MISSOURI. 



517 



V. Bogy from all suspicion of having used any 

 corrupt means to secure his election to the dis- 

 tinguished office of United States Seuator, and 

 that our confidence in his purity and honesty 

 is unimpaired." 



So far as the Legislature was concerned, the 

 matter seems to have ended here. But, shortly 

 after Mr. Bogy had taken his seat in the United 

 States Senate, there was presented to that body 

 a memorial signed by certain citizens of Mis- 

 souri, asserting that the investigation had been 

 insufficient, and that the election of Louis V. 

 Bogy as a Senator from Missouri had been ob- 

 tained by the use of improper means, by bribery 

 and corruption. In speaking on this point in 

 the Senate, on March 18th, Senator Bogy said : 



I do not, Mr. President, see how the matter can be 

 avoided, or a remedy for the evil ; but, under the 

 circumstances, I think I may well claim as a right, 

 due to me and to my State, that the Committee on 

 Privileges and Elections should at once take this mat- 

 ter up and make a report to this body. My Legisla- 

 ture is yet in session. It has given no evidence 

 whatever of a disposition to shield anybody or cover 

 up corruption, the say-so of these men to the con- 

 trary. If there has been any corruption practised, 

 there is the body to investigate that matter, and we 

 ore not here, while it is in session, authorized to go 

 back of a report made by a committee of its own 

 body, and which is sustained by a large minority. 

 Can the Senate of the United States do tuis? I think 

 not. I may be sensitive on a matter of this kind, 

 because if I have any reputation at all, I may say, 

 without any self-exaltation, it is that of a plain, 

 honest man, though an ardent politician perhaps 

 too much so ; but I have never been charged here- 

 tofore with any thing like corruption in any of my 

 political acts. I hope that the committee will take 

 up this matter soon and make their report, as I ask 

 for the fullest investigation. 



Mr. Bogy's good standing in the Senate does 

 not seem to have been impaired by the intro- 

 duction of this memorial. 



On the 18th of May an important conven- 

 tion assembled in St. Louis to consider the de- 

 mands of the West and South for cheap trans- 

 portation. A large number of delegates were 

 present from nearly nil of the Southern and 

 Western and some of the Eastern States. The 

 sessions continued two days, during which 

 many speeches were made setting forth the 

 wonderful productive capacity of the West 

 :ind South, and urging that measures bo 

 adopted by the national Government for in- 

 creasing the facilities of transportation, espe- 

 cially by water, so that the products of this 

 fertile region might readily reach a market. 

 The importance of this subject was shown by 

 Governor Woodson, of Missouri, who after call- 

 ing attention to the remarkable mineral re- 

 source* of Missouri, which comprises within 

 its territory 14.000 square miles of surface 

 underlaid by 20 feet of coal in veins, thick 

 enough to niine, or a total of 30 feet, including 

 all thicknesses, and which has about 175 square 

 miles of territory underlaid with solid iron- 

 ore, thus stated the objects for which the dele- 

 t'nt. -i had assembled : 



I wish now to cnll your attention to another mat- 

 ter, which is of great interest and importance to a 



number of States. I refer to the Missouri River as 

 a channel of commerce, and upon the utilization of 

 which such vast. I may say almost incalculable, in- 

 terests depend. 'The Missouri is navigable, and if 

 all obstructions were removed from it, and its chan- 

 nel properly controlled by dikes and otherwise, 

 could be navigated throughout eight months of the 

 year for at least 2,500 miles from its mouth. From 

 the Iowa line to its connection with the Mississippi 

 is 700 miles, and the bottom-lands bordering upon 

 it average five miles in width. This bottom ex- 

 tends for quite as great a distance above the south- 

 ern line of the State of Iowa. This gives an area of 

 7.000 square miles of bottom-land lying upon the 

 Missouri River. Three-fourths of this land is not 

 surpassed in productiveness by any in the world. 

 Plant it all in Indian-corn, and it will average at 

 the lowest possible calculation, one year with anoth- 

 er, fifty bushels per acre. This makes the product 

 168,000,000 bushels a year. The country lying back 

 of, but adjacent to the bottom-lands, and which nat- 

 urally seeks an outlet by the Missouri River, is at 

 least eight times as great in quantity as the bottom. 

 We assume, then, that the Missouri flows through a 

 slip of land forty-five miles in width ; twenty-two 

 and a hnlf miles on either side of it being tributary 

 to it. While this added territory is not equal, per- 

 haps, to the rich alluvial bottoms directly upon its 

 margin, they are still among the finest lands in 

 America. Suppose that three-fourths of the terri- 

 tory under consideration are cultivable] and will 

 yield only as much as was the average yield of the 

 lands of Missouri in 1870, which was 31V bushels to 

 the acre, and you add the amount produced to that 

 of the bottom-lands, and the grand result is 1,014,- 

 720,000 bushels, and of the^ralue, at the prices that 

 prevailed in 1870, of $446,476,000. This amount of 

 Indian-corn will probably never be grown within the 

 territory indicated, but only because a great part 

 of the land lying within it can be more profitably 

 employed in the production of other staples, such as 

 wheatj rye, barley, oats, potatoes, grass, tobacco, etc. 

 Now, I ask you to remember, gentlemen, that I 

 have been considering the Missouri River alone, 

 one of the tributaries of the great Mississippi. 

 Mark you, gentlemen, I have been telling you of 

 the products of one State in this great valley of the 

 Mississippi. When you multiply the products thut 

 I have presented to you by the number of Stntes 

 watered hy the Mississippi River, and by the number 

 of large tributaries that flow into it like the Mis- 

 souri then you will have an appreciable idea of the 

 products of the great West in which you are. Tell me, 

 then, gentlemen, what subject can attract the atten- 

 tion of Congress more meritorious in all respects than 

 finding an outlet for these vast productions to the 

 Eastern cities, and to our entire Atlantic seaboard ? 

 We can produce in the manner I have told you, 

 but what do our productions amount to, when, as 

 you have heen told, no market is to be had for 

 them? Who will spin and sow, and reap, if he 

 cannot make a sale of the products of his industry t 

 It is not to be expected. I am free to say that the 

 great want of the people of the West, and of the 

 Southwest, is cheap transportation. You want, 

 gentlemen, facilities by which you can send the prod- 

 ucts of your farms to market. 



The great national 'improvements which 

 were considered by the convention, and to 

 which it was thought important that the at- 

 tention of the Congress should be directed, 

 were set forth in the resolutions submitted 

 by the Merchants' Exchange of St. Louis 

 (a body of fourteen hundred merchants and 

 shippers closely identified with the ocean and 

 inland marine of the country), the most im- 

 portant of which were as follows : 



