Ohio History Journal

Ohio Valley Hist. Ass'n, Fifth Annual Meeting.            79

 

main opponents. Clark to President Reed, August 4, 1781, post, p.

Marshall advised the people to pay no attention to the drafts ordered

for Clark and offered protection to those who refused. He had told

Clark that while he could do nothing for the expedition as an official

that as a private person he would give every assistance within his

power. Penna Archives, 1781-1783, p. 318.

71. See post, p.

72. See post, p.

73. See post, p.

74. Mich. Pioneer and Hist. Coll's., x, p. 465.

75. Simon Girty to Major De Peyster, Mich. Pioneer and Hist.

Coll's., pp. 478, 479. This rumor was started on account of the expedi-

tion against the Delawares by Col. Brodhead.

 

 

 

 

 

THE FUTURE OF NAVIGATION ON OUR WESTERN RIVERS.

 

BY HON. ALBERT BETTINGER.

 

Stretching out between the Allegheny and Rocky Mountain ranges

for a distance of 2,000 miles lies the Mississippi Valley, containing three-

fifths of the area of the U. S. and more than half our population. The

Mississippi River, rising in the northern part of Minnesota and flowing

straight on to the Gulf of Mexico, bisects this great valley, and in its

course forms the boundary line between ten great states. From    the

foothills of the Rockies in the northwestern corner of the Valley, after

passing through the wheatfields of the Dakotas and Nebraska, and

receiving many tributaries great and small, comes the Missouri River,

entering the Mississippi a few miles above St. Louis. Further down

this great central stream is met by the Red, Arkansas, White and

Quachita Rivers, draining the Southwestern portion of the Valley.

From the Northeast, running diagonally through the State of Illinois,

the Illinois River meets the Mississippi a short distance above St.

Louis-and great efforts, now in progress, are soon to convert this

river into an effective connection with the Great Lakes System at

Chicago.

The valley of the Mississippi is politically and commercially more

important than any other valley on the face of the globe. Here, more

than anywhere else will be determined the future of the United States,

and, indeed, of the whole western world; and the type of civilization

reached in this mighty valley, in this vast stretch of country lying be-

tween the Alleghenies and the Rockies, the Great Lakes and the Gulf,

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will largely fix the type of civilization for the whole western hemi-

sphere.

At the extreme Eastern end of the valley, the Allegheny River,

rising in Pennsylvania and flowing North through a portion of New

York, thence South, and the Monongahela rising in West Virginia and

flowing North, unite here at the City of Pittsburgh, where this celebra-

tion is being held, and form the Ohio River which flowing for a dis-

tance of 1,000 miles in a general southwesterly direction through the

center of the Valley which it drains, after receiving thirteen navigable

tributaries, three from the North and ten from the South, joins the

Mississippi at Cairo midway between St. Paul and New Orleans, and

forming in its course the boundary lines between six states.  Fifty-

four rivers that are navigable by steamboats and hundreds that are

navigable by barges, all contributing their waters to the Mississippi,

are providentially so distributed over this enormous territory as to

be accessible from all parts of it, complete this great inland system of

waterways.

A description of this magnificent river system is found in a

memorial presented to Congress by the Ohio Valley States in 1872, that

will bear repetition here:

"To the development of a nation so powerful as this now

is, and as its domains and its resources foretell it will become,

the brain of the most sagacious rulers could not have desired a

more complete and convenient system of artificial internal water

communication with the whole interior, than Nature presents for

man's perfecting hand; one better designed to favor the inter-

change of the products of all sections, or to carry those products

to the market of the world. In its absence the statesman might

sigh in vain for its creation and the people deplore, without re-

lief, its want."

After the young Republic had been fairly established in the East

and the Star of Empire started on its Westward course, it was on

the shores of these rivers, one after another, that our fathers builded

their towns and cities and for three-fourths of a century they con-

stituted the great highways of commerce.

The canoe of the Indian and of the French explorers were suc-

ceeded by the sail and keel boats and broadhorns of the American

pioneer.

The launching at this city of the "New Orleans," the first steam-

boat, just 100 years ago, introduced a new epoch, not only in the

further development of this valley, but in the progress of the world.

A contemporaneous writer thus gives vent to his enthusiasm over

the prospect which this new invention opened up:

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Ohio Valley Hist. Ass'n, Fifth Annual Meeting.           81

 

"This plan if it succeeds must open to view flattering pros-

pects to an immense country, an interview of not less than two

thousand miles of as fine soil and climate as the world can pro-

duce and to a people worthy of all the advantages that nature and

art can give them.   .....    . The immensity of country we

have yet to settle, the vast riches of the bowels of the earth, the

unexampled advantages of our water courses which wind without

interruption for thousands of miles, the numerous sources of trade

and wealth opening to the enterprising and industrious citizens, are

reflections that must arouse the most dull and stupid. Indeed the

very appearance of the placid and unbroken surface of the Ohio

invite to trade and enterprise."

The success of this new means of navigation was soon established.

Rapidly the steamboats multiplied in number, grew in size, power, com-

fort, safety and appearance. In the year 1840 there were built at Cin-

cinnati alone 33 steamboats aggregating 5,361 tons at a cost of $600,000.

In the same year 4,566 steamboats passed Cairo. In 1841 between 400

and 500 steamboats from 75 to 785 tons were navigating the Western

Rivers.

The entire steamboat tonnage employed in the United States in

1842 was 219,994 tons, of which more than half plied on our Western

rivers, Eastern ports being second and the Great Lakes third in im-

portance.

The steamboat tonnage employed in the Mississippi Valley at the

same time exceeded by 40,000 tons the entire tonnage of the British

Empire. Four thousand flatboats were at this time still employed in

moving the existing commerce.

Navigation kept even pace with the rapid development of the

West until in 1860 our Western rivers were teeming with steamboats

and barges.  (Produce, machinery and an endless variety of manu-

factures were carried from the upper Ohio to the South, and cotton,

sugar, rice and molasses were brought to the mills and consumers of

the North. Iron ore was brought from Missouri to the furnaces of

Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, and coal was taken

back in return. A. great barge line carried wheat and corn and flour

from St. Louis to New Orleans for distribution through the south and

for export. Palatial steamers, luxuriously equipped for travel, carried

millions of passengers up and down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.

The railroads then in operation acted rather as feeders than as com-

petitors to the steamboat lines. Except for intermittent seasons of

low water, river transportation seemed adequate for the commercial

necessities of the West, supplemented by inland lines of railroad.

But the extent and fertility of our agricultural lands was so

great, the resources of our mines so plentiful, the inventive genius

Vol. XXII -6.

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of our people in creating machinery and appliances for the increase

of our productions was so active, and the energies of our rapidly multi-

plying population so persistent that further extension of our trans-

portation facilities became a necessity, and the railroad having proved

itself an efficient and reliable carrier, we entered upon an era of rail-

road building.

In the thirty years from 1870 to 1900 our railroad mileage in-

creased from 52,922 miles to 194,262 miles. With the increase in rail-

road building came a decline of transportation by river, notwithstand-

ing an enormous increase in the general commerce of the country.

The decline was greatest in through traffic, as from   St. Louis to

New Orleans and from Pittsburgh and Cincinnati to New Orleans, ex-

cept in coal. There has also been a decline in many packet trades.

And all this in spite of the conceded fact that the cost of transporta-

tion by water is about one-sixth of that by rail.

What, then, are the causes for this decline in transportation on

our Western rivers?

Much has been said and written officially and otherwise upon this

subject and many causes have been assigned, some purely local, others

far reaching in their effect. These are well summarized in the Prelimi-

nary Report of the United States National Waterways Commission,

Sixty-first Congress, Second Session, which divided the advantages said

to be possessed by the railroad over the river into two classes; one it

designates as inherent or fundamental, the other as artificial or tem-

porary advantages. Those coming under the first head are briefly stated

as follows:

1. The railway has a wider area of distribution, can provide for

the receipt and delivery of freight in car load lots at factories and

warehouses by means of switches. Can reach all cities or towns alike,

whether located on water or not.

2. Railways are provided with facilities at terminals for loading

and unloading.

3. The readier transfer of traffic from one line to another, as

compared with transfer from water to rail and vice versa, and the

practice of through billing and mutual settlement of accounts.  The

oscillation in river levels renders the installation of adequate unload-

ing machinery more difficult.

Under the head of temporary or artificial advantages, the Com-

mission enumerates as the

First and most important, the right of the railway to charge lower

rates between points where its line is in competition with water routes.

Second. The power of a railway to acquire steamboat lines or

enter into agreement with them for the purpose of stifling water borne

traffic, either by operating the steamboat lines or by discontinuing their

use upon competitive routes  In both methods, the Commission states,

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Ohio Valley Hist. Ass'n, Fifth Annual Meeting.          83

 

that it, in the acquisition and operation of steamboat lines in such

manner as not to compete with railways, and in removing them en-

tirely from the field of competition, the railway companies of the

country have been very active.

Third. The refusal of the railroads to prorate on through routes

where naturally the freight would be carried part by water and part

by rail. In many cases, the Commission says, the route which apparently

is the natural one, would be by water for three-fourths or more of the

distance, yet the charge for the remaining railway haul is so considerable

as to render carriage by the longer haul by water unprofitable.

Fifth. The better warehouse terminal and freight handling equip-

ment of the railroads, while no progress has been made on the water-

ways in the last 50 years in furnishing modern facilities for the storage

or handling of freights.

To these causes the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors

in its report on the survey of the Ohio River has added another which it

considers as the great cause of the failure of waterways, but which it con-

cedes now no longer exists. It is that heretofore the directions of water-

ways have not generally coincided with commercial routes. That the

trend of commerce has been East and West while our river systems

generally flow in a southerly direction.

It is now admitted, however, that the commercial development

of the west has reached a point from which future growth will be by

normal stages while the resources of soil and climate and mineral of

the South and Southwest invite development in which our internal

river system must play an essential part.

A careful analysis of this assignment of causes, I think will dis-

close but a single inherent advantage of the railroad over the river,

and that is the ability of the railroad to deliver freight in car load

lots direct to the warehouse or factory by means of a switch.   But

even this advantage is limited in the case of each railroad line to the

factories and warehouses located on its own line. If situated on an-

other line the delivery must be accomplished by license of that other

line, a privilege that can, by proper legislation, be made equally avail-

able to the shipper by river. The disadvantage to the river is confined

to the necessity and cost of transfer from the boat to the car, but

where water transportation is uninterrupted by seasons of low water,

then transferring machinery and appliances are or can be employed

which so reduce this cost that when added to the lower freight rate

by water still leaves the advantage in most cases with the river. In-

deed such transferring machinery, where water transportation is re-

liable, as on the Great Lakes, has been so perfected that railroads them-

selves employ it to effect transfers from rail to water, thus making

the waterway an integral part of the whole transportation system of

the country and lending to it the same area of distribution that is pos-

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84         Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

sessed by any one railroad line. The error in ascribing to the rail-

road a greater area of distribution than to the river route lies in

comparing the river route with the railroad systems of the country

collectively, instead of limiting such comparison to each railroad line

separately.  Furthermore in crediting the railroad with ability to de-

liver in car load lots by switch to factory or warehouse, the ability of

the river route to deliver entire barge loads to the factory or ware-

house located on its banks, has been overlooked.

Nor is the oscillation in river levels a permanent or fundamental

disadvantage. Does not every railroad in its course encounter similar

differences in levels which in many instances it must overcome by the

employment of extra locomotive power?     What matters it whether

such difference in levels occurs during or at the end of the journey?

The towering loading machinery at Lake Erie ports overcome such

differences by hoisting entire railroad cars and dumping their contents

into the holds of steamers and at a cost which makes transfer from

rail to water profitable and hence desirable.

It is confidently asserted that there are but three conditions neces-

sary to give to commerce the full benefit of the cheaper transportation

by water and these are:

1. To provide permanent channels of adequate depth.

2. The co-operation of municipalities by retaining and recovering

their public landings and either erecting or affording opportunity to

erect suitable machinery and appliances for the cheap handling of mer-

chandise freight to warehouses at the top of the banks, there to be

transferred to railroad cars for further transfer and to delivery wagons

for local consumption.

3. To provide by legislation for mutual interchange of Bills of

Lading between river and rail routes and for prorating of freights.

Let us consider these in their order.

From the beginning railroads have been improving their road-

beds, by eliminating or reducing grades and curves, putting on heavier

rails, perfecting their ballasting, increasing the size of cars and motive

power and double tracking. They have built feeders in all directions

and have succeeded in making the railroad an efficient transportation

machine.

On the other hand, the river channel which corresponds to the

roadbed of the railroad, has not been effectively improved. The seasons

of low water are frequent and of long duration, greatly increasing the

cost of transportation, and often suspending navigation altogether. A

more or less desultory improvement of rivers has long been in progress,

but until recently the efforts were lacking in plan, policy and continuity

so that little progress has been made toward the establishment of a

coherent reliable river system of transportation and in consequence

navigation has continued to be intermittent, uncertain and unreliable.

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Ohio Valley Hist. Ass'n, Fifth Annual Meeting.            85

 

The situation, however, at the present time is more hopeful. The

Mississippi from Cairo to the Gulf with small interruption has a

minimum depth of 9 feet. From Cairo to the mouth of the Missouri

improvements to a depth of 8 feet are in progress. From the mouth

of the Missouri to St. Paul the project is for a depth of 6 feet. The

improvement of the Missouri as far up as Kansas City has again been

taken up.

But by far the most important tributary of the Mississippi River

is the Ohio River, which together with its tributaries forms a consider-

able river system by itself.

The improvements now in progress on the Ohio River contemplate

a complete canalization of the same to a minimum depth of 9 feet by

construction of 54 locks and movable dams, about thirty per cent. of

which is now completed and if the expressed desires of President Taft

are carried out, will be entirely completed in five years hence, but the

greater probability is that eight or even ten more years will be required

for their completion. Nearly all the tributaries of the Ohio have been

canalized or are in process of canalization, but their real usefulness

awaits the completion of the Ohio. There will then be in the Ohio

Valley alone a river system of 4,400 miles, and dependable water trans-

portation from the Pittsburgh district as far west as Kansas City and

from St. Paul to the Gulf. Here at Pittsburgh this great system is

to be connected by barge canal with Lake Erie, which, when con-

summated will establish cheap and easy water transportation between

the upper Ohio and the Great Lakes System, and by way of the Erie

Canal, now  approaching completion, with the Atlantic seaboard.  If

these channels had been provided as the railroads were being extended

and improved, river commerce would not only have been maintained,

but would itself have contributed to a still greater commercial develop-

ment than we have experienced. The intermittent, unreliable and un-

certain navigation is the real, and properly considered, the only cause

of the decline in water transportation. Other contributing causes are

but the result of uncertain seasons of navigation, and with dependable

channels would either have disappeared, or would never have arisen

at all. Indeed, but for the distinct advantages of cheapness, quick

delivery and unlimited capacity of water transportation over that by

rail, not a vestige of river traffic would be left. The survival of

packet lines on all our Western rivers, and the development of coal

transportation lines unique in the cheapness and volume of their de-

liveries, in spite of long and uncertain seasons of suspension of naviga-

tion are positive proof of inherent advantages of river transportation.

No railroad line similarly handicapped could survive the competition of

its rivals.

Nor is it correct to attribute any portion of the decline to crude-

ness of the steamboat or to lack of thrift of steamboat men or man-

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86         Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

agers, as is so often done. The steamboat in its type, motive power,

tackle, equipment and accommodations, has been constantly improved

to take full advantage of the intermittently navigable river channels.

Alternating conditions of low and high water, swift currents, float-

ing ice, fogs, faulty disposition of bridge piers and of low bridges

and other obstructions have kept alive a spirit of improvement which

has produced steamboats thoroughly adapted to present conditions, not

only for their safe navigation, but for the handling of freight aboard

ship as well as for receiving and discharging. The balance rudder, a

clever device for the more effective control of the boat, and the steam

capstan now in use all over the world, were first introduced on the

Ohio river. The railroads have by no means surpassed the steamboat

in the manner of handling merchandise freight. They have not even kept

pace with the steamboat. In fact, the greater portion of this class of

freight, if not all, is handled by the shipper or receiver himself each

in his own way and with the means available to him.

Two citations from reputable trade journals might be quoted in

support of this statement. The Engineering News in a recent article

(Jan'y 5th, 1911) stated:

"All admit that our present methods of freight handling are

crude; they are no better than they were 50 years ago, while not

nearly so cheap."

The Electric World some time since called attention to the same

fact as follows:

"The present system of handling miscellaneous freight at

terminal stations is absurdly slow and expensive as compared

with the progressive methods in other branches of railroad man-

agement."

As to the second essential condition to bring about a revival of

river commerce, it should be said that during the period of ascendency

of the railroad and the corresponding decadence of river traffic, the

railroads have been systematically, especially within municipal limits, en-

croaching on the river bank and in many instances actually occupying

the public landings in such manner as to hinder and handicap their

joint use with steamboat transportation-and it is at these points where

local deliveries must be cheapened and economical connection between

steamboat and railroad must be effected. So thoroughly is the necessity

for such co-operation between municipalities and the general govern-

ment recognized that Congress has in some instances made appropria-

tions for river improvement conditioned thereon.  The same reason

obtains for such co-operation on the part of municipalities on inland

waters as induced the City of New York and other sea ports to pro-

vide municipal docks. The City of New Orleans owns its river front

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Ohio Valley Hist. Ass'n, Fifth Annual Meeting.            87

 

and has constructed extensive wharves and is now engaged in estab-

lishing a complete connection between steamboat, steamship and rail

lines by the construction of a municipal belt railroad. San Francisco,

Portland, Oregon, Seattle, Cleveland and Buffalo have done some ex-

cellent work along this line. Who can doubt that municipal ownership

and maintenance of public landings and terminals is less appropriate

or less beneficial to the public generally than the opening and mainte-

nance of the streets leading to them?

Mr. Herbert Knox Smith, Commissioner of Corporations of the

Department of Commerce and Labor, has excited general interest

throughout the country in this question by an exhaustive report of

three volumes on Transportation by Water, and by his announcement

that terminals are as important as channels.

The National Waterways Commission already referred to like-

wise recommended:

"That improvement in rivers and harbors be not made unless

sufficient assurance is given that proper wharves, terminals and

other necessary adjuncts to navigation shall be furnished by munici-

pal or private enterprise, and that the charges for their use shall

be reasonable."

This does not apply to bulk freight, such as coal, sand, brick,

stone, cement, lumber, timber and specialized traffic which is handled at

private wharves, all of which are already equipped with excellent han-

dling machinery for ready transfer between rail and water, and it is

safe to say that with dependable channels even these will be more

highly improved.

The third condition, that of enforcing mutual interchange of

bills of lading and pro-rating of freight charges between rail and

water routes, must be provided by amendment of the interstate com-

merce law. The power to refuse to honor through bills of lading

issued by water routes or to issue such bills over water routes and to

pro-rate on freights is the strongest weapon in the hands of the rail-

roads to suppress water competition.

There was another weapon very generally and effectively em-

ployed by the railroads, namely, the power to reduce rates between

competitive points below the actual cost of transportation, and, when

the suppression of the water competitor was accomplished, to restore

the regular tariff, recouping itself in the meantime by charging a higher

rate on the traffic not affected by the water route. To correct such

unfair competition, Congress, upon the recommendation of the National

Waterways Commission, passed an Act providing that when a railroad

reduces its rates in competition with a water route, the same shall not

again be raised except by permission of the Interstate Commerce Com-

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88         Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

mission, on good cause shown other than the effort to crush out com-

petition.

The refusal of railroad lines to deal with steamboat lines the

same as they do with each other as to through billing and pro-rating

must be met with similar legislation, and accordingly all official re-

ports dealing with the subject and the National Rivers and Harbors

Congress have recommended to the Congress of the United States the

enactment of such a law, and it is believed that Congress will in the

near future carry out these recommendations.

This will not be done in hostility to the railroads, but in obedi-

ence to a broad economic law that the prosperity of the country is

largely measured by the efficiency of its transportation facilities. Nor

does the development of our river traffic in the end operate adversely

to the welfare of the railroad, for the world is full of examples con-

clusively showing that railways and waterways operated side by side,

each performing the functions best suited to it, conduce to the prosperity

of each other and to that of the people at large.

 

 

 

Having considered the causes of the decline of river commerce

in the Mississippi Valley and pointed out what may be done for their

removal let us take a peep into the future, to see, if we can, what

we may fairly expect of our new and permanent channels, and of the

establishment of harmonious relations between river and rail traffic

and the co-operation of localities. In making this forecast, however,

neither the volume nor character of the traffic carried in the halcyon

days of steamboating will aid us. Revival of river commerce does not

necessarily mean recovery of the kind of commerce lost. We must

view the question in the light of the new development. The popula-

tion of the Mississippi Valley in 1870 was 21,154,291; in 1910 it was

51,196,846. Productive energy has increased in proportion. The Mis-

sissippi Valley produces the greater part of the country's food stuffs;

two-thirds of our manufacturing interests are located here, and nearly

all the country's coal supply is drawn from the Mississippi Valley. The

demand for transportation is tremendous.  All these things must be

transported, not once, but many times and in many forms. In times

of ordinary prosperity the railroads are not equal to the task.  No

matter how well equipped, they have their limitations as to carrying

capacity.

The Interstate Commerce Commission has expressed this view in

the following statement:

"It may conservatively be stated that the inadequacy of trans-

portation facilities is little less than alarming; that its continua-

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Ohio Valley Hist. Ass'n, Fifth Annual Meeting.          89

 

tion may place an arbitrary limit on the future productivity of the

land; and that the solution of the difficult financial and physical

problems involved is worthy the most earnest thought and effort

of all who believe in the full development of our country and the

largest opportunity for its people."

Hon. Elihu Root, while Secretary of State, in a public address de-

scribed the situation thus:

"We have come to a point where the railroads of the country

are unable to perform that function which is necessary to con-

tinued progress in the increase of our national wealth. Conditions

are such that there is no human possibility that railroads can

keep pace with the necessities of our natural production for the

transportation of our products, and the one avenue that is open

for us to keep up our progress is the avenue of water transporta-

tion." (Root, p. 17, N. R. and H. C., 1907.)

One other distinguished authority, Mr. James J. Hill, with charac-

teristic forcefulness, and with special reference to our western rivers,

in 1908 spoke as follows:

"What this country now wants of the waterway is assistance

in carrying a volume of traffic grown too large, in times of national

prosperity, for the railroads to handle with their present trackage

and terminals. Heavy freights along main lines can profitably

go by water. The traffic of the country will need, as soon as

normal conditions are restored, all the assistance that waterways

can give. The future of the waterway is assured, not so much as

a competitor, but as a helper of the railroad. ... You cannot

find a man eminent in railroading today who is not also an ardent

advocate of waterways improvement."

One other distinguished authority on transportation, Prof. Emery R.

Johnson, is worth citing. He says:

"The services that inland waterways are to perform in the

future will differ from  those they have rendered in the past.

Both the railroads and the waterways of the future are destined

to be more effective transportation agents than they have been in

the past. Although the railroad has reached a higher degree of

efficiency and has by no means reached the end of its technical de-

velopment, the usefulness of inland waterways as a part of the

general transportation system of the country will not cease to be

important. Indeed, the value of inland waterways will tend to

increase with the advance of our country in population and in-

dustry. The development of facilities for public carriage has be-

come increasingly important, and our industries will require both

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90         Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

rail and water carriers for the adequate performance of the ever-

enlarging work of transportation."

The carrying capacity of the river is unlimited. Wherever freight

is to be moved in great quantities, barges are employed, which, with

their towboats, constitute the cheapest form  of freight carriers.  At

the appearance of the first rise in September last, within a day or two,

250,000 tons of coal and manufactured iron left the city of Cincinnati

and Louisville, and without interference with the regular traffic. To

move this quantity of freight by rail would require 5,896 cars of 45

tons each, made up in 196 trains of 30 cars each. No railroad, how-

ever well equipped, could have performed this service without inter-

ference with its regular traffic inside of sixty days, to say nothing of

its inability to assemble such a quantity of traffic at either terminus.

It is not only in carrying capacity, but in quick delivery, that

the steamboat outclasses the railroad in most cases-though popular

conception is to the contrary.  The Interstate Commerce Commission

reports the average movement of a freight car per day as 23 miles.

The immense body of freight just referred to was delivered at Louis-

ville, a distance of 598 miles, in four or five days.

An ordinary packet boat will average 120 miles per day, including

all stops and receiving and discharging of freight. One of the Pitts-

burgh and Cincinnati Packet Line boats will deliver 800 tons of miscel-

laneous cargo from  Pittsburgh to Cincinnati, a distance of 468 miles,

in sixty hours, which would not ordinarily be accomplished by any of

the railroads running between these points short of six days.

These conditions must attract a vast amount of transportation to

the river at all times, and in seasons of great prosperity, when great

freight movement is required, will surely avert a recurrence of the

congestions of 1906 and 1907. The relief to be afforded at such times by

our navigable rivers to immediately contiguous territory will be felt

throughout the land.

The gasoline engine has produced a new kind of boat which

has recently come into use throughout the whole extent of our river

system, which promises to be an important factor in the future of river

commerce. This is the gasoline packet and towboat. It measures from

15 to 40 tons, operates in short trades of from  15 to 50 miles. Its

original cost and expense of operation are small. It carries the farmer

and his products to the nearest market town, often towing one or two

small barges. These packets are the trolley lines on the river, and,

like their counterparts on land, are destined to perform a distinct and

important function in the economy of transportation.

But it is our firm belief that passenger travel on our new channels

will be quite as great as the freight movements. Travel on our Western

rivers has ever been popular-even at this day every packet boat relies

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Ohio Valley Hist. Ass'n, Fifth Annual Meeting.           91

 

on its passenger list to preserve the equilibrium of its cash account. A

fine line of side-wheel boats has always been maintained between Cin-

cinnati and Louisville; and who has not heard of those magnificent

double-deckers, the United States and America, that nightly carried great

cabins full of happy travellers between those two cities, until one night

a disastrous collision brought a brilliant career to a tragic ending.

But a permanently navigable river which admits of deeper draft

than is now permissible will quickly replace the wooden inflammable

craft of today by a steel constructed vessel, so comfortably and elegantly

appointed, so safe, fleet and smooth of movement, through river scenery

of matchless beauty, gratifying every choice of distance and direction,

as cannot fail to appeal to our people.

Not that the hurrying commercial traveler will choose this method

for making five or six towns a day, but it will be sought by that great

body of leisurely travelers, the product of our unparalleled national

prosperity, which moves like a solid phalanx on our coast and lake re-

sorts in summer time, and like an army of occupation invades our

Southern States in winter; for whose comfort and enjoyment great

fleets of luxuriantly equipped greyhounds are speeding from ocean to

ocean and from shore to shore.

Another new and potent factor in the future commerce of our

Western rivers is the Panama Canal. Through its open gates the Ohio

and Mississippi Valleys will have direct water connection with the

west coast of South America, our own Pacific Coast, and the harbors

of the Orient. The largest share of American-made goods that will

seek these markets will come from the workshops and mills of the

Mississippi Valley. The greatest beneficiary of this new commercial

roadstead will be the Mississippi Valley.

 

 

 

 

AMERICAN INTERESTS IN THE PACIFIC.

 

BY HOMER B. HULBERT, F. R. G. S.

 

When the founders of our Republic chose the eagle as the

symbol of our national life, they did not have in mind its carniv-

orous nature nor its predatory habit. They saw in it the only living

creature that could see the farthest and that could climb the highest

into the blue. There was in this choice some predetermination of Provi-

dence; for three hundred years ago when this continent was, like an-

cient Chaos, without form and void, there appeared on the Atlantic sea-

board a little fringe of Anglo-Saxons who never dreamed that they

were an empire in embryo; but there, already was the eagle's egg.

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