1909-] HAUPT— NATION AND THE WATERWAYS. 61 



This fear, which amounts to a prophecy, is fulfilled in the vast 

 assemblages, conventions and caucuses which are found to be neces- 

 sary to secure the predetermined policies of the dominant party, 

 but the effect as applied to waterways is far more injurious because 

 of the assumption of jurisdiction over all possible waterzvays in the 

 United States or its possessions, so that even where the government 

 is unable to make improvements it is now practically impossible for 

 localities or private parties to inaugurate works on their own ac- 

 count and at their own risk. It is still further proposed to extend 

 the powers of the government into the waters of the several states 

 and make them a source of revenue to the general government by 

 the imposition of royalties on the water-powers which are now or 

 have been free, thus further taxing the industrial products of the 

 Nation, at the expense of the consumers. 



Another phase of these improvements, so called, is touched 

 upon in the veto of President Cleveland which is worthy of careful 

 consideration. After many years of experience in efforts to pro- 

 vide capacious channels at public expense, he stated on May 29, 

 1896, that: 



" Many of the objects for which it appropriates public money are not 

 related to the public welfare, and many of them are palpably for the benefit 

 of limited localities or in aid of individual interests. On the face of the 

 bill it appears that not a few of these alleged improvements have been so 

 improvidently planned and jjrosecuted that after an unwise expenditure of 

 millions of dollars new experiments for tf^eir accomplishment have been 

 entered upon. . . . These cannot fail to stimulate a vicious paternalism 

 and encourage a sentiment among our people, already too prevalent, that 

 their attachment to our government may properly rest upon the hope and 

 expectation of direct and especial favors. I believe that no greater danger 

 confronts us as a nation than the unhappy decadence among our people 

 of genuine and trustworthy love and affection for our government as the 

 embodiment of the highest and best aspirations of humanity and not as the 

 giver of gifts, and because its mission is the enforcement of exact justice 

 and equality, and not the allowance of unfair favoritism." 



These patriotic opinions from the highest authorities, whose ofii- 

 cial positions qualify them to speak ex-cathedra, should suffice to 

 convince the most skeptical of the necessity of some modification 

 of the system which will give assurance of better returns for the 

 money expended and for a restoration of the policy of local and 



