294 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Creation of the Waterways Commission 



Of the conventions of 1906, two were especially effective; that of 

 November in St. Louis, out of which grew the Lakes-to-Gulf Deep 

 Waterway Association, and the Washington session of the Eivers and 

 Harbors Congress in December, at which the attendance and interest 

 were beyond precedent. During the latter, strong delegations called 

 on the president, the speaker of the house, the chairman of the Eivers 

 and Harbors Committee; and later the Lakes-to-Gulf Deep Waterway 

 Association led in petitions to the president from organizations of 

 citizens in the interior to " appoint and empower a commission or 

 board of five persons to prepare and report a comprehensive plan for the 

 improvement and control of the Mississippi Eiver system and other 

 inland waterways in such manner that the rivers of the country may 

 be fully utilized for navigation and other industrial purposes." Mean- 

 time the Eivers and Harbors Committee reported a bill providing for a 

 somewhat similar commission, though in the pressure attending the 

 closing days of a short session it failed of final action. A score of 

 petitions reached the president during the first week of March, 1907; 

 and on March 14, after combining the two movements toward the 

 same end, he created the present Inland Waterways Commission of 

 nine members, through an instrument of signal vigor and originality : 



In creating this Commission I am influenced by broad considerations of 

 national policy. . . . Our inland waterways as a whole have thus far received 

 scant attention. It is becoming clear that our streams should be considered 

 and conserved as great natural resources. . . . The time has come for merging 

 local projects and uses of the inland waters in a comprehensive plan designed 

 for the benefit of the entire country. . . . The task is a great one, yet it is 

 certainly not too great for us to approach. The results which it seems to 

 promise are even greater. . . . The present congestion affects chiefly the people 

 of the Mississippi Valley, and they demand relief. When the congestion of 

 which they complain is relieved, the whole country will share the good results. 

 ... It is not possible to frame so large a plan . . . for the control of our 

 rivers without taking account of the orderly development of other natural 

 resources. . . . The cost will necessarily be large, . . . but it will be small in 

 comparison with the $17,000,000,000 of capital now invested in steam railways, 

 . . . [which] investment has been a constant source of profit to the people, and 

 without it our industrial progress would have been impossible. 



These fundamental utterances, with requisite explication of details, 

 outlined a policy to which people and press responded with enthusiasm. 



The commission began active work on the Mississippi in May, fol- 

 lowed by inspection trips through the Great Lakes and down the Mis- 

 sissippi and lower Missouri in September and October. They were 

 accompanied by the president from Keokuk to Memphis in what was 

 designed as a simple inspection yet proved to be at once the most 

 notable pageant in the history of the Mississippi Valley and the most 

 impressive demonstration any president ever saw — for in addition to the 



