56 HAUPT— NATION AND THE WATERWAYS. [April 22, 



did not relegate their jurisdiction over their waterways, water- 

 pozvers or franchises to the national government and this right 

 was retained and exercised by the states to their great benefit, as 

 well as to that of the nation, up to and after the Civil War when 

 the policy gradually changed and the " control was assumed," as 

 Senator Knox puts it, by the government. Under this policy of 

 encroachment and national control, it has become necessary for all 

 sections of the country to organize great political and local associa- 

 tions and to combine these into national congresses which assemble 

 annually at the capital, to urge by every legitimate means that 

 $500,000,000 bonds be issued, to enable the waterways of the coun- 

 try to be prepared for traffic, yet the results thus far are almost 

 negligible, and it is stated by members of Congress that the people 

 would not justify such measures. This opinion appears to be well 

 supported by the fact that during the past half century more than 

 $600,000,000 have been appropriated for these purposes from the 

 public treasury and yet the President has declared that the results 

 are largely negative, but the method of procedure would seem to be 

 radically wrong in basing the appeal for money on the experience 

 of the past with no prospect of better returns for the future, which 

 can only be effected by a reformation of the system which has ren- 

 dered such returns possible. Thus it happens that the largest and 

 most enterprising commercial and trade organizations of the coun- 

 try are memorializing Congress for such a reorganization as shall 

 place these works under a cabinet officer, to be created with definite 

 and systematic plans for the continuous execution of such works 

 as may properly come within the jurisdiction of the United States 

 and to encourage the state, corporate and local initiative as was 

 the practice in ante-bellem days when the waterways and canals 

 were so rapidly and successfully developed at a minimum cost by 

 private capital, as have been the railways and highways of the 

 federal domain from its foundation. In short it is vital that there 

 should be a return to the early policy underlying the foundation of 

 this republic and which was the spirit embodied in its Constitution. 

 It was the genius of our government, that 



"What individual enterprise could efifect alone, was to be left to indi- 

 vidual enterprise; what a state and individuals could achieve together was 



