THE QUESTION OF GOVERNMENTAL AID. 343 



the States. Messrs. M. B. Loyd, L. F. Boss and M. M. 

 Hooton, were afterward selected as the Committee. 



THE QUESTION OF GOVERMENTAL AID. 



Mr. Caffeen, of Illinois, offered the following resolutions, 

 and advocated them with force and spirit : 



Resolved, That the first duty of the people is to subject all transpor 

 tation companies or corporations to the restraints of law. 



Resolved, That it is their next duty to urge the making of a ship- 

 canal from the Atlantic seaboard, by the way of the lakes and the Illi 

 nois and Mississippi rivers, to deep water in the Gulf of Mexico, by 

 the National Government. 



Resolved, That it is their next duty to obtain the assistance of our 

 Federal Government by an advance of credit, for the purpose of build 

 ing a double-track freight railroad from near the line of the Kansas 

 & Nebraska, as near an air line as possible, to New York city. 



In the discussion which ensued upon the resolutions, Mr. 

 Wright, of Wisconsin, was in favor of the water route pro 

 posed, but was opposed to the General Government under 

 taking to build it. Seventy-five thousand dollars a year 

 failed to keep the bar at the mouth of the Mississippi 

 dredged. A canal could be built making a way clear to the 

 ocean from New Orleans, at a cost of $8,000,000, and that 

 would give an outlet for the West by way of the Mississippi, 

 reducing the freight to Liverpool twenty cents a hundred. 

 If the railroads added five cents per hundred to their rates, 

 it would be equivalent to laying a tax upon the farmers of 

 $50,000,000 a year. He was in favor of the scheme, and 

 also of the Niagara route, but did not care to leave the work 

 to the government. They must elect men to Congress who 

 would do the people justice. Ten millions of white men were 



