ISO 1 1 AUPT— TRANSPORTATION IN THE UNITED STATES. [April 19 



being, requiring a large plant to be maintained for use during low 

 stages only. 



The total expenditures of the Government for works of this 

 class since the Civil War have exceeded $545,000,000 which, with 

 the exception of the 20-foot channel in the Great Lakes, has effected 

 no commensurate result and there would appear to be no possible 

 relief in sight under the jurisdiction of the present regime for many 

 years. Certainly no corporate body could hold its own under such 

 an exhibit of expenditures and results. There appears to be but one 

 solution, namely, a return to the early policy under which the water- 

 ways of the country were developed by corporations holding state 

 or national charters, when there was little difficulty in securing 

 capital for the local improvements under control of competent local 

 directors, familiar with the needs of their people. The hopelessness 

 of getting the Ohio River open for the greatest manufacturing dis- 

 trict in this country, if not in the world, within a reasonable time 

 has stimulated many of Pittsburgh's most enterprising and far- 

 sighted citizens to apply for state and national charters to construct 

 a ship-canal across the lake divide so as to secure a 14-foot water 

 communication with the outer world as soon as practicable. Al- 

 though no national aid was sought, it took about ten years merely 

 to obtain this consent, but now the project is fairly on its feet, so 

 far as the rights are concerned it should prove to be one of the 

 most valuable and important adjuncts in relieving the engorgment 

 of that section, and be pushed with all possible dispatch to com- 

 pletion. As it is but little more than 100 miles across this lowest 

 divide, the work should be completed in about six years. 



In view of the past experience of the improvement of our rivers 

 and harbors under national control it is an undeniable fact that the 

 progress is interminably slow and the results unsatisfactory. The 

 trunk lines are barely improved at all, after more than fifty years 

 of operation, and other isolated improvements are of little or no 

 avail for general transportation purposes. Some of the harbors 

 have been deepened after enormously heavy expenditures made for 

 jetties which did not improve but were auxiliary to dredging, which 

 must be relied upon with increasing expenditure for maintenance. 

 Our own river, the Delaware, has not yet secured a 26- foot channel 



