the extrem-
est tide ever observed before. That storm did an enormous amount of damage to ship¬
ping, and it did more damage to the works than the November storms. I have always
made the estimates for the repair of the construction in the outer harbor, and this year
1 made an estimate and submitted it, but now if 1 were to estimate it again I would have
to make itlarger. We really wantnotonly the money wehave askedfor, but we oughtto
have about $10,000 more for the repairs of these works in the outer harbor—exactly how
much I cannot say, because we have not been able to make an estimate.
In respect to the Boston Harbor there were two things to be done. One was the widen¬
ing of t he main ship-channel in the inner harbor—a very important work, which I have
fully discussed in my report before the committee, and which work appears now to be
still more important than before simply because in the past year we have had agreat many
collisions in the main ship-channel. That ought to be widened.
Then the other thing in which General Collings is interested is the deepening of the
channel at Fort Point. I recommended that channel .should be deepened so that vessels
drawing 18 and 20 feet of water could go up at all stages of the tide. I thought it
proper that that work should be undertaken by the Government because of its great im¬
portance, and they pay $8,000,000 revenue to the Government, and it would seem the
expenditure of $100,000 for that work would be justified.
Mr. Stone. There is the Fort Point channel and the lower middle
Major Raymond. The lower middle is what I refer toas the main ship-channel. That
is now 600 feet wide at its narrowest point.
The Chairman. Is the recommendation as to the Fort Point channel a new matter in
the report ?
Major Raymond. It is entirely new. It is a survey. It is not in my charge. The
survey was made by me under an order of Congress of July 5, 1884. I made that
survey and submitted it. I mention it now simply because I understood from Colonel
Stone that General Collings was interested in it. I thought it would be a good thing to
be done when Congress saw fit to do it.
The Chairman. What is the immediate necessity for that?
Major Raymond. There is no immediate necessity—not the slightest; it has been so
always; but these vessels crowd in there, and when high water comes they can go on up.
Then, as I say, they pay $8,009,000 to the Government, and it would be a great con¬
venience to them to have the channel deepened. It is no more necessary now, though,
than it was five years ago, but when the time comes and Congress sees fit to expend that
money it will he, I think, a useful thing to do, and I thought it would be justified. It
is very different, however, with this lower middle which Colonel Stone speaks of—what
I call the main ship-channel.
Colonel Stone. As to the relative importance of these different improvements, how do
you rank the improvement of the Fort Point channel compared with the lower middle.
Major Raymond. I think the lower middle is the most important, because all the
vessels would be benefited by that.
The Chairman. What is the recommendation as to the lower middle?
Major Raymond. I recommended $128,000. The sum should be a pretty good one,
becau.se it is hard to get contracts.
Colonel Stone. General Collings, in his testimony, said that he had an idea from what
he had heard that there was some ledge in the channel. I want you to state to the com¬
mittee whether there is any ledge there, and how you explain this fact?
Major Raymond. These ves.sels come in here if it is hazy; it is so narrow, and then
these great steamers coming in, by law they are required to keep away from little ve,s.sels,
and sometimes they get on the sides of the channel, and then the pilots say there is a
ledge. There is no ledge at all. They get a hundred yards out of the way and the
pilot is to blame, and he says there is a ledge, but there is no ledge. The channel is too
narrow; it ought to be widened. The.se troubles will always occur, and the reason they
occur now more than formerly is because the vessels are larger.
Colonel Stone. Now, about that Boston harbor. You said the storms did considerable
damage to it; how did that damage occur?
Major Raymond. Tiiat was in the outer harbor, where sea-walls are. A good many
of them are old walls. I cannot recommend anything as to that, because I have not had
time to make an estimate.
25
Colonel Stone. The outworks at the mouth of the harbor have been badly damaged
by storms?
Major Raymond. Yes. Some of it ought to be attended to right away, and some
will have to wait until the engineer taking my place makes an estimate of its cost.
Colonel Stone. State what is the condition of the Sandy Bay.
Major Raymond. One hundred thousand dollars was appropriated by Congress, and I
wasinstructed to expend that money in fixing the breakwater. I wascalling for a project for
the expenditure of the money and no proj ect had been made by the Department. It is very
difficult to make a project with that amount of money for work of such magnitude; but,
whatever project was adopted, the Board of Engineers said my line was the best line that
could be taken, and that the foundation of the substructure must be of rubble-stone. I
recommended that the money be spent for that, and we made the contract for the ex¬
penditure of the money in that and the base, 70 cents for the long ton, and we got a con¬
tract at 58.3 cents, a little inside the estimate; and now 123,000 tons of rubble-stone are
being put down under that contract. That is the exact condition of it now.
Colonel Stone. What is the condition of that contract? How much money does it ap¬
propriate ?
Major Raymond. That will take all the money that is now available—about $95,0( lO—
with the exception of $6,000, which was reserved for the commencement of the pier on
Avery's Ledge next spring; but if I had remained in charge I should have) recommended
that that should not be commenced.
Colonel Stone. How much should be expended there?
MajorRAYMOND. Thebest opinion I can give is the old report I made. About $400,000
a year could be spent to advantage in putting in rubble-stone in that line. That is the
most that could be spent with advantage. But of course if that breakwater is going tn
be built the plans ought to be carefully considered. My opinion is made by data from
the first report I marte. I think the superstructure of that work ought to be built of
concrete bags up to high water. I think that is the cheapest; but liow much it Wv)uld
cost I could not say. It is made in Scotland, and somebody would have to go there to
investigate; and to build it you have to have a good deal of plant. The Engineer De¬
partment has not considered any definite plans for that work yet. This rubble base is
being built by my preliminary plan.
Colonel .Stone. That work under way don't affect the character of the superstructure ?
Major Ray.mond. Not at all. If I were the engineer I would build the superstruct¬
ure up with concrete l)ags and then put masonry on top.
Colonel Stone. Now as to the work on the iMerritnac River.
Major Raymond. That is very important. Th it consists of two converging jetties
which were commenced for the purpose of not only deepening the channel but to preserve
that depth, and it is avery interesting work. The break waters have been built up for a
certain extent and then further extended up to low water. So as they now exist there
is a danger to navigation instead of an advantage; and, moreover, there is danger of the
mouth of the river being destroyed unless the work is carried on. I think they ought
to be completed as soon as possible. I think there is great danger of the mouth of the
river being destroyed. I think that ought to be done before anything else.
Colonel .Stone. How long is your northern breakwater there?
Ma,jor Raymond. At full height about 1,590 feet, and up to low-water mark about
1,100 feet more, making 2,600 feet already built. The e.xact figures are 1,540 built up
full height, and 1,145 to low water. That is to prevent scouring.
Chares Henry Tow.n.shend, of Long Island, .said:
Mr. Chairman. I shall be brief, in what I have to say before this committee. I have
taken a great interest in this matter of the improvement of our harbors and have made
it soraewh.at of a study.
For twenty-five years I have been connected with European commerce. For sixteen
years I was in command of ocean steamers and packet-.ships, the last being a ship of 5,000
tons, the American steamship Ontario. I was brought up as a carrier, taking out the
British and continental mails to France and England. I am by profession a mariner,
being a native ofthat part of the country up there; and this scheme of harbor improve¬
ments has become interesting to me, as I have often been benefited by such improvements
on foreign coasts, and after I retired from sea I saw the importance of such improvements
near us.
I will mention that in 1879 the United States Government ordered constructed for the
general benefit a national work in that breakwater at New Haven, which was in the case
of Long Island Sound, an area of 5 square miles with 30 feet of water at low tide, for
a port of refuge and for general benefit to the commerce of Long Island Sound—the lines
of immense steamers going through the sound—and by so doing establish a port of refuge
for these vessels in stormy weather. We have nothing on the coast that is as important
as this breakwater recommended by the United States Engineer Corps and now in course
26
of construction. Now, the point I wish to make is this: that its importance to com¬
merce has been proved recently by the enormous amount of shipping that has anchored
under the work as it is constructed now. There have been built something like 2,000
feet and made a refuge covering an area of perhaps half a square mile, but it is not large
enough, and vessels come in now under the lee of this breakwater and take refuge in the
fair way of the channel leading up to the docks, and in so doing block the entries to the
port; and the point is to continue the structure in order that vessels seeking refuge in
the channel can go under the breakwater as represented on this map.
The Chairmaîî. You speak of continuing the breakwater. You do not mean that
you are going to continue it any further than the Board of Engineers recommend?
Mr. Townsheîjd. No, sir. At present the breakwater is built, as represented by this
line, some 2,000 feet. Now, there is just enough built to make it an objection, for the
reason that the currents have not been guided as was intended by the engineers. The
current has been carried oUtof its course and has formed .sockets and gulleys at the bot¬
tom and carried the débris and sand over across the channel and made bars where before
it was deep water. Now, if that work had been continued as proposed by the engineers,
and as we expected it would be, the current in the channel would have run down right
through the channel in a direct course, and have carried the débris out to sea, and not
made these pockets, which now are becoming very annoying, and will take a great deal
of material to fill up, because it is in the line of the breakwater as now being constructed.
The point we wish to make is this: that a large appropriation be granted, so as to be of
some use to us, instead of getting it in little dribbles as heretofore. So far the amount
of material is not large enough to make much difterence with the tidal course.
I do not know that it is necessary for me to enlarge on the amount and value of the
commerce that passes through Long Island Sound to New York, and seeks refuge under
these breakwaters, but the president of the Corn Exchange of New York made a state¬
ment the other day that there is a greater value goes to New York through Long Island
Sound than over Sandy Hook Bar, for the reason that the large steamers carry enormous
deck loads ; and when you come to make an estimate of the value it is something enormous.
We estimate that there is a million dollars in value brought to the port of New York
each day in the year—136.5,000,000 taken out of the port of New Haven, and the amount
that passes through Long Island Sound is fabulous; it goesinto the billions. It isa com¬
mon thing to look from where I live and .see a hundred and fifty sailing vessels there.
The Great Eastern passed within 8 miles of this breakwater when she located near
Port Morris, and there are other large steamers that are talking of seeking New York
by this way; in fact, the Winans intend to come through Long Island Sound and seek a
port of discharge somewhere about Port Morris. So in the near future New York must
be approached by the largest steamers in the world by that way.
I speak from personal knowledge of these matters, having been piloted both by way
of Sandy Hook and Long Island Sound, and having often piloted my own ships with not
over 26 feet of water—with only 1 foot of water under the ship more than she drew.
■ The improvements that we ask ought to have been commenced fifty years ago, and by
having them made now the benefit to commerce in general will be very, very great.
There was one day last December that I counted one hundred and eighteen large ships
and vessels lying back of this breakwater at New Haven; my brothers and several other
gentlemen were present at the time—I think it was the 10th of last December. This
point on the map indicates my residence; I have looked over the sound all my life. \Ye
counted one hundred and eighteen ships and vessels anchored in the fairway. It was
very difficult for the steamers to get up and down. Now, the point is to continue this
breakwater as recommended, and to make this a port of refuge down to this point [in¬
dicating] so as to relieve the channel.
A Member. How ifequently do big storms come, compelling vessels to seek that
shelter?
Mr, Townshend. We have two or three storms in the fall, and two or three in the
winter when vessels run here for refuge. The steamers bound out forNew York start at
4 or5 o'clock in the evening, and they have very often to put in here for refuge.
A Member. Is that a matter of convenience to the vessels ora matter of absolute ne-
cessity ?
Mr. Townshend. A matter of absolute necessity.
A. M i;mber. Are there no other places convenient at which they can seek shelter?
Mr. Townshend. No, sir; this is a rock-bound coast the whole length. There are no
harbors except the one at New London, and that is too far off to be of advantage. The
seiis running up here [indicating] as heavy as anywhere in the world. I have been
lying in the downs with a Heetof ships riding a terrific gale; Inever found a place where
there is as much sea in a gale as here. And then we have trouble from ice in the winter
time; men are frostbitten, and they come in here for protection, to take the men to the
hospital.
A Me.mbkk, As a matter of fact, are there many disasters occur there?
27
Mr. Townshknd. Yes, sir; frequently. We lost a number of vessels lately on this
little bend of tbe coast—ships have gone to pieces there. A vessel was lost a week ago,
and nobody on it ever heard from. The pilots were telling me about it, and said if that
breakwater had been built every soul on board of that vessel would have been saved.
Then another thing is we have a tremendous barge system through the sound as far as
Providence, R. I., and Somerset, and around the cape to Boston. They start from New
York and come up here, and they come here and anchor; in making a voyage to New
London it is the natural stoppage place.
A Member. How do the disasters along through there compare with the number of
ve.ssels passing backwards and Ibrwards as around Boston?
Mr. Townshenp. They are not as frequent, for the reason that it is a well-knit coast;
and then again there are places you can run into and get under the lea and anchor in
different spots. They are not as frequent as at Cape Cod, and then this is a more thickl}'
settled country around here. Even if they get into trouble they can get in somewhere
or get relief from somebody. There we have these oyster dredges—-a tremendous in¬
dustry. These dredges, which are steamboats, are constantly working backwards and
forwards there, and vessels very often get assistance and reftige by them.
A Member. I had been under the impression that this improvement would be more
a matter of convenience than necessity; that vessels starting from New York by means
of it could save a few miles perhaps, and therefore it would be more a matter of con¬
venience than necessity.
Mr. Townshend. Our memorial of 1879 is signed by the largest houses-in the United
States, representing commerce from Maine to Georgia. It is not a local aifair; it is a
great national work. Here we have a place, two and a half miles long, that there is no
less than 29 or 30 feet of water. The day is coming when we will have heavy war ves¬
sels that could not get through there, but the Government by getting protection here
can give their ves.sels a rendezvous. It is an open sheet of water that I believe to be the
most valuable on the American coast. This sheet of water on Long Island Sound is a
good anchorage all the year. The combined navies of the world could rendezvous there,
and come in and out without trouble; and here we have a hill for harbor defenses, and
approaches to the city of New York must face the sound.
Mr. SPEKEY. When you were asked awhile ago if there were other places of refuge
along there, you said yes. I would like to know where there is a single one.
Mr. Tow'NSHEND. 1 never said there were others. There is not a single one. There
are places for sloops, but not for large vessels. I am talking now of vessels of large ton¬
nage—vessels that must approach New York in the near future of deep draught. As I
have shown the Great Eastern came backward and i'orward there, and the large vessels
of the l'ail River line have used that.
And here is another advantage in the navigation of Long Island Sound. The Gulf
Stream coming over here [indicating] makes a warm current that brings down the ice¬
bergs from Nantucket and in over the Jersey "beach, and the two waters meeting—hot
and cold—makes a fog, and that prevents the steamers from getting in the bar of Sandy
Hook, while the land breezes will keep Long Island Sound perfectly clear, and the coast¬
ers will seek their passage through the sound bound to Virginia, because it is clearer
and better navigation, and that is why it will be used by large steamers that sail on
schedule time. The great ships now have great difficulty in crossing Sandy Hook. If
they approach by Long Island Sound they can pass on time.
'fo show the detriment that Sandy Hook is, coming in two years ago we arrived at
the bar at 7 o'clock in the morning. We were all ready to go right up, but the
tide had fallen about an hour, and there was considerable surf on the bar, and we de¬
cided to wait over for the return flood. That made it necessary lor us to wait ten
hours—tive for the tide to ebb and five to rise. The consequence was we lost ten hours,
and we did not get up till dark. We lost our mail for that day, and it was a great dis¬
advantage to the ship. Now, when they can save a day by coming through the sound
these big ships will approach New York from this direction.
My friend, Mr. Sperry, will probably enlarge more fully on the amount and value of
commerce passing backwards and forwards. The point with us is to get a liberal appro¬
priation—something to enable us to go ahead and put in the material and make it so it
will be of some use to us. At present the tide makes a whirl around this commence¬
ment of the breakwater and cuts pockets in the bottom. The breakwater is built 2,009
feet. Instead of scouring here [indicating] the tide has gone eastward and made a
pocket that will have to be filled up, and the whirl of the tide around against this jetty
has carried the sands over here and is dumped into the channel there. [Indicating.]
Mr. Sperey. I think you are misleading the committee by your remarks there. I
understood you to say that building the breakwater there is doing that. You mean to
say that as now constructed—^so little being constructed—it does that, but when it is
completed it will not do that?
28
Mr. Townshend. That is what I take it you understand from me. As General New¬
ton said, this is a most important work. General Wright has said it was a wonder it
was not commenced fifty years ago. He said, we have recommended a liberal appro¬
priation because of its importance. If you go to work and throw us a little stone and
leave that work unfinished for several years you will do a great damage, and that is
what is being done.
N. D. Spebey, of New Haven, Conn., said:
Mr. Chairman, I will simply say I have no statistics to give, nor is it necessary. The
statistics given in relation to the enormous amount of traffic going through Long Island
Sound was named at the time the breakwater was commenced. The engineers heard
all that statement, giving the amount of goods transported through Long Island Sound
and by this proposed breakwater as 1,300,000,000. But it is not necessary to go into
that because the engineers had all that before them, and iVom that and other reasons,
in view of the location of this breakwater, was the reason they recommended to the Gov¬
ernment of the United States to build this great national work for the purpose of pro¬
tecting the commerce fioated upon the Sound. They investigated all that matter, and
they reported to Congress, and the Government has commenced that work. You have
just gone far enough by giving us the small driblets that it is operating differently now
from the way it would operate if the two breakwaters were built. As a sample, the
débris is filling up the harbor, and you are spending |20,000 a year now to takeout what
fills in in consequence of this work not being finished. I have not come here to advo¬
cate the necessity of the breakwater; that has been determined. I am before this com¬
mittee for the purpose of saying to you that as an economical measure, the Government
having undertaken this work, it should be finished at once, and in order to do that your
appropriation should be free and liberal, because it would hea saving to the Government
to do it. As it is now, in its unfinished state, it adds to the national expense year by
year. Now, General Newton, General Towen, and Major Barrow were the engineers
who located this, and in my presence they said there was no place on the coast from
Florida to Maine that was as important as the construction of this breakwater here.
The construction of this breakwater with the one on the opposite side, when it is com¬
pleted according to the estimates and plans of the engineers, will keep the channel clear
completely of the sands which now lodge in it because of its unfinished state. Vessels
in that channel as it is now cannot go under the lee; if they do they stop up the chan¬
nel which goes to the harbor. So thick have the vessels been there that it is impo.ssible
for the steamers to go in and out. So, with the construction of this breakwater, bereis
a place the vessels can lie in safety, but if they lie here it blocks it up. '
In relation to the ice: This little piece being built, it fills the channel each winter
with ice so thick it is almost impossible for the vessels to get through; they have to cut
their way through; but when that breakwater is built the ru.sh of the tide will be so
rapid it will be impossible for it to fill up; it will give such impetus to the water it will
be deepening all the time instead of filling up. Therefore I would urge upon the
committee with all the power I possess—I urge on you as an economic measure to fin¬
ish that which the Government has begun. I do not want your appropriations to he .so
small that they will he just about large enough to pay for the expense of dredging made
necessary by not having this work completed. I know you are economic gentlemen and
understand the value oí' dollars and cents, and the necessity of giving us such an appro¬
priation that it can be finished and avoid year after year being called on to dredge out
that channel, which is now necessary in consequence of the breakwater not being fin¬
ished.
Now, you spoke of disasters. Why, every year there are disasters about these points
[here indicating on map] the gales beingso severeand no protection. It has only been two
years ago that several vessels were sunk there, and the sailors clung to the tops of the
masts, and other brave sailors went out to rescue them aud were taken in a frozen state
to the hospital, and you gentlemen of Congress voted medals to the men who went to
the rescue. Had this work been completed there would have been no necessity for it;
they could have come in there and the lives of these brave men that were destroyed
would have been saved.
And one of the objects for blowing out Hell Gate was to give a better passage up and
down the Sound. It is a part of this great plan, for the purpose of bringing them this
way instead of the other, because it is nearly 60 miles nearer Liverpool than the other.
That is the reason you spent money for Hell Gate; and this breakwater is a part of that
work.
Now, to complete this breakwater give us an appropriation that will complete it, and
thereby save the Government a large expense year after year in dredging the channel.
The two works are interwoven and will continue to be a necessity until these two walls
of breakwater are completed in accordance with the ideas of these distinguished United
States engineers. I do not want your appropriation so small that you will be giving a
dollar lu one direction and spending a dollar in another. I cannot urge it too forcibly.
It is not a local matter; it is a great national work, and so intended to be.
' Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee: The Northwestern convention held
in Saint Paul in September last passed a series of resolutions, and it also appointed a
committee of one, as General Henderson has already informed you, to call the attention
of this committee to one of these resolutions and ask for it your favorable consideration.
That resolution reads as follows:
"■Resolved, That in the opinion of this convention annual appropriations of §25,000,-
000 for the improvement of the rivers and harbors of the United States and the construc¬
tion of artificial water-ways would not be extravagant, and could be expended so as to
enrich the country far beyond the amount so appropriated."
I will simply say that that convention was composed of delegates from every important
place .throughout the length and breath of the valley of the Mississippi and from a great
many.important places beyond the limits of that valley.
I am aware, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, that $25,000,000 is far in excess of any ap¬
propriations for the improvement of rivers and harbors and the construction of artificial
water-ways ever recommended in a single year by this committee or approved by the ac¬
tion of Congress. You will notice the resolution is this, that in the opinion oí the con¬
vention an annual appropriation of $25,000,000 for that purpose would not be extrava¬
gant; that is the substance of it. The question is, would such an amount be extravagant
or unreasonable? I think the committee will agree with me that that depends entirely
upon the extent of the improvements contemplated, the importance and urgency of these
improvements, and the financial ability of the Government to make appropriations of
that amount.
Let us consider, then, these conditions. First, the financial ability of theGovernment,
or the wealth of the nation, for upon that evidently all hinges. In 1850 the estimated
wealth of this nation of the United States was $7,000,000,000; in I860, $16,000,000,000;
in 1870, $30,000,000,000, and in 1880 almost $44,000,000.000, and at a less increase per
annum, it is very reasonable to suppose that at the present time it is not less than $50,-
000,000,060. So much for the ability of this nation financially.
The extent of the improvements contemplated, as you all know, embraces nearly the
extentof the United States. Who is it, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, that ask for these
appropriations and these improvements? It is the farmers, the producers ; those who
would use the improvements if made. What special claim has that class of our people
to the favorable consideration of this committee and the tavorahle action of Congress?
Why, sir, they produce the bread and meat upon which the nation lives. And not only
that. From the inauguration of the internal revenue department they have paid about
83 per cent, of tbat revenue until the present day; they have produced more than 80
per cent, of the entire exports of this country for the last sixty years.
So much for their claims, and now what shall we say as to the importance, the urgency
of these appropriations and these improvements? I hope, gentlemen, to be able to con¬
vince you, if you are not convinced already, that they are not only important and urgent
but absolutely indispensable.
I ought to have stated when speaking of the wealth of the nation the prophecy made
by Mr. Gladstone, the great English statesraau, who in 1881 prophesied that in 1883 the
United States would be the richest nation in the world, and he was roundly abused by
some of the journals of his own country for thus appearing to magnify the apparent
financial greatness of this country. No man questions now the fulfillment of that proph¬
ecy, for this is, beyond all question, the richest nation in the world.
Mr. Blanchaed (in the chair). We stand fourth among the nations in our foreign
commerce. We are e.xceeded by England, Germany, and France.
Mr. Doee. It would be a little digression from what I intended to say, hut with the
permission of the chairman I will make a reply to that. When we speak of the magni¬
tude of American commerce we do not take into account interstate commerce ; it is simply
foreign. But England in estimating its foreign commerce treats the commerce of its own
colonies as foreign. Deduct that and you will find that our commerce exceeds theirs by
$20,000,0(10, or did a year or .so ago.
But the very thing I am coming to is to make some provision against a still greater
decreasing tendency of the American commerce. I desire to show you that these.im¬
provements are absolutely indispensable, and especially to the cereal-growing portions of
the country; and 1 think when you coirsider the question you will come to the conclusion
finally that they are scarcely le.ss important to the nation at large. Why, gentlemen, the
value of every acre of wheat and corn producing land in the great valley of the Missis¬
sippi depends in a great measure upon these improvements. They now as you know not
only produce bread suilicient (or home consumption, but an enormous surplus for export.
J. C. Doek, of Chicago, 111., said;
30
Mr. Blanchard (in the chair). Is not the same true of the cotton-producing coun¬
try ?
Mr. Doee. I will answer you on that point when I get through with this, if you will
remind me. Now, if the producers caunot find a foreign market for this surplus, they
will not produce it. Hence neither the railroads nor the water routes will have an op¬
portunity to transport it.
General Grosvenor. What do you say to this proposition ? Looking at it from a self¬
ish standpoint, as a representative of the central portion of the United States east of the
Rocky Mountains, why should we legislate to spend the money of the country to cheapen
the transportation of the commodities of the Northwest into the markets of the East, and
thereby lower the value of every foot of laud in the great interior portion of the coun¬
try? Why shoitld the Government undertake to bring the Northwest into the same jux¬
taposition to the markets of the United States that the central portion is ?
Mr. Dore. I am much obliged for the inqitiry, and should have answered it before I
got through if I had time, but lest I should forget it I will answer it now. It is not
every State in the Union, by any manner of means, that raises wheat enough for itself.
I intend to show yoit that iny own State has very little interest in certain measures in
contemplation, because they will not be benefited at all by certain improvements asked
for; but those States to which you refer will be benefited, because they are buyers and
will get the benefit of cheaper transportation. What I propose to say will have for its
general tendency the improvement of our internal water-ways, to the end that we may
find a foreign market for our surplus. Is it not clear when we ship these products
cheaply to the seaboard we give them correspondingly cheaper to the consumers all along
the Atlantic coast?
A Member. The objection General Grosvenor would make is that while you are de¬
creasing the cost to the consumer in these older States, you are at the same time afl'ect-
ing the price of what they produce in these States of the same articles, wheat and corn.
Mr. Lore. I do not understand the gentleman to have asked the question in a frac¬
tious spirit, but only as an inquiry.
General Grosvenor. I hope I am organized on a broader scale than that.
Mr. Blanchard. Is it not true that if the producer of the Northwest can find a
market for their products where they can realize a profit on them, that they can then
purchase more liberally of the manufacturers of our section of the country, and that thus
both prosper ?
Mr. Dore. Unless they sell their surplus they will have nothing to buy anything
with. To be more specific. I happen to be originally from New England—away up in
New Hampshire. I need not tell you how barren that country is—how little it pro¬
duces, and how much it costs to produce it. When I was a boy they paid a dollar a
bushel for corn, and I never heard one of them complain because they could buy it for
50 or 60 cents now. I think they rejoice at it, because they can do something better.
But I said the value of the farming lands in the valley of the Mississippi depends
on this very question—ability to transport and find a market for their surplus. Hence
it is we have this general cry, coming from the Northwe.st, West, and Southwest as well,
"Improve our water-ways." That is the drift of all I have heard before this committee.
It is impossible for you. gentlemen, or anybody, to remember one-half or one-quarter of
the facts and statements we have heard, but there is one general sentiment runs through
the whole—liberal appropriations, cheaper transportation. We must have it. Do not
delay, for the emergency is upon us. That is the burden of their song. Is this a
false cry? Let us see what is the matter. You know, gentlemen, it is ruinous compe¬
tition in the great foreign markets of the world, made possible by statesmanlike liber¬
ality of foreign nations in furnishing the cheapest possible transportation for their prod¬
ucts, and shall I say the illiberality of our legislators in refusing to do the same thing
for the same purpo.se, thereby preventing us from making the most of our great and su¬
perior natural advantages. Let me call your attention to the results of this ruinous and
parsimonious policy on the part of the Government.
In 1880, as you doubtless know, our cereal exports amounted to '284,000,000 bushels—
that is reducing Hour to bushels, and including corn and corn-meal; and the estimated
value ofthat amount of cereals was .$'288.000,000.
In 1883, the amount was reduced from '284,000,000 to 176,000,000; and in 1884 it
was reduced from 176,000,000 to 151,000.000, estimated value $162,000,000; reduction
in the amount of exjiorts in four yeiirs, $126,000,000; and still the internal improve¬
ments of our competitors, in supplying the markets of the world with bread, goes on
seemingly almo.st regardless of expense. Especially is this true with Russia and Great
Britain, and Germ;iny, it appears, is again anxious to enter the field of competition.
She has recently built a ship-canal, connecting what is known as Lucbach Bay with the
North Sea, thereby reducing the transportation on wheat, it is said, 6 cents a bushel.
.She has also completed surveys for improvements of her rivers and harbors, and for the
31
construction of canals at an estimated cost of more than $100,000,000. Russia has just
completed one ship-canal, length and expense not given, and is now engaged in improv¬
ing the river Volga and constrircting a canal to connect with the river Don, estimated
expense not given, but the estimated saving in transportation 7 cents a bushel on wheat.
The extent of canals in 1884 in Russia was 900 miles.
Mr. Stone. Do you know where these canals are?
Mr. Dore. Only as I find them on the map.
Mr. Stone. Do you know where the points of contact are with the Volga and Don?
Mr. Dore. My information is that it is not agreat way from the sea. France in 1879
passed a law requiring all canals in that country, classed as principal lines of communi¬
cation, to be deepened to 7 leet 4 inches, and requiring all locks in such canals to have
sufficient water on their sills to allow vessels free passage drawing 6 feet 6 inches of
water. The mileage of the French canals and rivers completed is 7,069 ; projected and
to be completed 1,813—total, 8,882; total cost of those completed, $218,000,000; esti¬
mated cost of those to be completed, $200,000,000 more.
Gentlemen, I wish to contrast this with the expenditures of the United States. The
enti re appropriations for all internal improvements of this country since the foundation
of the Government is only $111,000,000, and the amount expended on them is one hun¬
dred and five and three-quarters millions.
Gentlemen, the statement of figures I have given, and propose to give, are so astound¬
ing that I have deemed it prudent to bring my authorities with me, lest some of you may
think I am drawing on my imagination for my facts. Here I have the " Administration
report of the railways in India for 1884-'85, " and here is a statement " exhibiting the
moral and material progress and condition of India during 1882-'83. "
Mr. Blanchard. Does that blue-book you have contain the statistics of expenditures
in France?
Mr. Dore. It is in some of the books I have here. Here is a statement of the rivers
and canals by Mr. Vernon Harcourt, member of the English Parliament, and here is
another by Sir Charles Hartley. You doubtless are aware that canals in the East Indies
are used for both irrigation and transport. We find here the capital outlay up to the
end of the fiscal year 1882-'83—the expenditures for canals alone was $103,800,000—as
much within about $2,000,000 have they spent there on canals for transport and irriga¬
tion as this entire country has expended on all its internal improvements ifoni the foun¬
dation of the Government until now. In 1879 a limit of $12,500,000 was fixed as the
maximum sum to be borrowed in a single year on account of public works which might
be appropriated at the discretion of the Government between railways and irrigation.
That would make, as you see, at least $25,000,000 to be added to what I have already
stated for two years. But mark this, although the limit was fixed to the amount to be
borrowed, no limit was fixed to the amount that might be expended, provided the amount
so spent was provided out of the current revenue of the year. It looks as if they were
in earnest about internal improvements over there. In 1882-'83 the mileage of canals
was 1,341 miles, the rivers navigable 18,633 miles.
Mr. Bayne. I observe on this map you have referred to that the railroads seem to run
parallel with the rivers.
Mr. Dore. I understand that there is no hostility there between the water ways and
the railroads at all. They are both run to one end—cheap transportation. Gentlemen,
you have doubtless noticed that that Government notonly builds canals—this is applica¬
ble to what Mr. Bayne has said—you have doubtless noticed that the Government not
only builds canals, but fosters, owns, and subsidizes certain railroads and guarantees
dividends on the cost of construction of others.
Length of railroads sanctioned and opened in 1883, 12,6251 miles.
Total outlay lor railroads $741,500,000
State investment in railroads - ^ 156, 800, 000
Government or State loss on all railroads for twenty-four years; that is,
from 1859 to 1883 124,750,000
The Government has lost that much in fostering railroads in the interest of cheap
transportation; which you will see is about $20,000,000 7nore than the expenditures this
Government has made altogether for public improvements, internal and external.
Mr. Willis. Have you any data as to the nature of this loss? You .say the Govern¬
ment lost so much.
Mr. Dore. That is all to be found in these books. All this, gentlemen, and I know
not how much more, is done by our competitors for cheap transportation for the benefit
of the producers, and for the benefit of their respective governments as well. How it is
that countries so small as France and Germany—either of which added to all the New
England States would scarcely equal in extent the State of Texa.s—how it is they can
afford to spend so much for public improvements, and that this vast country with its
32
boundless resources and unequaled wealth can aSbrd to spend so little for the same
purpose, is past finding out.
Consider, gentlemen, the burdens under which these countries labor; their great stand¬
ing armies, their great navies, their great national debts—France with more than
500,000 soldiers in her standing army, 302 ships of war, and 50,000 marines, at an an¬
nual expense of $115,000,000, and a public debt of four and three-quarters billions—
almost twice the amount which our national debt ever was—and yet the Government is
not embarrassed; population, 37,000,000.
Germany has a standing army of 450,000 men, supported at an annual expense of
$90,600,000, 86 men-of-war and 15,000 seamen, at what expense I do not know.
Great Britain, and I may say every nation in Europe, carries a similar burden, yet
none hesitate to make all needed appropriations for internal improvements.
Mr. Blanchard. Would it not be proper to say, if we were to take one-half of what
it costs France, England, or Germany to maintain their standing armies—such armies
as we do not maintain—and put that in improvements, it would accomplish a great deal
of good?
Mr. Dore. Inferentially I am on the same line. The United States has no such bur¬
den. It is a common saying that we have no navy, and our Army is little more than
sufficient for a national police; and yet, forsooth, with an immense annual surplus of
revenue, how many of our legislators will say this great nation of 60,000,000 of people,
and having now $50,000,000,000 of wealth, cannot afford to spend $25,000,000 annually
on internal improvements? If we intend to compete with other nations in the markets
of the world we must adopt the same means to insure success if we cannot do better. If
we do not, we shall not deserve success and will continue to be beaten, as we are now
beaten.
Gentlemen, why this opposition to appropriations necessary for public improvements?
Who are the anonymous writers in the newspapers who object, and for what reason?
You know very well opponents to any measure always have reasons satisfactory to
themselves for their objections. How frivolous their objections ! Take for instance the.
Hennepin Canal—and here, gentlemen, allow me to call your attention to what the
Saint Paul convention said in regard to that canal:
"Äesofiied, That in the opinion of this convention the enlargement of the Illinois and
Michigan Canal, and the extension of the same by the construction of the canal from
the Illinois River at Hennepin to the Mississippi River at Rock Island, thereby connecting
the Great Lakes with the Upper Mississippi, and giving a continuous line of water transpor¬
tation from the Mississippi Valley to the Atlantic seaboard, is demanded in the interest
of cheap transportation and the now immense and growing commerce of the Northwest,
and we call on our Senators and Representatives in Congress to urge the construction of
such canal and the enlargement of the Illinois and Michigan Canal by the General Gov¬
ernment."
I was about to refer to the objections of the objectors. Let us consider them, espe¬
cially in reference to the Hennepin Canal. It is said that it is wholly within a State. Of
course there should be no improvement by the General Government where the benefits
to be derived are confined wholly within a State. If you will look at the map you will
see that the Hennepin Canal is off in the northwestern corner of the State, and that out of
the 56,000 square miles in the State of Illinois not a fifteenth part would have any more
interest in the canal than any Atlantic State. It is local it is said. But this a part of
what is intended to be a great national line. Then, again, it is urged that it is sec¬
tional. , If my information is correct, an improvement of a river common to several
States has a national character. That is the case with this. It is for the benefit of all
the States bordering on the Mississippi choosing to use it, and particularly for all the
States on the Upper Mississippi. '
The exports of the cereal products in the year 1880 were almost 33 per cent, of the en¬
tire exports of this country. I wish you would notice that—almost 33 per cent. The
question for the United States to consider is whether it can afford to lose that proportion
of its foreign exports. If it cannot, and is interested in swelling the exports of the coun¬
try, it is interested in this measure, and it is national. I was talking not long since to
a gentleman, a memlrer of the House, and incidentally he asked me if I was interested
in these matters as usual. I told him I was. He .said, "Why not build a railroad?"
What is the difference between a railroad and canal? A canal is an artificial channel of
water, open and free to tho.se who wish to use it. Those who do use it furnish their own
vessels and their own propelling power. Should the Government build a railroad it
would be compelled to have numerous stations, terminal facilities, repair and machine
shops, rolling stock, and an army of men, and it would not be used, as you know, but
seven or eight months in the year, and you know also whoever works for the Govern¬
ment wants to work only half time and get double pay.
Another objection offered is that Chicago wants this canal for drainage. The Chicago
River allows vessels to pass up and down its entire length, drawing 16 feet of water;
hence the water must be 17 feet a t least. This is a proposal for a canal of 7 feet of water.
Suppose you make it 8 feet,'you will still have 9 feet below where the bottom of the
river is; and who does not knowthat the sediment of a river always goes to the bottoni ?
Chicago is not specially interested in this as a great many people suppose it is. You will
see at once that the business of this section of the country comes to Chicago now, comes
by rail, and comes expensively. It costs as much to transport a bushel of wheat from
the producing country 200 miles inland to lake points as from these points to the sea¬
board, a distance five times greater.
But I say the business comes there now. Our commission men receive the produce of
the country, sell it and take their commissions; our elevators store it and collect their
storage charges; our vessels ship it to Buffalo and collect their freights. That is all there
is in it from a business point of view. Chicago's interest in this matter is purely na¬
tional. I have told you the interest of the State of Illinois is natioual. Southeru Illi¬
nois has not as much interest as the New England States, because it would have no
cheaper transportation; but New England would have the benefit of cheaper transporta¬
tion. I have already told you Illinois products would not pass through this canal. If I
were to tell you Iowa was .specially interested in the canal that would be true.
Mr. Blanchakd. Not specially interested, but determinedly in earnest.
Mr. Dore. The business of the canal would come from west of the Mississippi, and
not east of that river. Why don't Illinois build it? There would be teu times the rea¬
son for saying, why don't Iowa build it? For the reason already given, Iowa has some
claims, I think. Looking over the amount of appropriations for that State up to 1882,
we find |2,500.
Mr. Murphy. Since our admission to the Union as a State we have had $2,500.
A Member. But Iowa has been charged with part of what has been spent on the Up¬
per Mississippi.
Mr. Dore. I think you are correct; but the proportion of Iowa would not be very
large. And while we hear all this opposition to anything we waut, the Atlantic States
have had their improvements made at an expense of from $7,000,000 to $10,000,000. T'
certainly think Iowa has some claims.
I will detain you but a few minutes. I want to say something of our advantages.
You all know the wonderful exteut of this fertile, arable country, and how diflerent it
is from the countries on the seaboard—New England in particular, where not one acre
in twenty is capable of cultivation. Here there is not one acre in twenty that is not
susceptible of cultivation, and here we have sufficient rainfall. There is no other coun¬
try iu the world so e.xtensive and so fertile that has this natural advantage of sufficient
rainfall. We do not have to build canals for purposes of irrigation; we have excellent
husbandry, machinery, and best agriculture. What are the disadvantages? Costly
labor. One day's work in harvest time, I think, is $1.50 or $2.00, Costly transporta¬
tion and the competition of foreign countries I have already named; and that competi¬
tion is bound to be greater as they increase their internal improvements. One of the
great enterprises of the age in the interest of cheap transport is the construction of the
Suez Canal, constructed at a cost of a hundred millions of dollars; that is 99 miles long.
Already the pressure on that canal is so great that there is a public clamor for its en¬
largement or the construction of another parallel thereto. From the beginning of the
world until now there never was a time when there were so many huge projects for arti¬
ficial water-ways, just completed, projected, and in progress of construction, as now.
There is another disadvantage that we labor under, and that is the liberality of our
competitors in making improvements and the illiberality of our Government to do the
same thing for the same purpose. The decreased cost of transportation on the lakes,
made possible by the substitution of steamships and harges for sail-vessels, and the aboli¬
tion of the tariff by degrees on the Erie Canal, amounting to 12 cents a bushel, gave us
the command of the European markets for a time. These advantages are now overcome.
If we should add 12 cents a bushel on our cereal exports, we should now have no exports
at all. Twelve cents a bushel is as much as corn sometimes sells for in the Northwest.
We have no hostility to railroads; nobody that I know of interested in this enterprise
has anything to say whatever in disparagement of railroads. We appreciate what rail¬
roads have done—I believe we have the best railroad system in the world. There is no
country in the world that affords equal facilities for traveling at so cheap a rate, and I
think there is none in the world that gets its freight carried any cheaper or quite as
cheap. But, gentlemen, the question is not whether freight charges are high or low for
the kind of service performed—that is, by rail. The question is. Is it the cheapest pos¬
sible ? If not the cheapest possible, is it the kind of transportation to which the producers
of this country are entitled?
Mr. Murphy. Is it not true that if you to-day owned and controlled a water-way, and
by the side of that water-way you owned a railroad, you could transport freight 50 per
cent cheaper over that water-way than over the rail ?
92Ü GONG 3
34
Mr. Dore The latest information I have of rates on the Erie Canal was of 1 cent
per ton per mile, and I think it was rVo ton per mile on the railroad along
side of it. That was of 1 cent per ton per mile cheaper than on any other railroad
not in competition with water.
Mr. Stone. Do you mean to say that in tran.sportation by rail and in transportation
by water-way, provided the rail and water costs nothing, it is cheaper by water? Do
you understand me?
Mr. Dore. Ido. I have not considered that.
Mr. Stone. I would like you to reflect on that a little.
Mr. Willis. Is there not an absolute limit to speed on any canal, and if you attempt
to go beyond that, the water itself will act as a retarding power?
Mr. Dore. I think so. We don't want to go at a lightning speed on a canal, or on a
railroad either, for t hat matter. Many ofthe articles to be transported on canals—grain, salt,
hay, and corn—there is no great hurry about. What I mean to say is, the farmer wants
protection—he wants to be protected in the preservation of foreign markets for his prod¬
ucts, to the end that he may sell his surplus, and to do that he must have a cheap
mode of transportation. Will the protectionists help the farmers? The free-traders
twit the farmers by saying they are not protected. Will the free-traders use their influ¬
ence to thus protect the farmer?
I wish to state in a succinct way again the most important points of what I have said,
because I know you can remember but little of so much ; but these two points appear to
me cogent, and you cannot easily forget them:
Why do our people cry so loud and so long for these improvements ? Because of their
necessities; because they know the value of their lands depends on cheap transporta¬
tion.
The next important point is that this country cannot afford to lose 30 per cent, of its
foreign trade. It cannot be retained without the cheapest possible transportation.
Mr. Blanchard. You were saying that the cost of transportation from the interior
to the seaboard affected the price of every acre of land on which corn and wheat is grown
in the West; and I asked you if the same was not true of the Cotton States.
Mr. Dore. It is. I wish to say a word in reference to cotton. We are going to have
great competition in this country in cotton. Egypt is a great country for cotton, and
is making great preparations to increase the product of cotton there; and in my opinion
it will turn out that this Congo country, there has been so much said about, will be a
great rival in wheat, corn, cotton, and almost everything else.
The importers in England are very much interested in cheap transportation for cotton.
There is a movement on foot to lessen the cost of transportation of cotton to Manchester,
the great manufacturing center of Great Britain. They found it cost from a half to two-
thirds as much in handling the cotton after its arrival at port in Liverpool, in unload¬
ing, reloading, carriage, &c., as to carry it across the ocean. Hence the idea of building
a canal from Slanchester to connect with the river Mersey. It cost |500,000 to get the
necessary legislation, but they got it, and they propose to build that canal, and they
propose by that means to take 25 per cent, from the shipping of Liverpool, and they
have, too, the railroads and the dock companies of Liverpool to fight. Estimated cost
of that canal, |36,000,000.
Mr. Bi.anchaed. You live in Chicago?
Mr. Dore. Yes, sir.
Mr. Blanchard. You read in the outset of your remarks a resolution of the Saint
Paul water-way convention, which was, in effect, a memorial to Congress to appropriate
^25.000,000 for the improvement of the water-ways of the country. In your opinion,
would the public sentiment of the country sustain an appropriation of that amount of
money for that purpose?
Mr. Dore. I am glad you asked that question. I think I know who write these little
squibs in the newspapers against liberal appropriations. You remember Senator Hoar
voted for a certain river and harbor bill and they tried to defeat him on it and failed. I
mean to say that the intelligent portion of the community would approve of it, and are
now asking for it. There is a great deal more light now on this subject than formerly,
and the more they know of it the more they will be in favor of it. A great many people,
when I first came here, thought they knew it all—and you know when a man thinks he
knows it all it is difficult to talk to him. There is a widespread interest in this thing,
and I am sure these improvements should be made.
Mr. Blanchard. And you feel assured that public sentiment would sustain you ?
Mr. Dork. That is my opinion.
W. H. Miller, of Kansas City, Mo., said:
Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, we deem it our good fortune that in coming before you
at this time in the interest of our Western water-way improvement it is not incumbent
upon us to ask Congress to adopt a new policy and enter upon a new enterprise. The
facts and considerations which have heretofore been presented have been sufficient to
35
convince Congress of the great importance of the improvements we ask; the policy of
making them has already been adopted; the work has been entered upon; the mouth of the
Mississippi Kiver has been opened ; and two commissions, one for the Mississippi and one
for the Missouri, have been created, under whose direction the improvement of these
streams is to be made; the surveys have been completed over a large part of the rivers,
and the nature of the improvement proposed, its cost, and the benefit it will be to the
country are before you in official reports of scientific agents of the Government's own
choosing. What we have to ask of you, then, is that this work, the great importance of
which has already become apparent to you, shall be prosecuted with vigor and the great¬
est practicable speed and be sustained by regular and adequate appropriations. It is in
this behalf only that we came here to-day, and it is only to considerations bearing upon
these points that we desire to invite your attention.
In asking for such improvements of our rivers as will adapt them to the uses of com¬
merce we do not wish to be understood as complaining that we are destitute of trans¬
portation facilities. We have a great abundance of railroads, and such lines as the peo¬
ple still need they have no difficulty in finding the money to supply. But we have now
had sufficient experience with railroads to demonstrate that, invaluable as they are, they
are not adapted to the transportations of the products of our country at such rates as
will not restrict production or consumption, and that the degree of productiveness for
which nature has prepared us and which every interest of the nation demands that we
achieve can never be realized until railroad transportation is sitpplemented with use of
our water-ways. And we shall endeavor also to show you that the interests of our rail¬
roads, no less than the interests of our people, need this addition and without it can
never attain to the prosperity they ought to enjoy.
The materials of commercial interchange produced in the valleys of our rivers consist
of sugar, rice, cotton, tobacco, grain, meat products, coal, iron, timber, stone, and other
articles similarly weighty and cheap. None of them will bear rates of transportation
which railroads can afford over the long distances they are required to be carried. Such
rates, therefore, restrict their necessary distribution, and restrict and impair the profit
of their production, thus retarding the natural development of our country and the ad¬
vancement of our people in wealth and prosperity. To illustrate this situation it is not
necessary that we should present a comparison of the rates of transportation afforded by
water and rail on all the articles we produce in order to show the effect of the absence of
water carriage in retarding our development. One illustration will suffice, and for this
we will take the item of coal, which is very abundant in the Missippi Valley, and which,
in the absence of extensive water powers, is the only source of power for manufacturing
purposes. All the materials for the most extensive manufacturing business, wholly dif¬
ferent in its product from the manufactures of the East, exist in abundance in our coun¬
try, but the only source of power for establishing and maintaining it is our coal.
In a recent official publication by Hon. George C. Pratt, president of the Bailroad
Commissioners of Missouri, I find it stated that it costs the coal miners of the West an
average of a dollar and a half a ton to mine the coal and place it in the vehicle of the
carrier for distribution. The lowest rate which railroads have heen able to make for
this article is 1 cent per ton per mile. This rate, added to the cost of mining, makes
the cost of coal two dollars and a half per ton at a distance of 100 miles from the
mine; and this, he states, is the maximum price at which it can be profitably used
for manufacturing purposes. Railroad transportation, therefore, restricts the distribu¬
tion of coal for manufacturing purposes to points on the line of railroads within 100
miles of the mine. The water rate on this article, wherever water transportation can
be employed, is about 1 mill per ton per mile, which admits of its distribution to
river points over distances of 1,000 miles, while a combination of water and rail facili¬
ties admit of its distribution for considerable distances into the interior. This article
is very abundant along some of our rivers, where it lies a stored-up mine of unavailable
wealth and the unavailable source of the production of much more. This is especially
true of the lower part of the Missouri, from whence supplies can be obtained for many
years for a most extensive manufacturing business along that river as far north as Sioux
City, as well as for adjacent parts of the Mississippi and Illinois. The stimulus to
Western manufacturing which would be given it by the effect of river improvement
upon the distribution of coal has been always overhoked in the discussion of this ques¬
tion, because it is one of the least öf the benefits to be derived from it; and yet it is of
such magnitude in itself that it alone would warrant the expenditure of all the money
required for that purpose, at least so far as the Missouri and Ohio Rivers are concerned.
Eike benefits can be secured for other articles of Western production by the provision
of water transportation. Take, for instance, the item of grain, the great staple produc¬
tion of the Upper Mississippi and Missouri Valleys, and upon which the people of the
Western and Northwestern States chiefly depend. At present rates of transportation it
costs more to get it to market than it does to produce it, which so increases its cost to
consumers that we find ounselves ruled out of the markets of the world, while our wheat
deteriorates in the granary and our corn is largely burned for fuel. Lumber manufact-
3(j
ured in the Northwest and floated down the river to Clinton, Quincy, and Hannibal is
nearly doubled in cost by rail transportation 300 miles into the Missouri Valley, which
much restricts its use; while the valuable timbers of the Lower Mississippi States rotou
the ffround because they cannot be moved to market. The sugar, cotton, and rice of the
States south of Missouri and Kentucky are similarly burdened, and the industrial progress
of the people retarded wherever water transportation is not available. In like manner
every other article produced in the Mississippi Valley is burdened and re,stricted in its
distribution by high rates wherever water carriage is absent; and the productive industry
of the people and tlieir advancement iu prosperity are correspondingly burdened and re¬
tarded. We are surrounded on all sides with abundance of undeveloped resources, un¬
available wealth, because existing rates of carriage do not admit of the product being
marketed at paying prices.
I assume that it will not be expected that we will ofler any evidence that the improve¬
ment of our Western water-ways will open them to navigation with commercial craft.
That fact has been established by the commissions and engineers of the Government,
and their official reports are before you. I conceive, therelbre, that all that will be ex¬
pected of us is to show that such cheaper transportation will increase the extent and
power of distribution and add to our prosperity. This can best be done by comparing
rates where water carriage is or has been employed with the rates where it is not or has
not been. And as it will be impracticable to include in such a compari.son all articles
of Western production, it seems that the effect can be most clearly shown by such a com¬
parison of the rate on one leading article. For this purpose no article is more significant
of the whole list nor more fundatneutal to our prosperity than grain, the great staple
of the West and Northwest upon which all other interests depend. The tacts are not
better known nor more easy of intelligible presentation iu the case of any other. Between
Chicago and the Atlantic seaboard, a distance of about 1,000 miles, water transporta¬
tion on the lakes and canals control the rate. Here wheat is carried during the season
of navigation as low as 15 cents per hundred pounds, and corn at about 10 cents. Be¬
tween Chicago and Saint Paul, about 500 miles to the northwest, and where water carriage
exerts a less effect, the rate is 17.} cents on wheat and 15 on corn; and between Chicago
and Kansas City, about 500 miles to the southwest, and where water carriage exerts a
still less effect, the rate is 25 cents on wheat and 20 cents on corn. West and northwest
of Saint Paul and west and southwest of Kansas City, where water carriage exerts still
less effect, rates are correspondingly higher. Between Saint Louis and New York, a dis¬
tance of about 1,200 miles, where rates are affected hy the water carriage on both the lakes
and Mississippi Kiver during the season of navigation, rates are about 21 cents on wheat
and 17 cents on corn, while between Saint Louis and Missouri Kiver points, a distance
of about 300 miles, and where there is no water carriage, rates are 20 cents on wheat
and 15 cents on corn. These comparisons are sufficient to indicate the relative difference
between water and rail rates, and the low cost of transportation that will follow the Im¬
provement of our water-ways. And it applies to all articles of Western production as
well as to grain, and when provided will apply to the distribution within the country
as well as to the movement from it.
Some idea of the magnitude of the meaning of this difference may be obtained from a
comparison of the rates on wheat for export from Saint Louis via rail to New York and
via river to New Orleans. In this comparison, however, it must be borne in mind that
the foreign markets derive their principal supply from sources other than the United
States, which supply establishes the price at which ours is sold. They are not affected
by the small amount we send them, hence any reduction in the cost of sending it will
be added to its value in the hands of producers. And this addition applies to the whole
crop as well as to that part exported, for the small surplus sent abroad establishes the
price of the whole crop at home. During the season of navigation of the Mississippi
River the rate from Saint Louis to Liverpool by rail to New York and by river to New
Orleans has been as follows for the past three years:
1883. Via railroad to New York, per hushel 23 to 29
Via river to New Orleans, per bushel 17 to 23
Difference in favor of the river route 6
1884. Via rail to New York, per bushel 15 to 29
Via river to New Orleans, per bushel ■ 11 to 20
/ ■
Difference in favor of the river route 4 to 9
1885. Via rail to New York, per bushel 14 to 27
Via river to New Orleans, per bushel 13 to 13
Difference in favor of the river route ltol4
37
lu view of these facts it seems not unreasonable to assume an average difference for
the three years of 6 cents per bushel in favor of the river ronte. When the Mississippi
shall have been so improved from Saint Louis south that it can be relied upon for the
safe movement of large quantities of wheat, it cannot fail to add to the value ot the
wheat crops of the country that can use it as much per bushel as it reduces rates. If this
addition be only so much as is shown above, it will be an enormous aggregate. In the
country that it will affect we produced in 1885, according to the estimates of the Agri¬
cultural Department, 357,112,000 bushels; which at 6 cents per bu.shel would be worth
$21,466,720 more than it is. Such a gain to the wheat crop annually would be an im¬
mense benefit to the West, but when we come to contemplate such further reduction in
transportation attended with like further advances in value of the wheat adjacent to all
of our Western water-ways and to all articles of Western production, the gain to the West
is too enormous for estimate or statement. That such advantages can be realized is evi¬
dent, for what water transportation does on one river and forone article it will do on all
rivers and for all articles. On the Missouri River, in 1878, we employed barges between
Saint Louis and Kansas City, and they carried grain at 53 cents per bushel, while the
current rail rate was 13 cents per bushel on wheat and 8 cents on corn. Wherever else
water transportation has been employed, and to whatever article it has been applied, like
results have followed.
The provision of water transportation will thrts not only affect all articles of Western pro¬
duction adjacent to the rivers, but its regulative effect upon rail rates will affect those tar
removed from water facilities and those not adapted to water carriage. Upon this point
I desire to offer a few facts: The rapid decline of rail rates along the lake shore by im¬
provements in water craft is a significant illustration of this effect. In 1875 the rate on
grain from Chicago to New York was 24 cents per bushel. In 1880 it had fallen to 19 cents,
and in 1885 to about 13. The water rates of the lakes affect the rates of railroands run¬
ning along the lake shore. These affect other adjacent railroads, so that the influence
of the lakes is felt potentially at all points north of Cairo. More than this, the movement
of freight between points west of the lakes and the Atlantic seaboard over lines running
far south of Cairo, even those of Tennessee, Virginia, and Northern Georgia, is affected by
the low rates of the lakes, for as it may be moved by either route, the southern all-rail
route must move it at the rate of the northern part rail and part water route. An isolated
fact at Kansas City in 188Ü shows the same effect. Our elevators became full of grain,
the rail rate being such as would not admit of its movement. Negotiations were entered
into between our grain merchants and barge companies on the Mississippi River, looking
to a repetition of the experiments of 1878. The fact came to the knowledge of the rail¬
roads, and they immediately anticipated the danger of further employment of water-craft
on the Missouri with a rate of 8 cents per hundred pounds, 7 to 12 cents less than the
current rate, and took the grain away.
The difference of rates prevailing between Missouri and Mississippi River points and
Mississippi River and lake points affords a good illustration of the extension of the regula¬
tive effect of water facilities into localities far removed from them. The water rate from
Chicago east, forcing the trunk-line railroads to make low rates, those crossing the country
south of Chicago and reaching Mississippi River points have to equalize rates with the
trunk lines as far west as the river. The lines from the Missouri River to Chicago
meeting these low rates at the Mississippi River, are compelled to make low rates thence
to Chicago, or allow the direct eastern lines to take the business from them at the Mis¬
sissippi River. Owing to this state of facts, the rate from Mississippi River points to
Chicago is much less pro rata than rates on the same articles between the Missouri and
Mississippi River. Of the whole distance between the Missouri River and Chicago, that
part between the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers is about 60 per cent. Of the charge
made between the Missouri River and Chicago, more than 80 per cent, applies between
the rivers. To give you an illustration of this, the rate on wheat from the Missouri to
the Mississippi River is 20 cents per hundred pounds, while from the Missouri River to
Chicago it is 25 cents. Corn from the Missouri River to the Mississippi is 15 cents; from
the Missouri to Chicago, 20 cents. Cattle from the Missouri River to the Mississippi are
$47.50 per air; from the Missouri River to Chicago, $65 per car. Hogs from the Mis¬
souri River to the Mississippi are $40 per car; from the Missouri River to Chicago, $55
per car. On west-bound merchandi.se and lumber like differences exist, all due to the
regulative effects of the lakes reaching westward to the Mississippi River and to the ali-
sence of such effects west ofthat stream.
One of the most significant illustrations of this regulating effect is exhibited in the
difference in railway rates prevailing in the Northwest and those prevailing in the Mis¬
souri Valley. The railroads connecting Chicago and Saint Paul are combined in what is
known as the Northwestern Railroad Association; those between Chicago and Missouri
River points are similarly combiued in what is known as the Southwestern Railroad As¬
sociation. By these pooling arrangements the difl'erence in length of line among roads
38
in the same system is neutralized by the equalization of rate and time. The Missouri
River points are thus made as all of the same distance from Chicago; and Saint Paul is
made as of the same distance from Chicago by the different lines. The difference in
distance between Saint Paul and Chicago and Missouri River points and Chicago is about
the same. The shortest line in the Northwestern system is 410 miles and the longest
520. The shortest line in the Southwestern system between Chicago and the nearest
Missouri River point is not longer than the shortest line in the Northwestern system, and
the longest is 523 miles, only two miles longer than the longest line in the Northwestern
system. s
The distance and time being about the same, a comparison of the rates of the two sys¬
tems is practicable:
Package freight, per one hundred pounds :
First class
Second class
Third class
Fourth class
Car-load freight, per one hundred pounds :
Class A
South- North¬
western . western.
Class B
Class C
Class D
Wheat
Other grain
Live-stock, per car;
Horses
Cattle and hogs..
$0 90
75
50
33
S2i
29è
23
23
25
20
67 50
65 00
$0 60
45
35
22è
22i
20
17è
15
171
15
50 00
40 00
I have asked railroad men for an explanation of this discrimination in fa.ivo of the
Northwest, and h ive been uniformly informed th it it is due to the fact that while Chi¬
cago is the nearest point at which water transportation can be reached from the Missouri
River points, it can be reached from Saint Paul within 15Ü miles of Duluth. And this, I
am informed, is the only reason for the lower rate in the Northwest. The difference be¬
tween these rates applies not to the business from Saint Paul and Missouri River points
alone, but proportionably lower rates extend over the whole country west and northwest
of Saint Paul, thus extending the effects of water rates into localities far removed from
water facilities. Proportionably higher rates prevail in the country west and southwest
of the Missouri River points, where no reason for it can be assigned except the absence
of water advantages. In the comparison I have just given, you will find the widest dif¬
ference existing on package freight and live-stock, which would be carried by railroads
under all circumstances; but they bear such a relation to the other articles which can
be carried by water better than by rail, that they too are affected, showing that the bene¬
fit of the water rites is not confined to articles best adapted to water carriage, but is
shared by all commodities in the country in which their effects prevail. A more sig¬
nificant exhibit could not be desired for the purpose of showing the regulative effects of
water rates and their application to all articles; for it shows in actually existing situa¬
tions the full effects we claim for the water transportation to be secured by the improve¬
ment of our Western water ways and enforces the conviction we entertain, that suCh
transportation of such of our products as are best adapted for water carriage will exert
such aregulative effect upon others, that all will he alike beneficially affected, and ex¬
tend into localities remote from water facilities.
As the tendency of these facts is to show that the water transportation we seek by
the improvement of our Western water ways will effect a large and general reduction in
rail rates in the Mississippi Valley, and as it is well known that our Western railroads
are not more prosperous than the people whom they serve, it may sirggest to you that
any such gains to the people must be attended with great damage to the roads. The
facts will show that exactly the converse is true. I suggested this fact when I had the
honor to appear before your cominiftee two years ago, and I now propo.se to more fully
present the commercial principles upon which it is based. It is true that a railroad, or
a railroad system, by exce.ssive charges, may temporarily secure a somewhat higher
degree of prosperity than the people it serves, but it Is a law universally recognized by
railroad and commercial men that the permanent prosperity of a railroad is precisely
ganged by the prosperity of its patrons, and fluctuates with it.
The mere statement of this law is conclusive of the argument en this point among men
engaged exclusively in transportation and commereial pursuits ; but a full statement of its
workings, when .so large and general a reduction of rates is proposed, is a material feature
39
of our argument. Different articles carried by transportation companies vary greatly in
weight and value, and lience in the rate of charge they will bear without affecting either
production or consumption. This fact is now the basi.s of all classification ))y transporta¬
tion companies, and the corresponding differences in the rates charged for different classes.
Thus, I have already shown you, on the authority of the Missouri Railroad Commission,
that coal, which is the basis of all Western manufacturing, cannot be carried by rail oyer
100 miles. To advance the present rate on that article 1 cent per ton per mile, which
would be so slight an advance as applied to some other articles that railroads would not
trouble themselves to make it, would restrict its distribution to 50 miles, and nearly de¬
stroy its use for manufacturing purposes. Dry goods, on the other hand, are now charged
a rate of 2J cents per mile, and an advance of that rate by 1 cent per ton per mile would
not affect distribution and would hardly be felt in the price in the consuming market.
On all high-class merchandise carried into or distributed through the West the rate is so
high as to pay the railroads a large profit, and yet so low that the freight charge is hardly
reckoned as an element in the cost to consumers. At the same time, the weighty and
cheap products of the country are handled at so close a margin that any fluctuation in
rate is immediately felt either by the producer or consumer. Articles of manufactured
merchandise classed as first-class and largely carried from the Atlantic seaboard to the
Missouri River are charged $1.59 per hundred pounds, while grain carried from the Mis¬
souri River to the Atlantic seaboard is charged 32 cents per hundred pounds. An ad vanee
of 10 cents per hundred in the grain rate would reduce its price 6 cents per bushel in
the West, while a like advance in the rate on merchandise would not affect values in
either the East or the West and hardly excite remark.
The cost in this movement to the railroads is about the same in both cases. Mani¬
festly if the grain pays the cost of carriage, the merchandise must be enormously profit¬
able. This state of facts arises from the principle, now universally adopted by rail¬
roads, of charging for the carriage of an article what it will bear—the only principle
upon which they can continue business. The rate charged upon Western products
moved to the Atlantic seaboard three years ago was declared by Mi-. Fink to be less
then the cost, and yet the rate at the present time is lower than it was then. The fact
is they do not expect to make the cost of carriage on these products, and so make rates
on the high-priced merchandise they carry into the country that will substantially pay
for the round trip. Then they can afford to make any rate on products returned, and even
though it be less than the cost of returning the train, all they get for it is clear gain.
This is substantially the situation now on all the products of the West which they carry
to the East from points on the lakes and Mississippi River. A gentleman prominently
connected with the freight department of one of the lines leading from Kansas City to
Saint Louis and Chicago informs me that it costs his company about 7 cents per hundred
pounds to carry wheat from Kansas City to Saint Louis, and about 10 cents to carry it
to Chicago. At the same rate it costs 28 cents to carry it from Saint Louis to New York,
where they charge but 21 ; and 20 cents to carry it from Chicago to New York, where they
have been charging but 15, and even but 121. Rates on these products can never again
be made such as will pay the railroads the cost of carriage.
The prosperity of Western railroads, therefore, depends no longer upon the amount of
these products they can carry out of the country, but upon the amount of high-priced
merchandise they can carry into it. This depends upon the ability of the people to con¬
sume such merchandise, which, in turn, depends upon the profitableness of their indus¬
tries. If we can reduce the rates on the cheap, weighty products of the West, and
thereby increase the profitableness of their production, and consequently the purchasing
power of the people, we not only make the people more prosperous, but we provide a
more profitable business for our railroads and increase their prosperity correspondingly
with that of the people. The railroad .situation of the country to-day affords the best
proof of the truth of these statements. The strongest and most prosperous roads are
those connecting Chicago and the Atlantic seaboard, and they are the roads which
make the lowest rates on the products of the West. The next .stronge.st and most pros¬
perous system consists of the roads embraced in the Northwestern Association, learling
from Chicago to the Northwest, and, in competition with the lake at Duluth, making
the lowest rates of any interior system. The trunk lines le.ading from the Atlantic sea¬
board to the Southwest are less prosperous than those leading to Chicago, and the roads
leading from the Mississippi River into the Southwest are less so still, although making
much higher rates. With them it is almost an unceasing struggle ibr existence, and one
of them, the great Wabash, is in the hands of a receiver.
The reason for this state of facts, as is well known in the West, is that the people of
the Northwest who have a partial benefit of water rates obtain better prices for their
products, possess correspondingly greater power to consume high-priced merchandise,
and hence give their railroads and the trunk lines east of Chicago a volume of profitable
busine.ss which makes them prosperous. Our people of the Southwest, deriving less
40
profit from their industry, have eorrespondingly less power to purchase such articles,
and hence give their roads such a reduced volume of profitable business that even at the
higher rates they attain a far less degree of prosperity. Grive us the water transporta¬
tion we seek in the improvement of our water-ways and the correspondingly increased
power to consume high-priced merchandise and we will give our railroads an increased
volume of profitable business, which will improve their prosperity along with our own
and enable them to make much lower rates on our products not only to the seaboard
but in the movement between local points in the country. I do not wish to he under¬
stood in this comparison between the Southwest and the Northwe.st to imply that much
further advantage may not be gained by the Northwest by the improvements we seek;
1 use it simply to show the effect of water facilities in reducing and regulating rates as
we desire, by which the Northwest has also much to gain. Our plea, therefore, for this
great improvement is not for one interest at the expense of another, nor for one section
at the expense of another, hut for all interests and all sections alike, and, as we know,
not the least by far for our railroads.
This subject of water-way improvement also presents some important considerations
for the East. It is far from being the local interest many people have been disposed to
regard it. While the chief industry of the West is agricultural, the chief industry of
the East is manufacturing.
The census reports of 1880 show the product of manufacturing that year to have been
$5,369,579,199. Of this enormous aggregate the statistical reports of the Treasury De¬
partment show that but about 2 per cent, was exported, leaving 98 per cent, as con¬
sumed in this country. Of this great industry nearly 45 per cent, of the establishments
are located in the Atlantic States north of the Potomac; 62 per cent, of the capital in¬
vested is invested in the same States; 65 per cent, of the wa'res of the employés is paid
to their citizens, and within their borders 62 per cent, of the product is made. It is
true that in the Northern and Northwestern States much manufacturing is done. In
these States, grouped in the census reports under the head of " Northern Central
States, " there were in 1880 34 per cent, of the establishments and 26 per cent, of the in¬
vestment of the whole country. Within them was paid out 25 per cent, of the wages of
the employés, and the product amounted to a little over 26 per cent, of the whole. But
the manufacturing of these two sections is so different that it cannot be regarded as com¬
petitive even in the local markets of each respectively. In the West we manufacture
flour, meat products, agricultunil implements, and machinery mainly; while in the
East the product consists chiefly of fabrics of cotton, wool, leather, and other high-priced
but light articles, of which we of the West and Southwest are consumers to the full ex¬
tent of our purchasing power. These classes of merchandise must always be produced
in the East, for we of the West, with only steam power, cannot hope to compete even in
our own markets with the products of Eastern water power. This manufacturing is the
industry upon which the East chiefly depends for its prosperity, and must always de¬
pend, just as we of the West depend, and must always depend, chiefly upon agriculture.
Since 1880 the industries of the East have been complaining of depression because of
overproduction; not that they in fact produce too much, but that they lacked a market
for what they made. In view of this situation the improvement of our trade with Cen¬
tral and South America has been suggested as a means of relief, and a commission has
been sent out there by the Governmeut to ascertain what could be done in that direction.
All the time, however, the West has been suffering for these same products because its
industries, burdened as they are with costly transportation, did not afford purchasing
power to supply its needs. Give us the cheap transportation in the West which the im¬
provement of our water-ways will supply, and we will give the East not only cheaper
bread and provisions, but with our iucreased purchasing power we will give it a market
for its manulactures and a degree of prosperity it has never attained and can never attain
on any possible foreign trade, tariff protection, or other measures.
Regarded thus from the standpoint of our internal cmnmerce, the improvement of our
Western water-ways is seen to be not a sectional but a national interest. Regarded from
the standpoint of our foreign commerce its national inip.ortance becomes more apparent.
The statistics of the Treasury Department show that the exports of this country have
always consisted chiefly of the products of agriculture. During the eleven years from
1875 to 1885, inclusive, the percentage of agricultural products rangetl from 72 to 83 of
the whole exportation. The statistical report of the Treasury Department for 1884, page
41, states that of this agricultural report from 92 to 95 ]>cr cent, is of Western production.
Of the entire exports of the United States for the fiscal year 1884, as is shown by the
statistical report of the Treasury Department, page 15, to items of 'Western agricultural
productions alone, breadstuffs and provi.sions, made up thirty-eight, 20 per cent.; for
1885, the .same two items made up the thirty-six, 83 per cent, of the whole. The con¬
tinued exportation of the.se products now constituting so important a part of our foreign
commerce is seriously threatened; and the exportation of breadstuffs can be maintained
41
only by reduced rates of internal transportation. With the opening of the Suez Canal
the British people, our chief customers for this product, began to devote themselves to
the development of the wheat yields of India, and the result has been such as to truly
alarm the producers of this country. Report No. 11, Agricultural Department, Septem¬
ber, 1884, gives the latest ofScial facts concerning the wheat productions of India I have
been able to obtain. This report, page 73, shows that while Great Britain received from
India but 1,600,000 bushels of wheat m 1879, she received from the same source
21,000,000 bushels in 1883. The whole export of India amounted to substantially
nothing when the Suez Canal was opened, but in 1883 it amounted to 39,127,977 bush¬
els; and now Judge Murphy, of your committee, informs us that in 1885 it was
75,000,000. So large has it grown that it so supplements the European supply from
other sources as to impair the exportation of American wheat. Yet the British Gov¬
ernment is vigorously promoting its development, having under consideration at the
date of the report referred to a proposition to expend immediately over $100,000,000 in
the construction of short-line railroads and canals to further stimulate its production
by providing transportation to the coast.
During this period our exportation of hreadstuffs has been decreasing, having fallen
from $288,036,835 worth in 1880 to $160,370,821 worth in 1885. At the present time
our granaries are full, the visible supply being about 59,000,000 bushels, nearly double
the quantity visible at the corresponding date of any previous year. And the farmers of
the West have still in their hands a large part of the product of 1885, holding it because
the price is not sufficient to pay the cost of production. During the time this situation
has been coming upon us the export price has fallen at exporting points from $1.25 per
bushel in 1880 to about 80 cents in 1885, and yet we are unable to find a market abroad
even at such a reduction. To produce it in this country at a lower cost is hopeless;
hence the only reduction that can be made to regain our former position in the foreign
market is that which we ask in the cost of transportation by the improvement of our
Western water-ways. Until this be done we will have to face the continued decline of
the export of this great staple, which constitutes so large a part of our exportations, and
unless it be done speedily we incur the danger of the permanent loss. Is it not an ob¬
ject of national importance, concerning alike to all sections, to prevent so disastrous a
result in our foreign trade, attended as it must be with the depression, almost ruin, of
one of our leading productive industries, upon which so many people depend, that it
must drag along with its many other important interests.
With so many great interests, with such tar-reaching results, with national prosperity
on one hand and danger of national disaster on the other involved alike in the vigorous
prosecution of a work upon which the Government has already entered and which it
alone can do, it seems needless to appeal to you, in whose hands it has been placed, to
advance it with all possible celerity. The development of the re.sources of the West,
the prosperity of the people, the wellivre of our railroad interests, the sustenance of our
manufacturing industries, and the maintenance of our foreign trade are all alike in the
scale, and in your hands, gentlemen, more than in the hands of any other committee of
Congress, is placed the welfare of your fellow-citizens and the destinies of your country.
Yours is the great responsibility; and according to your wisdom and effectiveness will
the people award you honor.
Referring now more especially to the Missouri River, for which I speak here, I desire
to invite your attention to the fdct that the valley of that stream is more remote from
water facilities than any other agricultural country in the West. As a consequence the
railroads are less affected by water-rates, and we pay higher rates accordingly, as I have
already shown you in the comparisons of rates which I have submitted. It is needless
for me to remind you that this stream was once a great channel of commerce, when the
products of the West were sent to market in packages, and steamboats adapted to the
carriage of package freight only were the chief means of transportation. All that is
changed now, for our products are handled in bulk largely, and the river is not safe for
barges, which alone of river craft carry freight in bulk. The reports of Major Suter and
of the Missouri River Commission are before yon, in which they show that with an ex¬
penditure of 110,000 per mile the river can be so improved as to make it again a great
water-way adapted to modern craft. This is less than half the cost of a single railway,
but it will make the river capable of carrying all the tonnage the people may desire
to put upon it. Having already referred to experiments showing what great reduc¬
tion of rates barges upon that river have effected, I deem it unnecessary to urge
further the advantages of the improvement. We have nothing special to ask in regard
to the methods of improvement, or the allotment of appropriations to different parts of
the stream. Congress having created a commission for the purpose of directing its im¬
provements, we feel that our function is fully performed when we urge that the appro-
])riations asked for be made, and that the work ol' improvement of the whole river be
jrashed to a speedy completion. All that has been said or may be said regarding water-
42
■way improvement applies with peculiar force to the Missouri, for no people in the West-
need such advantages more, or suffer more from the lack of them.
Assuming that Congress will give us something for that river, I desire to invite your
special attention to a supplemental report of the commission, in which it suggests the
importance of providing means to carry on the work from early spring forward. In
pursuance of this report, an exigency appropriation bill has been introduced, and is now,
I presume, in your hands, appropriating one-half the amount asked for the year, so that
the commission may resume its work in the early spring. The merit of this bill is that,
if passed, it will give the commission seven months to work in this year, whereas if it
had to wait until the general bill is passed it will have but three months. It has its
plant all ready, and it deteriorates more in idleness than it wears in use. It has skilled
men now at its command whom the president of the commission assures us can do
more work in one day than new men can do in two, and whom it will lose if it must
wait. The passage of this hill will therefore not only give more time to work, but it
will enable the commission to work with greater economy and achieve greater results
for the outlay. The length of time in which the commission can work is also an ele¬
ment of economy, for in seven months it can complete and secure any particular work
in which it may be engaged, which it can not do in three months, except at greater cost.
We would therefore respectfully commend this bill to your most favorable consideration,
hoping that it may pass in time for the commission to resume work in the early spring!
We hope, also, that in your general bill you may feel yourselves able to give the com¬
mission all the money it asks for. We greatly need the improvement, and that speedily.
The people regard it as waste, rather than economy to retard so important an improve¬
ment by limited appropriations, while their industries are bearing such enormous bur¬
dens and they are suffering such enormous and continuous losses.
O