HARDWOOD RECORD 



33 



D. E. Kline, Louisville Veneer Mills, Louis- 

 ville, Ky. 



K. V. Knight, New Albany. Ind. 



Mr. Kile, Kile Mfg. Co.. .\kron. O. 



.1. H. Mather, L. & I. J. White Co., BuOfalo. 

 N. Y. 



O. C. Lemke. Underwood Veneer Co., Wausau, 

 Wis. 



Alex. Lendrum, I'enrod Walnut & Veneer Co.. 

 Kansas City. Mo. 



B. W. Lord. Chicago Veneer Co.. Burnside, Ky. 



M. M. Marsh, American Lumberman, Chicago. 



lialph McCracken. Kentucky Veneer Works, 

 l.iniiaville. Ky. 



E. U. Morrison. Warren \'. & 1*. Co., War- 

 ren. O. 



.Mr. I'arsnns. Holland Veneer Works, Holland, 

 Mich. 



.M. W. Perry, Ahnapee Veneer & Seating Co., 

 Algoma, Wis. 



.\llen Quimby. Houlton, Me. 



P. B. Raymond, Adams & Raymond. Indian- 

 apolis, Ind. 



K. A. Richardson, Michigan Vi'neer Co., Al- 

 pena. Mich. 



Mr. Russell, Capitol Veneer Co., Indianapolis, 

 Ind. 



J. U. Saunders, Park Falls Mfg. Co., Park 

 Kails. Wis. 



Joseph A. Setter, Setter Bros. Co.. Cattarau- 

 gus, N. Y. 



Charles Thompson, Cadillac Veneer Co., Cadil- 

 lac. Mich. 



A. H. Wells, Standish, Mich. 



D. R. Webb. Edinburg, Ind. 



W. S. Walker, Portsmouth Veneer & Panel 

 Co.. Portsmouth, O. 



Nathan M. Willson, Pearl City Veneer Co.. 

 .Jamestown, N. Y. 



11. S. Young, assistant secretary National Ve 

 noer & Panel Association, Indianapolis, In^T 

 A. F. Zimmerman, Kiel Woodenware Co., Kiel. 



National RiVers and Harbors Congress 



The National Rivers and Harbors Congress 

 met at Washington, i). C, December 8, 9 

 and 10 with over 3,000 delegates from all 

 sections of the country in attendance. It 

 proved the greatest congress yet held and 

 the recommendations adopted in the form 

 of a platform are vastly more comprehensive 

 and significant on the question of waterways 

 improvements. 



President Taft made the opening address, 

 which reviewed the situation throughout the 

 country. He said that never before had he 

 seen so much activity in the matter of in- 

 land waterways, that in California, Texas 

 and on the Atlantic seaboard there were 

 waterways associations composed of promi- 

 nent men which had plans for extensive 

 operations. The president favored a bond 

 issue of $50,000,000 to carry on these sev- 

 eral improvements. 



President Taft' s Speech 



one has to travel all over the country to 

 find out how much one does not know about it, 

 and to find out what the people are thinking 

 about. You go into the Northwest and find 

 the development of the Columbia is one of the 

 great projects of many who live in that neigh- 

 borhood. You go into far distant Texas and 

 y,)U tind that they liave an inland waterways 

 project reaching down into Louisiana and the 

 bayous of the Mississippi down along to the 

 Gulf, and that has demonstrated its usefulness as 

 a part, and that only needs further addition 

 and improvement to carry out a great system 

 of waterways that shall reach farms and planta- 

 tions at present far beyond the reach of any 

 railroads. And so, as you come to the eastern 

 shore of the country, you find the inland, and I 

 do not know quite why they call it inland ex- 

 actly, but it is the inside waterwav, the project 

 fostered by the .\tlanta Deep Waterways Asso- 

 ciation. 



It is well that in every part of the country 

 is a project of that sort to awaken the interest 

 to those who live there, for while we are all 

 patriots and while we are all in favor of all the 

 country we are just a little more intensely in 

 favor of that which is nearest than we are 

 in favor of that which is very far away, and the 

 danger to this movement, the test of the value 

 of the movement, is going to be seen when you 

 get off that very safe platform that .vou are 

 m favor of — a policy and not of a project — and 

 get down to the business of pushing projects. 



Profiting bv the Past. 

 One of the things that I think we ought to do 

 is not to decry the past. It is wise to take 

 from the past that which is valuable and build 

 upon it. The trip down the Mississippi river 

 was an eyeopener to many of us. The work 

 which has gone on at the end of the river 

 and near its mouth and up along the banks of 

 the Mississippi and in Louisiana and up into 

 Arkansas is a work that commends itself to 

 everyone who sees it. It is work both in the 

 preservation of the farms and in the establish- 

 ment of a great waterway. The work which 

 has been done hy the government through its 

 corps of army engineers in strengthening the 

 banks of that "river is a work of experimentation. 

 but work which has demonstrated the possibility 

 of treating that river in such a way as to hold 

 the banks and keep the river within them and 

 to insure a reasonable depth where steamers 

 can go. 



TH.iT O-FOOT ClIAN-XEL 



Now, I don't think I betray a secret when 1 

 say that the gentleman who has most to do with 

 the initiation of projects in Congress is fully 



charged with the necessity of doing something 

 in the next Congress to foreshadow or, rather, 

 to begin, a policy with respe:.'t to those rivers. 

 You have the Missouri, the upper Mississippi, the 

 .Mississippi between St. Louis and Cairo, and the 

 Ohio between Pittsburg and Cairo, all of them 

 satisfying the requirements that you have to 

 put in your platform with respect to the im- 

 provement of the waterways. That is an im- 

 provement in the heart of the country, an im- 

 provement that reaches to more states than any 

 other improvement that can Im? mentioned in 

 this entire country. It affects not only the 

 states along whose borders the improvements 

 will be made but it affects all the states along 

 the borders of the Mississippi beyond Cairo, 

 for the project will also include and must in- 

 clude the investment of a sulficient amount of 

 money to keep the 9-foot stage always between 

 Cairo and New Orleans. I am aware that there 

 are a great many gentlemen in this country 

 who are in favor of something more than nine 

 feet between Cairo and the Gulf, but you have 

 got to get nine feet before you get fourteen. 

 When you once get into operation that system 

 that 1 have outlined, so as to show the bene- 

 fits that can he derived from it, what will go 

 on thereafter no man can foresee. The truth 

 is that the engineers will tell you that after 

 you have harnessed the Mississippi river by 

 protecting its banks no man can tell what the 

 depth of that river will be made by the river 

 itself confined withiu reasonable banks. In other 

 words, what I am urging, what I am laboring 

 for, is something practical in the way of a 

 moderate project in order that you may go on 

 and gradually develop a larger project than that 

 which was in your minds at its initiation, but 

 that you do something practical by taking the 

 materials that you have, and, as you go on and 

 as the business increases, demonstrate to those 

 in the country who are not so near to that 

 improvement its advantage to the entire country 

 in the reduction of railroad rates and in the 

 actual transportation of that kind of business 

 that the river will attract. 



BOXDIXG THE lMPBOVE.ME.\T E.NTEIIPRISE 



Now, speaking to this assembly — I think it 

 was this assembly — we have so many congresses 

 in favor of so many good things that some- 

 times there is a little dilficulty in distinguishing, 

 and when you all meet together in Washington 

 at the same time there is danger of mistaken 

 identity as to associations — but, at any rate, 

 a year ago President Roosevelt and I were to- 

 gether on a platform before the Conservation 

 of Resources convention, I think it was. in 

 which we both advocated the issuing of bonds 

 in order that a project for improving waterways 

 when begun should be completed in a reasonable 

 time. Now. I am still a consistent advocate 

 of that theory. I believe that the government 

 is entitled to as rapid a method of developing 

 an enterprise and putting it through as private 

 corporations, and as they always issue bonds, or 

 generally do (some of them are fortunate enough 

 not to have to) in order to expedite the comple- 

 tion of these projects, it would seem wise for 

 the nation to do so where it will accomplish the 

 same result. 



But I want to suggest a word of caution. You 

 are going to encounter in Congress great oppo- 

 sition to the policy of issuing bonds right 

 out of hand. You are much more likely to 

 set from Congress a declaration of policy in the 

 shape of a declaration that a certain improve- 

 ment ought to be carried out and spread upon 

 the minutes of Congress in the form of a reso- 

 lution of a declaration in a statute. Now, what 

 I advise you to do is to get that declaration. 

 Then when the time comes that political exigency 

 may prevent the appropriation of sufficient from 

 the current revenues to put the proper part of 

 the project through the coming year or the 

 coming two years, as economy requires, then 

 the question "of issuing bonds will arise. I 

 would get the declaration first and not have 

 the bonds first, for the reason that you will 

 encounter the objection by Congress that the 

 issuing of bonds and the receipt of the money 

 will develop a desire to be extravagant. This 

 may not meet your views, but I have thought it 

 ove"r. and 1 know something about Congress. 



I know where you are going to encounter oppa 

 sition and I believe the best way is the natural 

 way with these gentlemen. You lead them on 

 to declare in favor of the Missouri improvement, 

 in favor of the St. Louis to St. Paul improve- 

 ment, in favor of the Ohio improvement, all of 

 which have been approved by the army engineers, 

 and get them recorded in the statute of this 

 country as declaring that these things are to 

 be carried out and let them make their first ap- 

 propriation from the revenues of the country, 

 and then you have them where they must issue 

 bonds, unless the revenues afford a sufficient 

 amount each year to carry that project on 

 economically and with due rapidity. I tell you. 

 gentlemen, yo\i are getting as tlie boys and girli 

 used to say in hunting a button — you are 

 getting warm. You are at a point where you 

 can accomplish something if you don't stop 

 it by doing it the wrong way. 



CO-OPERATION of THE WAR DEPAETJLBNT 



I don't feel justified in giving advice to a 

 body like this on a subject which they have 

 studied so much, or I should not offer it except 

 that I have had pretty close association as sec- 

 retary of war and otherwise with the army 

 engineers, who have given their lives to the 

 stud.v of these improvements. I know these 

 army engineers very well. Doubtless you do. as 

 you "have met them in the districts to which 

 they were assigned. I venture, to say that in 

 your whole experience you have never met men 

 of a higher standard of character, of a higher 

 devotion to public duty, and of greater skill in 

 their profession than these same army engineers. 

 They are selected from the first ten or the 

 first five of the graduates of West Point, and 

 they have a little ring in the army which I 

 might betray to you by reason of some inside 

 information. If a class comes out to that which 

 has not developed very good material in the 

 way of engineers and mathematicians somehow 

 or "other the chief engineer advises the secretary 

 of war that for that year they do not need 

 anv particular addition to the corps, and so it 

 is "that they have acquired a greater proportion 

 of the mathematical and engineering ability of 

 these who graduated from West Point than they 

 really were entitled to. They have gone on, 

 and " with but one exception their record is 

 clear in the honesty, and I had almost said the 

 severity, with which they have expended the 

 government's funds, and have seen to their 

 being put into material at a cost which was an 

 honest cost. 



Depende.nce Upon Army Engineers 



But it has been said that they were crotchety . 

 that at times they did not apparently watch 

 the sound of progress ; that they were slow 

 sometimes in the building- up of improvements. 

 I am not orepared to say that those criticisms 

 with reference to individuals were not well 

 founded. You can not take a great corps like 

 that, numbering as it does a great many officers 

 within it, and not find men who fail to keep up 

 with the procession ; but I am very sure from 

 talking with General Marshall and with a num- 

 ber of other men at the head of the corps 

 that thev are fully charged with the increasing 

 interest in this country among the people and 

 among the business men in the development of 

 the inland waterways and that you could not 

 have a safer body of men to advise you than 

 the army engineers. 



I count it one of the great good fortunes of 

 this country when the country had to build 

 the Panama canal that after using the great 

 ability of civil engineers we finally settled down 

 upon "the army engineers to carry that project 

 through. 



A SouKCE OF Reliance 



So it is with respect to the waterways. They 

 have recommended to the chairman of the 

 waterways committee in the House a system 

 of improvements that I believe will meet the 

 judgment of this convention, if it he moderated 

 to the possibilities of what can be accomplished. 

 I think you can secure upon the statute books 

 of this country a declaration In favor of continu- 

 ing contracts to build the four or five projects 

 which the engineers have recommended in surt 



