OUR INLAND WATERWAYS 299 



factors : Many of the problems were solved practically by Washington 

 and Clinton and their contemporaries through canal systems that 

 would unquestionably be in use to-day had not the railways better met 

 temporary needs ; most of the rest have been solved in European coun- 

 tries that are to-day better advanced than ourselves both in waterway 

 development and in that adjustment of transportation to production 

 on which national prosperity must depend. In the light of this 

 experience it would seem easy to return to and perfect Gallatin's great 

 waterway system; and in the light of present needs, it should begin in 

 the interior with a deep channel from the Great Lakes to the Gulf, 

 and in the East with an Inner Passage from Massachusetts to Florida — 

 and these main arteries should be coupled with passages skirting the 

 Gulf coast and with improved tributaries in such manner that standard- 

 ized barges may pass from Benton to Boston or to Brownsville, or from 

 any lake port to any sea port with some choice of routes : and even- 

 tually through the Minnesota and Eed Biver of the North to Lake 

 Winnepeg and Hudson Bay, in order that the grain-fields of the Cana- 

 dian plains may find outlet to the sea during a longer open season 

 than that of Hudson Strait. And at the same time the pressing need 

 of the Pacific Coast should be met; the treasure-houses of the Co- 

 lumbia and Snake should be unlocked and a way made into Puget 

 Sound, while the golden gardens of California Valley should be opened 

 to ships going down to the sea in order that the grains and fruits 

 now rotting in bin and on branch may be turned to human good and 

 national welfare. The details are innumerable; the demands irre- 

 sistible. 



Among the waterways, three or four should be improved not merely 

 to meet commercial needs, but as a patriotic duty: First in importance 

 is the Lakes-to-Gulf project; for should disaster befall and Canada 

 pass into unfriendly hands, the enemy might within a week put war 

 vessels into the Lakes through Welland Canal or the still larger Huron 

 Canal (of which we hear little thus far), in which case catastrophe 

 could be averted only by a waterway of war-ship capacity from the 

 Gulf to Lake Michigan. Scarcely less important is the protected pas- 

 sage projected for the Atlantic slope, though since the baseless Cervera 

 scare the details need not be pursued; while the connection of the 

 Columbia with Puget Sound, and the extension of San Francisco and ' 

 Suisun bays need no more than mention in connection with the mili- 

 tary possibilities of the day and the " national defense " of the founders. 



The Value of Water in Itself 



While navigation is the most pressing use for our waterways, there 

 are others of no less present value and future promise. Neither Wash- 



