298 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Philadelphia, Baltimore, Few Orleans, San Francisco, Portland and 

 Seattle are to be gateways for growth or mere leak-holes of national 

 wealth; whether the advantages of great-circle steam-lines may not 

 overbalance productivity and transfer dominant commercial lines and 

 centers beyond our boundaries; whether we are able to balance our 

 magnificent distances and splendid productivity in such wise as to 

 maintain that economy of transportation and reasonableness of de- 

 livery of both imports and exports requisite for a world-power! The 

 questions are nation-wide. Twenty-odd states and forty million in- 

 habitants of the interior are actually suffering from the congestion; 

 fifteen states and thirty million people on the Atlantic coast are com- 

 plaining under imposts of burdensome traffic; the western states with 

 their seven millions, which would triple in ten years were the burden 

 removed, find their growth paralyzed by the same cause. 



Will the improvement of waterways and the restoration of water 

 traffic bring relief ? Certainly the plan promises much, while no other 

 promises anything. It has been estimated that our 29,000 miles of 

 inland waterways (exclusive of lakes, bays, sounds, etc.) might be 

 doubled at a cost of $500,000,000 to $800,000,000, 2 i. e., one tenth of 

 the amount required to raise railways to the capacity required to-day; 

 and it is safe to say that when the nation adopts a progressive water- 

 way policy, private enterprise will build the boats — and that when 

 this is done our great productive areas can deliver exports at and 

 receive imports from the coast cities at an average of not more than 

 half and probably less than a third of the present cost. With the 

 readjustment of transportation lines, the railways might change from 

 trans-continental carriers of bulk freight to feeders of the waterways; 

 yet their efficiency as public utilities need not decline, and their profits 

 might increase, as recently held by President Harahan (of the Illinois 

 Central Eailway). The superior economy of water transportation, 

 which has been shown statistically over and over again, may be 

 illustrated by the fact that a river packet can be built at a cost of 

 two miles of railway (including rolling stock but not right-of-way or 

 terminals) and will carry three 400-ton train-loads of freight; or that 

 a tow and barges suited to the Mississippi-Ohio traffic can be built for 

 the cost of four or five miles of railway and will carry 150 train-loads; 

 or that the entire cost of waterway development contemplated would 

 hardly suffice to build and equip a single trans-continental double- 

 track railway with the requisite rights-of-way and terminals. 



Nor is waterway improvement a new venture, involving unknown 



2 The Bartholdt bill now before the house of representatives provides for a 

 bond issue of $500,000,000 for waterway improvement; the Newlands bill pend- 

 ing in the senate provides for a waterway fund of $50,000,000 to be continued 

 by appropriations or bond issues as needed. 



