26 INLAND NAVIGATION AND BARGE CONSTRUCTION 



SECOND SESSION. 



Thursday Afternoon, November 18, 1915. 



President Thompson called the meeting to order at 2:15 o'clock. 



The President : — Is there any one here who proposes to discuss Mr. Bernhard's very 

 interesting paper? 



Professor Herbert C. Sadler, Member of Council : — I think Mr. Bernhard is to be 

 congratulated in bringing this paper before us, on two principal points. The first one is that 

 he draws attention to the development of our inland waterways. We all know that they have 

 been shamefully neglected. Any of us who have been abroad and have seen the development 

 in the continental waterways must be struck with the fact that here we have, in the Mississippi 

 Valley generally, something that is far superior to anything on the Continent, and yet we 

 have done little or nothing to develop it. It is possible that many of our members may know 

 that the Mississippi Valley is capable of supporting probably forty to fifty million people com^ 

 fortably as regards transportation, development of power, and everything else necessary. Of 

 course it is not altogether the fault of the naval architect or the marine engineer that the 

 Mississippi River has not been developed, or that transportation on that river has not devel- 

 oped. We know that in the early days the railroads practically drove the vessels ofif the 

 Mississippi entirely. Fortunately we now have an Interstate Commerce Commission, and 

 probably our Mississippi will get back to its own. At any rate, the rate-cutting that went 

 on in the past cannot go on so well in the future, and so I think that we may hope to see 

 some development of the great Mississippi Valley. There is no doubt about the economics 

 of transportation there, and I am sure I personally look forward in the future to a great 

 and large development in that country. 



The second point on which Mr. Bernhard is to be congratulated is that he has had the 

 courage of his convictions, that he has gone ahead and tackled these problems of transporta- 

 tion, that he has not been afraid to oppose those high and ultimate authorities, the old Mis- 

 sissippi steamboat men, and has developed a modern type of vessel to do the work necessary 

 under modern conditions. 



Some years ago — I will state in order to let Mr. Bernhard know that naval architects 

 have not been asleep all this time — I personally was down in the Mississippi Valley and had 

 the opportunity of meeting some people who were interested in transportation and were think- 

 ing of developing a new type of vessel. They were quite enthusiastic about a steam-driven 

 or oil-driven vessel, and I happened to meet the financial men connected with the undertak- 

 ing, and we went for a trip on the river, I remember. I was talking with one of the men 

 interested in the enterprise, and he finally said to me : "It is all right, Professor, what you 

 say, but yesterday I was talking to one of our old steamboat men, who is a practical man, 

 been on the river all his life, and he told me that the present type of steamer on the Mississippi 

 River is the only practical solution of navigation on the Mississippi." Gentlemen, that 

 banker was so fully convinced that the steamboat man was right that he did not feel in- 

 clined to back up this new and modern method of transportation. 



That is the kind of thing which has been going on in the Mississippi, and Mr. Bern- 



