of all railroads, and especially those that parallel the canals, and also increase the profits of railways by virtue of the fact that the canals carry the lowest grades of freight and leave nothing but the lighter grade for the railways to carry.

In a statement made by George E. Bartol, president of the Philadelphia Bourse, he says:

The improvements of the river Main were completed in 1886. There was an independent railway on each bank of the river, and they had opposed the improvements, but the railway trafic increased 36 per cent in 1887 and 58 per cent in 1888, and the railroads joined with the river interests in requesting a further deepening of the waterways. Within ten years the traffic of the river had increased more than tenfold from 150.000 tons to 1,700,000 tons.

The traffic of the railroads in the same time increased about 100 per cent-from 930,000 tons to 1,639,229 tons-because factories had been established along the river and in Frankfort, as they were able to get their raw material at a low figure.

It had proven a favorable place for establishing factories, and much of the products of the factories went out by rail. The railroads found that water competition increased their business by creating new business, and that the railroads earned a great deal more money than they ever did before.

The above quotation is given as a concrete illustration of just how it works; that can not be gotten away from, and I am told this is not a single case, but the same is true all over Germany and throughout France. I can see no reason why we would not have the same results here in our own country to-day if our waterways were developed.

Manufacturers always want to locate and know where they can get all raw materials out of which their products are made for the least possible expense, and how they can best ship their products; as a rule the manufactured product will want to be shipped by the railways, while the heavy low-grade raw material will come in by water.

The greatest factor in the rapid construction of railways has been the fact that they will run uphill and anywhere, but it has become a well-known fact among railroad men that freight can be moved on an average more rapidly by water on canals or rivers.

Mr. James J. Hill, in an interview, stated the average movement of a freight car per day to be about 25 miles. On a ship canal from Lake Michigan to Lake Erie by way of Fort Wayne the lowest estimate on movement of boats is from 4 to 5 miles per hour. One can readily see from these estimates that freight would move on an average 100 miles per day on the Michigan, Erie and Fort Wayne Canal, if constructed.

The cost of construction of railways to-day is something to be seriously considered from two standpoints that seem to me to be of paramount importance. First, from the standpoint of economy of construction as to cost; second, as to the saving and economizing of our national resources. This to-day is becoming the most serious and dangerous question that confronts the American people.

I desire to include as a part of my remarks a portion of an address of Mr. P. A. Randall, of Fort Wayne, before the Committee on Railways and Canals in behalf of the Michigan and Erie Canal on House concurrent resolution No. 18:

If there is anything Congress should do it is to help this country to a better transportation system. Unless it can be done pretty soon we will have a complete paralysis of all the commercial business in this country.

I believe that statistics show that railroad transportation has been increasing at the rate of 100 per cent every ten years for the last fifty years. Statistics also show that the means of doing this transportation business has kept pace with the growth of the business until the last decade. For the last decade, however, it is shown that the business has increased 126 per cent, while the means of doing the business has increased a little less than 22 per cent. Is there any reason for you gentlemen to believe that within the next ten years it will show any greater increase than it has in the last ten years? Is there any reason to believe that the means of doing that business will increase as much as it has during the last ten years?

Now, I think I know something about this question. I have been in business where I have had to have shipping done, and I know how we have handled that by reason of the insufficient means of doing business. You know it by hearsay, if you do not know it by actual experience.

You know that there has been great suffering all over this country. You know that in the Northwest people have been frozen to death because they could not get coal, and they have burned fences from around their property to keep themselves from freezing. The grain and the fruit have rotted on the roadside because farmers did not get cars and locomotives to make the shippings.

The National Association of Rivers and Harbors has asked for $150,000,000 for the purpose of supplying this deficiency. The losses have been $50,000,000 worth per year.

I want to speak of this favorite location in which we are at Fort Wayne with railroads and terminals. This is a division point where we have been unable to get cars and have to wait for weeks and months to get cars to ship a carload of lumber.

Mr. James J. Hill says-and I believe that he ought to be pretty good authority that it will require seven and one-half billions of dollars to put the railroads in condition to do the business of this country for the next five years. He did not hazard to guess on what it would be for five years longer.

The capitalization and bonded indebtedness of all these roads of the country is now $15,000,000,000. Will you tell me where you are going to get seven and one-half billions of dollars to put into railroad con

struction and railroad building for the next five years? It can not be done. You are not going to get so much money for locomotives and railroad construction and terminals in the next five or ten years as you did in the last ten years. I want to ask you gentlemen if we are going to be hampered by this sort of thing in this country?

I understand that Congress is going to appropriate 70 per cent of the revenues of the Government for the purposes of past wars and wars to come. The wars of the future are not going to be fought by gunboats and battle ships and by shrapnel. The cars to come are going to be commercial wars, and we have got to be prepared to enter into that conflict.

"Why," some of us say, "we are a great nation." We have got our heads swelled and we are blustering about to show what a "bully boy we are. We are trying to show what a goody-goody kind of people we are. We are building the Panama Canal; and I state here that if we build this canal which is in the proposition before you 21 feet deep it would be worth one hundred times more to this country than would the Panama Canal.

Gentlemen, we must have some relief. How are we going to get it? We have immense and magnificent streams. We have the finest opportunities of making canals of any country in the world.

Mr. HARDY. How do they compare with those of France?

Mr. RANDALL. They are much better. France has spent, since 1814, $750,000,000 for canals; and I understand that this Government, since its birth, has spent less than $500,000,000 for canals and harbor improvement. Mr. HARDY. Do you know what proportion of the trade of France is carried on by the waterways or canals?

Mr. RANDALL. No, sir; I do not, but I do know that you can load a barge in any part of France and take it to any other part of France. Mr. HARDY. It can be taken clear across France. Mr. RANDALL. Yes, sir; in any direction. I know that we have let all of our canals and rivers go without any improvements whatsoever. Gentlemen, there is another feature about which I want to speak, and I think it is insurmountable on the part of the railroads. I believe that the railroads have gone to their limit in the matter of handling heavy, bulky freight. I believe that the great difficulty with the railroads to-day is the want of terminals. The railroads can build the tracks, can get the locomotives, and can probably get cars, but how in heaven's name are they going to get terminals on which to handle their cars? In the town in which I live we have railroad yards. A few years ago they said it would be sufficient for fifty years to come, and yet I have been six weeks in getting a car out of that yard. never get a car in less than six weeks' time.

Mr. BURTON. Was that a car for loading or was it a car that you were receiving?

Mr. RANDALL. I mean that the freight remained in the yard for six weeks. Why? The railroad cars stand as a heavy dead weight upon the tracks. You have to move a whole train of cars to get out two or three that you may want. That is the situation. I was told that a gentleman had shipped from Grand Rapids, Mich., a carload of freight. He had hoped to find it, and finally he went to Grand Rapids, 115 miles away, and walked the whole distance. He finally came to Fort Wayne and found it in the yards there.

Last summer I got 5 carloads of goods from Petoskey, Mich., a distance of 360 miles away. I wanted the material to put into some houses that I was building. I started to work after I had ordered the lumber. I found that I could not get the lumber, and I went to a local dealer and bought the lumber, and I had the house built and the family living in it before I received that order of lumber. It took four weeks to get the cars with which to ship it, and I was four weeks in getting it. That is 300 miles on a direct line from Grand Rapids to Fort Wayne. The CHAIRMAN. Are the railroads laboring to cure that state of affairs?

Mr. RANDALL. The railroads are doing the best they can. The trouble is with the terminals. I read an article in the paper last fall which A vessel was loaded gave an idea of the time it takes to load a vessel. at Superior, Wis., with 10,000 tons of cargo in ninety minutes. That was two hours and twenty minutes from the time it came into the harbor until it steamed out on its return trip with its 10,000 tons of freight, and the harbor master told me that they would unload that in Toledo in six hours. Do you know the size of that cargo? That cargo would have filled 400 cars, and those cars would have made, with 40 cars to the train, 10 trains, and these 10 trains with the locomotives would have made a string of trains solidly together a distance of 5 miles in length.

Now, if you had undertaken to load that same cargo into those cars and allowing ten minutes to a car, it would have taken four thousand minutes to have loaded that cargo into cars. That is six hundred minutes, counting ten hours to a working day. It would have taken seven days to have loaded that cargo into railroad cars. It would have taken the same time to have unloaded it. Now, that is the situation.

The railroad men themselves are thoroughly frightened at the question of terminals. We have marveled why the Pennsylvania Railroad went under the river to get into the city of New York with its tunnels, and yet I saw a statement in the paper the other day by a writer who was speaking of this question, and he said that the cost of that tunnel work under the river was only about one-tenth of what it would have cost on the surface in New York City.

There are in the city of Chicago 800 miles of main tracks, and there are 1,400 miles of auxiliary tracks. The appraised value of the real estate on the main line is $144,000 per mile. The main and the auxiliary tracks in Chicago have cost at the present price over $600,000,000, and yet if they had to duplicate that trackage to-day it would cost ten times that.

In talking the other day to a gentleman who is high in railway circles about the possibility of the railroads getting the money to handle the traffic of the country, he said: "The question that is now troubling the railroads more than any other is the question of terminals." He referred to the right of way and tracks in Chicago, and then said to me that "the Chicago and Milwaukee Railroad Company have had a jury sitting for six months trying to figure out He also told me that an additional right of way through the city." the Chicago and Northwestern road had recently made purchases in Chicago, not in the business district, but on the north of the river, and the prices they had paid figured the right of way at over $6,000,000 a mile, and he said that if the railroads entering Chicago had to duplicate the right of way, which they will some time have to do, it would cost them at least ten times what their present property is worth.

The CHAIRMAN. The property that the Northwestern is acquiring is for a new passenger station?

Mr. RANDALL. Yes, sir. There is 80 feet square that they paid $50,000 for and 2,800 square feet that they paid $365,000 for. That may be too high a price to put upon the right of way for terminals, but I talked with a gentleman some time ago who told me that he was a member of a syndicate that was thinking about building a line of road from New York to Chicago, and he said after a year's investigation they found that the right of way in New York alone for their terminals would cost $150,000 a mile for the entire road, and that without putting any money into the construction of the road at all. Mr. BURTON. Do you mean $150,000 for the length of the road from New York to Chicago?

Mr. RANDALL. Yes, sir; from New York to Chicago, the length of the road.

The CHAIRMAN. I remember seeing a statement that it would cost more to acquire the terminals in New York than to build the road from New York to Chicago.

Mr. RANDALL. This gentleman told me it figured $150,000 a mile for the entire road, and he told me that he was a member of that syndicate and that the syndicate was dropped. He told me further that the only thing this country could do was to go to the waterways; that he believed the question of terminals was such that the railways were out

of date.

I do not want to enlarge upon those matters. I simply want to say that it seems to me it is a condition that confronts us; it is not a theory. The railroads have shown in the last three years of prosperity that they could not do the business of the country, and each year of prosperity will put them still further "out of the running." What, then, are we to do? We have, as I said before, the finest opportunities of any country in the world to make waterways by the improvement of our rivers and by the making of canals, and are we now going to say we will not do it? I do not believe that Congress can do a thing that will please the people better and that will do more good for the country than to make appropriations for the survey of every stream that people ask to have surveyed in order to put them in the position where they will know what they ought to do when the time comes to do it. It looks to me as though we ought to make haste in the matter. looks to me as though a calamity is confronting us, and I say this as a man who has had a great deal to do with transportation and knows of the difficulties that we are laboring under.

It

I have brought in a part of the foregoing speech for the purpose of showing the enormous cost for the construction of railways at this day and age, so that we can get a clearer vision of the necessity of an early beginning in the development of a system of waterways in America, and more especially in the United States.

Common coal cars cost from $1,000 to $1,100 per car, or about $50 to $55 per ton for carrying capacity, while barges can be constructed for the carrying of coal, or all heavy or bulky commodities, at a cost from $8 to $12 per ton, and in many cases barges are built for coal shipment at $2 per ton.

With such a wide difference in the cost of tonnage-carrying capacity and a system of waterways open to all for competition in the carrying trade, it is no difficult task to see a great economical saving to the general public.

The people of the United States are to-day face to face with the greatest business problem that has ever presented itself for consideration and final solution. Upon a wise and economical solution, which means the greatest conservation of our natural resources, and by the acquisition by the Government through the development of our waterways vast rights in water power, which will be converted into electrical power, which may become a source of the greatest revenue for the further exploiting and development of our national affairs.

This power, if at once secured by the Government by an early beginning of our canal development, would be of such enormous quantity (and saved to the people instead of falling into the hands of private corporations to be exploited) that the revenues from this source alone would supply all necessities for running our governmental affairs and completely canalizing our whole country.

I am particularly interested in the construction of a ship canal from Lake Michigan to Lake Erie by way of Fort Wayne, thus connecting Chicago with Toledo and shortening the route by 400 miles, or 800 miles in a round trip. The distance from Chicago to Toledo would be about one-third what it is to-day.

In order to give you the comparative distance that the saying of this 400 miles makes I will quote from the language of Frank B. Taylor, of Fort Wayne, Ind., in a recent address before the Committee on Railways and Canals:

This extra 400 miles is 43 miles farther than from Chicago to Cleveland by rail; nearly as far as from Baltimore to Boston and lacks only 42 miles of being as far as from New York to Buffalo by the New York Central Railroad. This much distance would be saved every trip. Not until a shorter route is made available will east-and-west long-haul rates come down to bed-rock value, which they ought to reach and which the people are entitled to have. To much stress can not be laid upon the fact that even after the Erie Canal is completed every ship and barge that sails from Chicago to New York by way of the Straits of Mackinac will have to travel about 400 miles farther than it would if a deep waterway were built from Chicago to Toledo across northern Indiana and Ohio. And further, in going back to Chicago every returning ship will have to repeat the same 400 miles detour through the northern straits. In short, every boat plying between Chicago or any point west of Chicago and Toledo or any point east of Toledo will have to travel 800 miles farther than necessary in every round trip until the proposed Michigan and Erie Canal is built. This is 37 miles farther than from Fort Wayne to New York

by the Pennsylvania Railroad, or exactly as far as from Chicago to Baltimore. This distance of 800 miles would be saved on every round trip. Indeed, every ship that travels the northern route to-day has to make this long detour, and every ship in the past has had to do it. The value of the coal alone that has been consumed in traveling this extra 400 miles is probably more than enough to build the canal, to say nothing of the insurance premiums and losses paid and the value of the lives and property lost in wrecks that would have been avoided. Between Chicago and New York the saving of distance by the proposed canal amounts to two-sevenths or a little more than one-quarter of the whole distance; between Chicago and Buffalo it is nearly onehalf; between Chicago and Cleveland or Detroit more than one-half, and between Chicago and Toledo nearly two-thirds. Can there be any doubt of the value of this canal, if its construction is feasible and within bearable limits of expense?

This great shortening of distance means the saving of time, the very material economizing in the saving of fuel, the lowerthe lowering of freight rates. ing of insurance on both vessels and cargoes, and necessarily

It is stated by experts that the modern canal of 15 feet depth has a carrying capacity of fifteen double-tracked railways of equal length of the canal.

If you will stop to figure the expense of construction of railways to enable us to obtain sufficient transportation facilities as compared with canals of the above dimensions, it will be found at $75,000 per mile of railway building that it would cost thirty times $75,000, or $2,250,000, for each mile of railway tracks and their equipment, or about $500,000,000 to parallel this canal and furnish the same amount of transportation facilities, and it would then depend wholly for its revenue on it freightage, while the canal would derive large dividends from water and electrical power, which has been already estimated at many millions of dollars annually.

In a speech at Moline, Ill., last October by Mr. H. H. Harrison, of Stillwater, Minn., in speaking of the new Hennepin Canal to Chicago, he said:

It should not stop there, but should continue on eastward, through Fort Wayne, and then follow the Maumee River to Lake Erie, and then by a little effort by this Government we would have a deep waterway to the Atlantic Ocean. Europe is the country that demands the most of our products and merchandise, and this is the short route to Europe from the very center of our continent.

And right here I want to quote from the speech of Mr. P. A. Randall, made before the Railways and Canal Committee:

I want to say just a word in reference to this canal. This is not a local affair, as the chairman seems to think. It is not to be built simply to accommodate northern Indiana, southern Michigan, and a part of Ohio. This canal, if built, will be of national importance. Mind you, the Canadians are warm rivals on this subject of canals. They have a 34-foot waterway from the ocean to Montreal, and ocean vesfeet deep, as it will be within the next two or three years, a vessel gosels are constantly coming there. When the Georgian Bay is made 21 ing from Chicago will not pass down through Lake Huron and down Lake Erie to go to New York, even if the Erie Canal is made a 21-foot canal, because it will be as near to Montreal from Chicago through this Georgian Bay canal as it will be to Buffalo, and when they are at Buffalo they are 436 miles yet from tide water at New York.

Not only that, but when they are at Montreal they are 340 miles nearer Liverpool than New York is. In other words, with a ship canal from Buffalo to New York through the Erie Canal and with the Georgian Bay canal made, vessels starting from Chicago will be 770 miles nearer to Liverpool by going by the way of Montreal than they will by the way of Buffalo, swinging around this circle and up through Lake Erie. The only way you can cut off that distance, the only way you can equalize the distance between New York and Chicago with that from Montreal to Chicago, is to make the 400 miles cut-off we are proposing by this canal.

Railway transportation companies have argued for some time, when not able to furnish cars, that if cars were not delayed an unreasonable length of time before loading or unloading, they would be able to furnish cars more readily, and in order to get relief from this seemingly unnecessary delay demurrage ws have been passed by many States, but have not been found to give satisfactory relief. In support of this statement I desire to quote from the speech of Mr. C. S. Bash before the Committee on Railways and Canals, which is as follows:

Before going into this question I want to say to you why this question of demurrage and reciprocal demurrage has been taken up, and why they have appointed the strongest committee they could get to ask people to take an interest in this, with a view of getting relief. The grain dealers, the hay dealers, all manner of merchandising dealers in the United States, have been suffering, and suffering greatly, for the past three years. We have jumped to this manner of getting relief and then to that; we have tried this expedient and that, and yet we have not found relief, and all we get from the railroad companies when we go to them is: "We simply can not give you the accommodations, gentlemen; you must look elsewhere for relief." They have admitted, plainly and pointedly, every time we have gone to them that they have not the equipment to give us relief, nor the motive power, nor the terminals, so that now the question comes plainly to you to solve it right here. The only thing to do is to give us deep waterway canals that we may get this relief, and, in my humble opinion, it is the only way in which this can be had.

In order to give the railroads more equipment and to make them better able to take care of their triffic, they have been, for the past three or five years, exacting all kinds of arbitrary, unjust, discriminative tactics, which has driven the business men of this country fairly to desperation. The consequence is they have besieged every legislature asking them to pass laws for reciprocal demurrage, making railroad companies pay back at the same rate for failure to carry these goods as they charge the public for failure to load them in time when cars were

furnished. What has been the result? The railroad companies have laid down. In our little State of Indiana they say, "For God's sake stop; we have had enough; we can not afford to pay you at the same rate for these delays on our part, so we want to quit that kind of a game." They have fallen out among themselves and within the last few days they have abolished their demurrage agents at Fort Waynethe Nickel Plate Company and others saying they would not have anything more to do with the damnable thing; that it is an outrage. They take a shipper, a man who is gathering the goods up to ship, and then mulch him with damages for failure to load and unload promptly. Perhaps a shipper has stock in storage for days and weeks, a month, to go from Fort Wayne to Chicago, a straight line. We have had goods lie in the yards six, eight, ten, and fourteen days. These statements are not myths, they are truths, but the railroad companies are powerless to give relief. They are doing their utmost, there is no question about it.

Let us look just a moment at what they have done, and understand we do not come here as an enemy of the railroads, but to help them. Only a few days ago in Chicago one of the greatest freight agents there stated to Mr. Harris, "We are with you in this campaign. Do everything you can to get that canal from Lake Michigan to Lake Erie."

Now, while the railroad companies are totally unable to give relief in the way of cars and better transportation facilities, yet they cut the freight rates 44 cents per hundred pounds on all grains and through products from Chicago eastward, from the rate that is made from any point through Indiana, Michigan, or Illinois, where it goes direct.

They give this advantage in Chicago in order to take the freight from the waterways or lakes, and they give a further discount of 2 cents per hundred on all commodities where it goes for export.

Ninety-five per cent of our commerce is internal, and why should we give up all these privileges to foster and help a little export trade and then have the internal rates (where not on water ports) raised on all our internal commerce?

The difference in railway freight from points near Chicago to New York, in the report of Engineer Symons on Oswego and Hudson Canal, page 69, on a bushel of wheat is about 5 cents per bushel.

There is so much can be said in behalf of the great benefits to be derived from the construction of this canal and canals generally, but it is impossible to do it without going to too great length, but for further information as to the benefits to be obtained I desire to call your attention to the report of the Committee on Railways and Canals (H. R. 1760), first session of the Sixtieth Congress, on House concurrent resolution No. 18, as follows:

The Committee on Rallways and Canals, to whom was referred the resolution (H. C. Res. No. 18) to authorize a survey for a ship canal from Lake Erie to Lake Michigan by the way of Fort Wayne, reports the same back with amendments and recommends that the resolution as amended do pass.

The first amendment is to authorize the Secretary of War to make an examination and survey of other proposed routes for a ship canal connecting Lake Erie and Lake Michigan.

H. R. 17417 and H. R. 4065, introduced by Representative FORNES, provide for surveys for a canal from the most available westerly point of Lake Erie to Lake Michigan, at or near Benton Harbor, and while the committee is of the opinion that a route via Fort Wayne will probably be preferable on account of the lower summit level, and the additional opportunity for water supply, yet it believed the Congress ought to be fully advised as to the most feasible and practicable route connecting those two lakes.

It is also proposed to have a report made upon the possibility of conserving the flood waters of this section, and also the possibility of developing water power and the benefits to be derived therefrom to the public generally.

One hundred thousand dollars, or so much thereof as may be neces sary, is appropriated for the purpose of meeting the expenses incident to this survey.

A canal from Chicago to Toledo either by way of Fort Wayne or across the State of Michigan would open a waterway which is certain to control freight rates between Chicago and Buffalo. It would occupy a territory that is populated by one-fourth of the people of the United States, and would be a connecting link by shortening the waterway from Chicago to Toledo 400 miles, thereby making the distance by water from Chicago to New York City the same as that by rail. This proposed canal parallels the great trunk lines from Chicago eastward to Toledo, thence by water to Buffalo, making it a perfect regulator of tarffic rates.

By means of this connection it would make it possible for the building or construction of a canal system through the States of Ohio and Indiana, leading from the Ohio River to Indianapolis. Fort Wayne, Chicago, and Toledo, thereby completing a system of waterways upon whose banks will be given a new impetus for the erection of large facteries and a great diversity of enterprises, making it possible to get the raw materials along this waterway for the purpose of manufacture at the lowest possible cost. It will mean a complete revival of new business enterprises all over the States of Ohio, Indiana, and southern Michigan, and a vast amount of accumulating tonnage for transportatien.

The stone quarries of southern Indiana will be greatly benefited by this cheapening of transportation to the large cities that will be located on these canal ways. Coal will be shipped from southern Indiana and from Virginia, West Virginia, and Ohio which to-day either goes by rail or by some round-about water course. When this system of waterways is opened it will be freighting large quantities of cement, lumber, timber, iron, fertilizers, grain, provisions, coke, iron ore, and building material of every description.

The marvelous productive resources of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, southern Michigan, Wisconsin, and the States of the Middle West will be wonderfully enhanced through its construction. All kinds of heavy

XLII-AP -15

The traffic that will be built up along the lines of this system of canals will be so great that it will more than pay for the construction of the canal, and in addition will carry the millions of tons of commerce between the East and West that will constantly increase with the development of business enterprises and increased population. This will be one of the great means through which the country may be able to so reduce its transportation rates that it would be possible for American products to meet the competition of foreign products in foreign countries.

To-day 26,000,000 people, more than one-fourth the population of our country, would be directly benefited by the construction of this canal. Fifty years from now this same area, consisting of 753,000 square miles, at the present rate of increase, will contain 100,000,000 people.

The construction of this canal will secure to the Government 40,000 horsepower, estimated by Lyman E. Cooley to be worth, developed into electrical power, $16,000,000. These figures are based upon the constant water supply at the lowest point of the year. This power could be doubled in the same area by the construction of reservoirs at but little cost. The construction of this canal will make it possible to transport commodities in vessels whose average tonnage will cost $8 per ton capacity, while to-day upon the open lakes transportation is carried in vessels costing from $60 to $75 per ton capacity. Hence it is readily seen that barge traffic on canals will be taken for less money

than on the open lakes. This system of canals will enable coal to be distributed all over the States of Ohio and Indiana at the lowest possible transportation figure, thus directly benefiting the consumer of this large area millions of dollars.

This canal will be called upon for the transportation of most of the corn grown in this country, as the territory contiguous comprises This same

practically all of the corn territory of the United States. territory produces a greater amount of cattle, hogs, and horses than any other region of equal size in the world, the surplus of which must be transported eastward to markets, which adds millions of tons of ginia, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania are placed in direct communiBy this canal the coal fields of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Vircation by water with the principal cities of these several States, thus saving millions of dollars in transportation to the consumers.

traffic.

It is estimated that the cost of construction would be $100,000,000. Basing the feasibility of its construction upon a basis of 3 per cent interest it would be found that the interest would be $3,000,000 annually, The value of electrical power alone, as estimated by Lyman E. Its construcCooley, would more than five times pay the interest. tion means the greatest possible conservation of the natural resources of our country and would be a prominent and everlasting source of revenue to the Government as well as a regulator of railroad traffic, and materially assist in the more rapid advancement of our national wealth and increased prosperity.

It would increase the length of the season of transportation by water between Chicago and Buffalo a period of six weeks each year, thereby adding one-fifth in time to the period of transportation as now exists, which in itself would mean hundreds of thousands of dollars to the annual traffic.

The saving in the consumption of fuel has been estimated by able engineers to be in the ratio of 10 to 1 between Chicago and Toledo, as compared by the present rate through the straits of Mackinaw. The saving of 400 miles in distance from Chicago to Toledo is equal to the distance from Chicago to Cleveland by rail, nearly as far as Baltimore to Boston, and only lacks 42 miles of being as far as it is from New York to Buffalo by rail. The distance from Chicago to Toledo would be practically one-third of this distance to-day, and the distance saved in the round trip from Chicago to Toledo would be equal to the distance from Chicago to Baltimore. It can be stated that it is an economizer of time, an economizer of 800 miles in distance in every round trip from Chicago to Toledo and all points east; an economizer of fuel consumed; on losses of vessels, in the saving of its cargo, and the low rates of insurance, all meaning a vast cheapening of transportation.

This canal can be constructed and put in operation for less money than the terminals can be secured for the construction of a new railroad connecting Chicago with Toledo and Buffalo. Hence it is selfevident that the wonderfully increased cost of railroad construction is bound to retard its building and hamper transportation and show the growing necessity of the early development of our waterways. The wonderfully increased cost of terminals for railroads must of necessity retard the construction of railroads for more efficient transportation, and if built this enormously added value makes cheapened transportation an absolute impossibility, and the sooner our waterways are developed the earlier will we be ready to compete in the world's competition for outside markets. Delay in their development means the loss of millions upon millions of added value to our national In the last decade our business has increased 126 per cent. while the means of transporting this business has increased a little less than 22 per cent. With these conditions of enormous expense of terminals in railroad construction, which means practically prohibition, our only resource for a cheapened transportation is the early development of our waterways.

wealth.

The lake cargo tonnage shipped from the port of Chicago during 1907 was 2,845,716 tons.

The cargo tonnage received on the lake for that year was 8,564,754 tons, making a total of 11,410,470 tons traffic for the city of Chicago by water.

Net tons of flour over trunk-line movement from Chicago
eastward for 1907-
Provisions, 1907.

Grain, 1907‒‒‒

Total tonnage for 1907.

594,292

1, 176, 266 2,853, 209

4, 263, 767

The total combined shipments of tonnage eastward from Chicago by both rail and water for 1907 was 16,034,237.

This does not include coal shipments or live-stock shipments, which amount to hundreds of thousands of tons, all of which traffic will be

nearly 4,000,000 tons of coal, a great portion of which would come through the Michigan and Erie Canal and Miami and Erie Canal of Ohio, if this canal were constructed. The difference in the freight rates on coal from Fort Wayne, South Bend, Elkart, and all northern Indiana would be about $1.70 per ton that would be saved to the consumers of this fuel. On this basis, taking the shipment of coal to Milwaukee, and comparing her population with the population of northern Indiana, it would mean that the people of northern Indiana would consume three times as much coal as was used in Milwaukee, about 10,000,000 tons, and the saving to the people, as consumers, by reduction of freight of $1.70 per ton, an amount equal to $17,000,000, which would amount to more than five times the payment of the interest on the construction of the canal.

To ship coal by rail from the mines to Buffalo costs $1.50 per ton. It is shipped from there by water to Chicago, Milwaukee, Duluth, and other lake ports for 30 cents per ton. The same coal shipped from Buffalo to Fort Wayne, or any other region inland within reasonable distance from Fort Wayne, costs $1.80 per ton, or a total cost from the mines to Fort Wayne and vicinity of $3.50 per ton, making the cost to the consumers of this large inland area more than $1.50 per ton extra, which means in the end an expenditure of millions of dollars that would be saved by the construction of these waterways.

This canal would directly affect the States of Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kansas, and Missouri. These are corn and wheat States, principally corn, and a better perfected mode of transportation means millions of dollars to the producers every year as well as millions of dollars savings to the consumers. These States constitute the principal corn-producing area of the world. They produce more than 50 per cent of the world's production of corn, and the State of Indiana alone, through which the principal part of this canal passes, produced last year more corn than was produced in the Argentine Republic, Indiana producing 168,000,000 bushels and Argentina 67,000,000 bushels. If by the construction of a series of canals in Indiana and Ohio the freight on corn alone was reduced 1 cent per bushel, it would be a saving of $2,000,000, nearly enough to pay the annual interest on the cost of construction of the canal, and as this corn area, which would be directly affected, has a production of nearly 2,500,000,000 bushels, it would mean an annual saving to this territory to both producer and consumer of $25,000,000.

The raising of this great amount of grain, and the live stock that will naturally follow, will make it absolutely a future center of commerce and of the culture and wealth of the United States. The area that will be directly affected by the canal contains 220,000,000 of the 414,000,000 acres of cultivated land in the United States; in other words, over one-half the land cultivated lies in this territory. Of the $16,500,000,000 of improvements upon the land in the United States, these States own $9,500,000,000 of it, almost three-fifths of the whole. These great central States produce more than one-half the annual products of our country, and all is bound to be greatly affected by the question of transportation in the near future. These central States produce 49,000,000 of the 61,000,000 tons of hay produced in the entire United States; four-fifths of our entire tonnage is produced in these twelve central States.

You can readily see what it means on the question of transportation of hay, which is a bulk product and must be handled by the cheapest method of transportation. These same States produce 441,000,000 of the 668,000,000 bushels of wheat grown in this country, and when you

economy in shipment, I believe if we construct a system of canals wherever feasible, it would be the greatest leveler of values between common carriers that could be devised. It means to put every watered-stock railroad on its intrinsic value. They can water it as many times as they please; they may have watered it as many times as they could, but we will squeeze the water out of it and place every railroad corporation on its real intrinsic value as to freight earnings. It wil save the trouble of a great warfare on railroads in trying to establish true and just freight competition.

We all know, if we pause to think, that the producers and passengers pay the bills, for in the last analysis the producer pays all. He pays the iron bill, the real estate bill, the coal bill, and as long as you permit it to exist he pays for the water in the stock. Is it business economy to continue to pay much more for transportation privileges than proper business care can prevent? Is it wise to continue an enormous building of railways for transportation purposes when they can only last for a comparatively few years until they must be renewed at an enormously increased expense and vast waste or cost of natural resources, or to pay much less for a more effective and permanent method which is open for general competition? It is for the people to decide, and when their decision is made manifest it will be answered.

In response to the appeal of the President for the conservation of our national resources I can conceive of no one place that so much can be done for the betterment of our condition as a nation and at the same time add in a most substantial way millions of dollars to the account of our internal revenues as the development of our canals. And above all these great benefits, the fact that the valuable by-products of water power and electrical power are developed and saved to the nation are a never-ending source of revenue, for the sole relief of the whole body politic is in itself enough to induce the Congress to lose no time in the early acquisition of all available canal projects that the people's most valuable inheritance may be saved. Next to the wealth of our land, the development of our waterways will prove the greatest and most economical agency in the world's evolution.

Will we sit idly and permit these great blessings to slip away from the people, or will we act at once and secure to the nation its rightful inheritance, and thereby add to the nation's wealth?

The Regulation of Laundries.

SPEECH

OF

through this area, that far the largest portion of wheat in this area is shipped from the farms, and that it is all moved by railroads, and must be moved, you can readily see the importance of waterway transportation. If it should change the cost of the shipment of wheat from Chicago to the seaports 1 cent per bushel, it would mean a saving to these States of over $4,000,000 annually, or one and one-half times the interest on the investment in the construction of the canal.

The construction of the Miami and Erie Canal, arising from land grants, commenced in 1825 and completed in 1845, plainly shows the effects of a canal upon the surrounding and immediate territory, for the reason that this canal passes through fifteen counties of the State of Ohio, and to-day owns 45 per cent of the manufacturing interests of the whole State. It means that canals build up and diversify industries and add tonnage for transportation along the lines of their construction.

In summing up and recapitulating, the amount estimated to be saved to the general public in the immediate vicinity of this canal, if constructed, would be as follows:

Upon the saving of freight on the shipment of corn, annually

Upon the saving of freight to the consumer of coal in the vicinity of northern Indiana, northwestern Ohio, and southern Michigan

Upon the acquiring of vested rights on by-products through water power secured by the construction of this canal, as figured by Lyman E. Cooley-

Upon the saving of freight upon the production of corn in Indiana alone of 1 cent per bushel_.

$25, 000, 000

17, 000, 000

16, 000, 000 2, 000, 000 60, 000, 000 Besides, the annual income from the sale of water power obtained through this construction would more than pay the interest on the construction.

Total

The progress made by the Canadians in developing their waterways has been a marked factor in the development of Canada, particularly in their grain export trade, and if the northern section of the United States is to hold its own in the export trade and in the domestic trade as well it will be necessary to take such steps through the building of waterways in the United States as will enable freight to be carried at as low a rate as can be secured from Canadian waterways. If such a work as the Chicago and Erie Canal were completed, it would be of vast help in developing territory in northern Indiana, Ohio, and southern Michigan, and enlarge the markets for their products in the Eastern States as well as bring them in closer touch with the importing countries of Europe.

This report sets out quite clearly many of the benefits that will be derived by the building of this canal; and besides the

OF PENNSYLVANIA,

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

Saturday, May 30, 1908,

On the bill (H. R. 22239) to regulate the conduct of the laundry business in the District of Columbia.

Mr. MOORE of Pennsylvania said:

Mr. SPEAKER: Availing myself of leave to print, I submit a few remarks pertaining to H. R. 22239, for the regulation of laundries in the District of Columbia. This bill, introduced by me a few days ago, has been widely commented upon by the newspaper press in various sections of the country. The purpose of the bill is to place upon the Commissioners of the District of Columbia responsibility for the inspection of public laundries employing five or more hands and using machinery for the cleansing of clothes. It does not apply to individual washerwomen or hand worker who do laundering, except as they are already obliged to pay a license fee of $10 per annum. The bill proposes that there shall be an inspection of all public laundries under the direction of the Commissioners of the District at least three times a year. It imposes a license fee of $50 per annum upon all public laundries using machinery and employing more than five hands, and forbids the issuance of a license to any concern which uses deleterious acids or destructive machinery in cleansing garments intrusted to it by the public. Any attempt to conduct a public laundry without a license is made punishable by a fine not exceeding $100. In view of the reform which this bill proposes I do not see any good reason why it should not pass. Apart from the goodnatured raillery that follows any movement so directly affect ing domestic economy as does this, there is a strong feeling abroad-and if I mistake not it enters into most householdsthat some check should be put upon the methods employed by some of the unscrupulously rapid and destructive agencies now employed in public laundries. To most men who are accus