Fifty thousand circulars and pamphlets have been sent from the Chairman's office and distributed throughout the States by the different chairmen. The great demand for waterway literature from every quarter convinces us of the growing interest in this subject. Thus we stand as strong allies in this great Conservation movement.
[Signed] Mrs J. D. Wilkinson,
Chairman Waterways Committee
(Reported through Mrs G. B. Sneath)
REPORT OF THE LAKES TO GULF DEEP WATERWAY ASSOCIATION
I bring greetings from three different bodies allied in this work: the Business Men's League of Saint Louis; the Missouri Waterways Commission, of which I have the honor to be Chairman; and the Lakes to the Gulf Deep Waterway Association, of which I have the honor to be President. On behalf of Governor Hadley and the State of Missouri, I wish to extend to this Congress the assurance that Missouri is for the policy of Conservation of natural resources in the way in which it is understood by most of you; that is to say, she is for the economical development of her resources in the highest degree, and at the same time for the preservation of the rights of the people in the control of those resources.
Some time ago, following out the policy advocated by Mr Gifford Pinchot and by President Roosevelt, Governor Hadley appointed the Missouri Waterways Commission to examine and report upon the water resources of the State. In this department, Missouri is richer than many other States in the Union. Located in the center of the most fertile valley in America, she possesses two great rivers; the Mississippi, forming her entire eastern border, and the Missouri, exactly bisecting the State, connecting her two great principal cities. In addition to these there come down out of the Ozark Mountain region a series of smaller navigable rivers, the Osage, the Gasconade, the Big Piney, the Current, the Black, the White, and many smaller streams flowing into the great rivers and enabling boats to reach almost every part of the interior. In the course of time all of these rivers will be very much improved, and many of them made navigable. The sources of these streams are in the Ozarks, and they are fed by the most beautiful springs which are known to exist in America; one of these springs, named after our Governor, discharges, it is estimated, 50,000,000 gallons a day, even in the driest season—an amount equal to the entire consumption of a city of probably 50,000 inhabitants. There are many more which flow from 5,000,000 to 10,000,000 gallons a day. You cannot go a quarter of a mile along any valley road in the Ozark region without coming upon a spring oozing out of the limestone or sandstone cliffs, and adding its limpid waters to some brook or river. The crest of the Ozarks is 2,000 feet above the sea, more than 1,500 feet above Saint Louis, and all of these streams flow pell-mell down the hills to their navigable portions; so that the State has a very large amount of latent water-power. It is well to remember that the Ozarks remain forested, and that it is in the shelter of these forests that the waters gather to form the abundant springs and streams.
The Missouri Waterways Commission has employed one of the best-known hydraulic engineers in America, Mr M. L. Holman, to make a preliminary survey of these and other resources; and on this he is now engaged. When this has been completed, a report will be made to Governor Hadley embodying a policy for the control and development of this power, and this policy, it is expected, will be recommended to the next State Legislature by the Governor with the view of securing legislation conserving at the same time the water resources and the people's rights in them.
This is not, of course, the full extent of the Waterway Commission's work, for we have also to consider the use of the streams for navigation, a department in which the State is as much interested as the Federal Government, although we are not allowed to tamper with the navigable rivers themselves. We are also to consider the reclamation of swamp lands, the preservation of soil, and the general use of water, which is today the Nation's greatest asset. In the last Congress an appropriation of $1,300,000 was made for Missouri river, which means as much to Missouri as a part of its Conservation work as it does to the cities and the Nation for its value to navigation. Both the Missouri and the Mississippi are great devourers of soil. The Missouri will tear out an entire farm and ruin a farmer in an incredibly short space of time when it is changing its bed. The application of revetment to the banks and the contraction system in the effort, certain of success, to obtain a 6-foot permanent channel between Kansas City and Saint Louis, will return to the farmer, it is estimated, more than the entire outlay in additional capital wealth represented by the rich accretions of the Missouri bottoms. The securing of this appropriation and the very large appropriations also for the Mississippi fronting the State and leading from this beautiful city of Saint Paul all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico, has been largely stimulated by the work and activity of the Lakes to the Gulf Deep Water Association; and many of you will remember how much that organization has had to do with the doctrines of Conservation.
This reference to the Lakes to the Gulf Deep Waterway Association may be pardoned, when it is remembered that this Association has always stood for the complete utilization of the waterways for all purposes for which they are available, and that it has thereby become one of the most effective Conservation agencies in the world. It may interest you to know that we of the Lakes to the Gulf Waterway Association played an historic part in the early history of Conservation in this country. In October, 1907, the Association chartered a fleet of steamers and carried President Theodore Roosevelt from Saint Louis to Memphis to show a President of the United States for the first time the necessity of improving the inland waters. One of the steamboats which made that trip was the General McKenzie, and the passengers on the McKenzie were the Inland Waterways Commission appointed by President Roosevelt, upon the suggestion of our Association, to examine the question in hand. One of the members of this Commission was Gifford Pinchot; another was Mr Frederick H. Newell, head of the Reclamation Service; another was Dr W J McGee, Secretary of the Commission; another was Herbert Knox Smith, head of the Bureau of Corporations; and another was Alexander McKenzie, always a friend of the waterways. On the steamer Alton, escorting the President, were the Governors of 22 States; and still another vessel bore about 75 members of the Federal Congress.
The second night out from Saint Louis was a stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, and the vessels made their way with great difficulty through the intricate channel of Point Pleasant reached from New Madrid southward. On that memorable night Gifford Pinchot and his associates in the Inland Waterways Commission came aboard the steamer Alton, and on the deck of that steamboat, protected from the storm by canvas awnings, held the historic meeting that gave birth to two great movements: Conservation, and the House of Governors. As a result of that meeting, where the policy of Conservation was fully laid out, President Roosevelt announced in his speech at the Lakes to the Gulf convention in Memphis that he would call a meeting of the Governors, and did call this memorable meeting of May 15-18, 1908, at which public sanction was given to the Conservation movement, and the House of Governors became an established organization. We have always felt that the place of the Lakes to the Gulf Deep Waterway Association in bringing about this meeting is one of the proudest achievements that the Association has on its records, and will live in history.
The Lakes to the Gulf Deep Waterway Association has always felt the necessity of allying itself with the Upper Mississippi River Improvement Association, the Ohio River Improvement Association, and the general Conservation movement for the best development of all river channels. The Mississippi today has the largest storage reservoirs in the world, although they are almost equaled now by the storage in the Salt River Irrigation Project in Arizona. But because of the cutting and burning of the forests, and the failure of the Government to complete the reservoirs, the Mississippi this year has been unnavigable above Saint Louis through the whole summer season. Nothing but conservation of the head-waters—and it must be remembered that adequate attention should be given to the forests about the head-waters—can prevent a recurrence of that circumstance in the next drought. The reservoirs which are now established should be supplemented by others on the Wisconsin, the Flambeau, the Chippewa, the Minnesota, and all the other streams flowing into the upper river, and some scheme for conserving the waters of the Ohio, although it will come at great expense; and the Tennessee also must be dammed and reservoired, both to withhold the floods and to conserve the water for dry-season navigation. Costly as these reservoir systems may be, it will require but little figuring to show that, again in league with the Conservation policy and a light charge by the Government on the water-power in these navigable streams, they will return interest and sinking fund on the cost of the improvements. Here in Saint Paul, and between here and Minneapolis, we have an illustration of the great lack of proper development in the series of falls and rapids—not half of which is properly utilized—on which the Government has spent much money and for which the people receive no return whatever.