292 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



vessels reduced to rattletraps. True, federal provision for river im- 

 provement continued sporadically under what was long jocosely styled 

 the " pork barrel " committee, from which the stigma finally faded 

 under the leadership of the stainless and brilliant Burton, until the 

 aggregate expenditures for rivers and canals reached several hundred 

 millions — yet the federal policy remained repressive and commonwealths 

 and capitalists held aloof : there was never a cabinet officer charged with 

 the duty of developing or maintaining commerce by water, the admir- 

 able engineer corps was barred from initiative by custom and even by 

 lew, the Elvers and Harbors Committee found its chief function in 

 scaling down or turning down estimates and projects presented by the 

 people. Mechanism for progress there was none; of means of repres- 

 sion there were many. And population and production gradually 

 overtook and then outpassed railway capacity. 



The Re-awdkening 



Shortly after the abundant harvests of 1906 were gathered a great 

 popular movement began to stir the interior and the west, and a cry 

 went up against an intangible but real tyranny of transportation that 

 barred produce from markets and withheld supplies from the producers. 

 The movement did not arise in a day; by some it was foreseen for 

 months, by others it was felt only when the pinch of winter came with 

 fuel-famine and need for clothing and transported food-stuffs ; yet even 

 by mid-autumn some millions of citizens were astir — far more than felt 

 the thrall of foreign stress a century and a third before. At first the 

 movement was vague and without definite aim; groups met for dis- 

 cussion, conferences were called, complaints were voiced, and then 

 county boards and state legislatures were invoked, and national law- 

 makers were deluged with appeals from half a million constituents. 

 The situation was simple — within a decade the productions of the 

 northern interior had doubled, while transportation facilities had in- 

 creased but a small fraction. Fortunately it was sized first by railway 

 men : there were not cars enough ; neither were there locomotives enough 

 to move the cars required for the products, nor tracks enough to carry 

 the trains; there were not terminals enough for the rolling stock, nor 

 could these be acquired without imposing a ruinous burden; there was 

 not iron enough in the country to build the cars and locomotives and 

 tracks, not available labor enough to mine and smelt the ore — and 

 besides the cost (estimated, e. g., by James J. Hill at $5,000,000,000 to 

 $8,000,000,000, or one third to one half of our aggregate railway in- 

 vestments) would consume so large a part of our currency as to para- 

 lyze other business. Even if the extension were possible, the relief 

 would be but temporary; with normal growth of the country and ordi- 

 nary increase in production it would be effective for only seven to ten 



