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



state aid in the development of local improvements. The great 

 increase proposed in the amount of the appropriations gives no 

 guaranty that the defects of the system will be remedied but 

 rather increased. In commenting on the passage of the largest 

 bill ever passed, namely that of 1907, for $87,113,432, it was stated 

 that one item alone of over a million dollars was for a purely local 

 scheme and although thoroughly exposed and denounced in the 

 public press while the bill was pending, there was not a voice against 

 it when the bill was passed. This was not the only one in the 

 measure, yet to have cut them out would have caused the defeat 

 of the entire bill. 



" If the rivers and harbors bills cannot be passed without such abuses, 

 the system should be changed, and that quickly, for conditions could hardly 

 be more demoralizing." 



These conclusions are reiterated at almost every meeting of the 

 National Board of Trade and of many commercial bodies all over 

 the country, yet they are " more honored in the breach than in the 

 observance." 



At its recent session, the National Civic Federation resolved that 

 such legislation should be passed as would preserve individual ini- 

 tiative, competition, and the free exercise of a free contract in all 

 business and industrial relations. The National Board of Trade 

 resolved : 



" That the public works of the government, excepting that of the military 

 and naval establishments, be placed under the direction and control of a 

 department to be created, which shall be called the Department of Public 

 Works." 



A natural sequence to the above expose of the operation of the 

 existing system, may be found in the inability to secure adequate 

 appropriations from the public purse, at the last session, for works 

 of internal improvements in the face of so great a deficiency 

 threatening the Treasury, yet the sums allotted for the destructive 

 agencies of war, navy and pensions were largely increased. The 

 river and harbor appropriations aggregate less than one tenth of 

 the former bill for this purpose and the money is limited to the 

 " Repair, maintenance and preservation of these public works 



