50 



CONSERVATION 



patronize the American manufacturer, 

 and I would employ the American la- 

 borer, and give them a chance before 

 I turned to any one else. 



■'We should make for the arts of 

 peace," he said, "rather than for the 

 arts of war, and devote more time to 

 the schoolhouse than to the arsenal 

 and the navy yard." 



The next speaker, representing the 

 great Pacific Northwest, was Gov. 

 George E. Chamberlain, of Oregon. 



The speaker said that improvement 

 of the waterways was no longer a po- 

 litical, but had become an economic 

 question, and he then read from both 

 the Democratic and Republican plat- 

 forms planks pledging these parties to 

 river and harbor improvement. 



He reminded the audience that the 

 President and the next President also 

 had expressed themselves strongly in 

 favor of a plan of improvement, and 

 said that if out in his country a Con- 

 gressman voted against a good plan 

 for waterways improvement, he need 

 not come back expecting to be re- 

 elected. 



Governor Chamberlain said that the 

 Northwest had no pet scheme to pro- 

 pose, but was for a general plan, be- 

 lieving that the improvement of any 

 of the great waterways would be for 

 the benefit of the entire country. Nor 

 would the Northwest, he said, oppose 

 any plan for the improvement of a river 

 because that plan might happen to 

 greatly benefit some local interest some- 

 where else. 



Former Mayor Seth Low, of New 

 York, spoke of the importance of 

 steam hauling of freight by water, say- 

 ing that the Erie Canal fixed the rate 

 on every pound of freight going from 

 New York City west of the Alleghenies. 

 He emphasized the necessity of plan- 



ning and completing the work of de- 

 veloping our inland waterways prompt- 

 ly, and decried the shortsightedness of. 

 dragging the work out when it can 

 be better and more effectively done in 

 a shorter period of time. 



Ex-governor Saunders, of Louisiana, 

 spoke of the Mississippi River as it 

 affects his own State., more particu- 

 larly, and told of the enormous sums 

 that are spent yearly in holding the 

 river within its banks, and in provid- 

 ing for the needs of navigation. 



Representative Champ Clark, the 

 next speaker, aroused great enthusi- 

 asm by his statement that Congress 

 stands ready and willing to support 

 with adequate appropriations any com- 

 prehensive and feasible plan for water- 

 way improvement. 



"To say that Congress is opposed, 

 or ever was opposed, to rivers and 

 harbors improvement, he said^ "would 

 be to dub us all a lot of idiots. There 

 has been talk enough about this go- 

 ing on for a long time, and now the 

 time for action has come. I began 

 making river and harbor speeches and 

 listening to them seventeen years ago 

 at Denver, and I have been keeping 

 it up ever since." 



]\Ir. Clark described the great re- 

 sources of his own district, and said 

 no section of the United States needed 

 water transportation more, and then 

 he made the formal statement again : 



"If you gentlemen will devise and 

 present to the National Congress a 

 feasible and comprehensive scheme, 

 and one that will take in the entire 

 system of rivers and harbors of the 

 country, I firmly believe that Congress 

 will enact it into law." 



An address by W. D Lyman, presi- 

 dent of Whitman College, Walla 

 Walla, Wash., concluded the session. 



