The Idaho scimitar. [volume], December 14, 1907, Page 3, Image 3

About The Idaho scimitar. [volume] (Boise, Idaho) 1907-1908

Image provided by: Idaho State Historical Society

                
The Transportation Problem.
During a portion of last week a National Rivers
and Harbors Congress was in session at Washington
and in the course of its proceedings it jnade its in
itial recommendation to the Congress of the United
States. It asked for an annual appropriation of $50,
000,000 for the improvement of rivers, harbors and
other waterways. It recommended the issue of
Government bonds in the interest of the improve
ments suggested when money is not available from
current receipts, to the end that the improvements
might be continuous and all projects completed with
out interruption after having been instituted.
A year ago a rivers and harbors congress made pub
lic its intentions through a resolution, which the
people of the United States took under consideration.
That the people gave to those intentions a hearty
endorsement was made evident by the response. In
the congress of last week thirty-seven States were
represented by 2,000 delegates, chosen from com
mercial, producing and consuming classes.
The action of the congress was based primarily
upon the proposition that the railroads of the country
are unable to handle the transportation of the coun
try and that heavy losses are accruing from the con
gested condition of traffic. From high railroad au
thority it was ascertained that the carrying business
of the country has increased 100 per cent in ten
years, while the handling capacity of the railroads
has increased only 20 per cent.
Meanwhile the natural water highways of the
country have been almost wholly neglected and trans
portation facilities driven out by ill-advised and de
structive competition on the part of the railroads
whenever efforts were made to employ the water
courses.
Through the rivers and harbors committee of the
House, Congress authorizes the expenditure of about
$22,000,000 a year for the improvement of waterways
in the several States and all to little purpose. No
system has been followed. Projects of importance
have been begun, left unfinished and finally destroyed
by the floods they were designed to control or by the
gnawing tooth of time.
Usually the work ordered by Congress, through
the rivers and harbors committee, has been of little
consequence, the money expended thereon being dis
tributed among Senators and Representatives as sops
to their constituents, to be paraded as arguments
for the reelection-of Senators and Representatives.
So nearly valueless have been these appropriations
that the river and harbor appropriation bill is com
monly referred to as "the pork barrel," and so highly
scandalous is the rush for "slices" that Congress
omits its distribution of money for the improvement
of waterways in Presidential years, fearing that the
voter may take notice.
To such treatment has the most important public
interest of the country been subjected for many
and during that time transportation facilities
years
have been becoming more and more inadequate until
actual suffering has become the penalty, along with
general inconvenience.
Through the intervention of the rivers and har
bors congress that has just closed an important ses
sion in Washington it may confidently be expected
that respectability will be conferred upon measures
that authorize the expenditure of money for the im
provement of the National waterways.
No project could appeal more strongly to the pub
lic. Real internal improvement is always beneficial.
Apart from its utility, it affords employment to the
industrious and the needy and effects a distribution
of money that enters immediately into the channels
of trade.
The country is being continuously urged to confer
subsidies upon ships that ride the seas in the interest
of the wealth of corporations. Much more popular
would become subsidies to labor, which, while be
ing relieved, would construct natural highways for
the benefit of congested commerce.
The annual work recommended by the Washing
conference of delegates should be turned over
ton
to a competent corps of engineers, both in the plan
ning and the execution, and members of Congress
should be absolved from all responsibility in the dis
tribution of the appropriations and the location of
the improvements.
Under a comprehensive program of operations,
pursued with fidelity to the public interest, the great
er and lesser rivers of the country, the lakes and
the tide water avenues can be made to perform their
part in the solution of the transportation problem
that is looming larger and larger as development
progresses among the resources of the land.
God On the Coins.
The statement made by President Roosevelt that
there was no warrant for placing on the coins of the
country the words, "In God We Trust," naturally
provoked research. The authority has finally been
found in an authorization by congress of such de
vices on the coined jnoney as should be fixed by the
director of the mint, with the approval of the sec
tary of the treasury.
The suggestion of the recognition of the Deity on
the coins came from a Pennsylvania minister of the
gospel, who addressed Secretary Salmon P. Chase,
then President Lincoln's secretary of the treasury,
on the subject. Under date of the 20th of November,
1861, Mr. Chase wrote a letter to the director of the
mint, in which he said :
No Nation can be strong except in the strength of
God, or safe except in his defense. The trust of our
people in God should be declared on our national
coins.
You will cause a device to be prepared without
unnecessary delay with a motto expressing in the
fewest and tersest words possible this national re
cognition.
There was then no authority for compliance with
the directions of the secretary of the treasury and
the matter was held in abeyance until 1864, when
congress authorized the coinage of two-cent pieces
bearing the motto, "In God We Trust,
In 1865
congress provided that the same legend might be
placed on other coins, with the approval of the Sec
retary of the Treasury. The coinage act of February
12, 1873, authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to
place the same words on all coins that would admit
of their reproduction.
The authority appears to be ample and there has
been no objection to the recognition of God in the
coinage until now and it comes from the President
of the United States.
Opposing His Co-Workers.
Mr. Roosevelt, the President, never complains
about the amount of work he has on his hands,
seeming to like industry so well that he is contin
ually entering upon new projects. In the midst of a
strenuous effort to crush' the Hughes presidential
boom in New York, he discerned the rising of a La
Follette boom in the West and gave his attention
to Wisconsin politics, in collusion with ex-Senator
Spooner, the distinguished corporation lawyer. To
gether, they are assailing the sentiment that seeks
to give the Badger State to LaFollette.
Mr. Roosevelt is not favorable to booms, other
than those of his own creation, and he is especially
hostile to men as fully distinguished for reform ten
dencies as he is. One would suppose that he would
welcome the coming of a Hughes or a LaFollette,
knowing that the principles he seems to favor would
be safe in their hands.
He has taken advantage of many opportunities to
humble Mr. LaFollette, using the Wisconsin ex
Senator as his instrument, knowing that the ex
Senator is inherently and irrevocably opposed to the
beliefs Mr. Roosevelt shares in common with Mr.
LaFollette.
It is presumed that the President is piqued at
Governor Hughes because the Governor has refused
to dovetail the political manipulation of his State
into the political manipulation by the administration,
but in the case of Senator LaFollette there is no
such incentive to hostility. Possibly the latter has
sinned in endeavoring to out-Roosevelt Roosevelt
along those lines of reform that the President calls
his own.
Discussing the Roosevelt-Hughes case, the Spring
field (Mass.) Republican says:
It will have to be admitted that in this matter the
President exhibits the unlovely characteristics of a
spoiled child. He vigorously and even viciously con
tends that no reform shall come unless according
to his plans and bearing his stamp. Strength of
personality is to be admired within reasonable lim
its, but when it proceeds to this extreme it cannot
command the respect of men of sense. It is there
fore of great importance that one man has arisen
somewhere in the United States who is thinking for
himself, doing his public work according to his best
judgment, and permitting nobodv to dictate to him,
whether the New York Legislature or the President
of the United States, but at the same time is seeking
no boss-ship over any public work save his own.
In relation to the hostility between Roosevelt and
LaFollette, a Milwaukee dispatch has this to say :
An announcement is made that there is to be op
position to the movement now in progress to secure
a delegation for Senator Robert M. LaFollette as
a presidential candidate, and it is stated that the op
position is being engineered from the White House.
President Roosevelt is the alleged leader.
The initial steps, it is said, were taken at the time
of the visit of ex-Senator John C. Spooner to Wash
ington two months ago.
The avowed support of the proposed organization
will be given Secretary of War Taft.
If it is within the privilege of a President to in
fluence the choice of his successor, Mr. LaFollette
should have the ample support of the White House
and Mr. Hughes should receive every encourage
ment from the same source. Yet this man who is
called remarkable is uniting with the enemies of
his policies for the overthrow of the friends of his
policies.
Withdrawn From the Harket.
Just what is the matter is not explained, though it
is alleged that- the financial situation has greatly im
proved. At any rate the Secretary of the Treasury
has withdrawn from the market $25,000,000 of the
$50,000,000 Panama bond issue and $85,000,000 of the
$100,000,000 indebtedness certificate issue.
Perhaps he has concluded that selling $150,000,000
in evidences of indebtedness to national bankers and
then giving them back the money they pay is not
going to result in an increase of the circulating
medium. The strongest critics of the Roosevelt
Cortelyou plan for the relief of the country were
Republicans and they may have convinced the admin
istration that its patient would recover more quickly
under a discontinuance of the nostrums prescribed by
Dr. J. Pierpont Morgan.
The Secretary of Treasury says, however, that the
improvement in business conditions following the
announcement of his measures for relief warrant him
in reducing the issues of bonds and notes. Every
body will hope that he is right—that conditions have
improved, but there is a general suspicion that the
administration has taken a Humpty Dumpty fall
from the high wall of finance.
Idaho, Oregon and Washington lumbermen are at
the national capital as witnesses before the Inter
state Commerce Commission in the interest of the
petitioners against an increase in lumber rates by
the railroads. The complainants state that they are
prepared to prove that the existence of the lumber
business in the Northwest depends on a decision
favorable to them. Production has been so largely
curtailed in Washington State on account of the
financial stringency that 30,000 men are already out
of employment and if the high freight rates are
maintained so many mills must close that general
prostration in labor circles will ensue. Most of the
Middle West depends largely on the Pacific coast
for its lumber, making the decision of the commis
sion of wide spread importance.