Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 59, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 March 1907 — BLOW AT RAILROADS. [ARTICLE]

BLOW AT RAILROADS.

President Appoints Inland Watea Ways Commission. The development of a comprehensive system of rivers and canals in the United States is the object of the inland water weys commission created by President Roosevelt. The President announces that he is actuated solely by broad considerations of national IH/licy, anti that the railroads have shown that they are no longer capable of moving the crops and manufactures fast enough to secure prompt transaction of the business of the country, -and that the only complete remedy for the present ear shortage is a complementary system of transportation by water. Progress in inland transportation, having made a full revolution, has got back to where it started. The rivers were the highways of the pioneers. Their canoes and freight boats gave civilization to the wilderness. The first settlements hugged themuddy banks of western streams. The first crops were sent to market by river. Then the railroads came and river transportation was almost abandoned. canals which have been constructed at heavy cost before the railroads were built fell into disuse. Now the country has outgrown the railroads. In ten years the traffic of the northern interior States has doubled, though railroad facilities have increased only one-eighth during the same period. It seems probable that the discrepancy between traffic and train capacity will continue to grow greater as time goes on. The rivers must come into use again. This is recognized by President Roosevelt, who has appointed an inland waterways commission of eight -members, Its chairman being Congressman Burton of Cleveland, the chairman of the House Committee on Rivers and Harbors. This commission has for its task the formulating of a report giving the best methods of developing “a complementary system of transportation by water.” This is a hopeful sequel of the widespread movement which has been inaugurated by the commercial organizations of the Missisppi valley to secure the improvement of the inland rivers. One may suppose that the commission will approach the task assigned to it with a full realization of the importance which its recommendations will have to the entire country. It should work out a broad and systematic program for river Improvement to be made effective by Congress. To supersede the haphazard, logrolling appropriations of the past by appropriations made with system and knowledge must prove a great gain to the nation.