seaboard, to Liverpool and to all western and southern Europe the sea lanes are wide open. Five thousand miles of sea channel extend from Duluth and Chicago to Liverpool and points beyond, and all accounted for as deep, wide, free navigation adapted to ocean-going shipping, except twentyfive miles. That is the picture the ship captains see. That is the picture the Joint Board of Army Engineers of two nations paints for us. That is what the mid-continent has to start with when it demands a sea-road to Europe.

The engineering problems involved do not properly belong to this discussion. It may suffice to say that, not without thought, not without full examination into any and all routes, and with a complete knowledge of what the engineers of both nations had already done, was the choice of the marooned interior fixed upon the St. Lawrence as the only practical route to the sea.

Not only was the fact that the St. Lawrence route is a "going concern taken into account, but also the fact that the numerous surveys of that route and other routes plainly indicated its preferability to the continental interior for the purpose of establishing an unrestricted thoroughfare to the world bordering upon the high seas. The Associated States rest their case as to the engineering feasibility of the route chosen upon the decision of the Joint American-Canadian Board of Engineers, in two reports.

The basic engineering facts are well known. Time required, lift, restriction of traffic, cost-all these things more closely computed by the Joint Board of Canadian and American Engineers that surveyed the St. Lawrence route in 1920-21, and again in 1925–26.

There is no alternative route. There is no other sea road to and from the industrial and agricultural empire westward of the Appalachians. Rivers that carry us to the sea, canals that climb the hills-these may serve a useful purpose in the quickening of our transportation circulation, but they are, at their ultimate best, but highways leading down to the ocean. And when one takes to a highway he will, if he is wise, choose one that leads toward his destination. The Great Lakes are in themselves an ocean. The St. Lawrence is a strait. Across the seas that send their tides a thousand miles up its broad bosom is the great market place of the world. There the midcontinent buys and there the midcontinent sells, and between Duluth and Liverpool, between Chicago and the Baltic, between Detroit, and Marseilles lie today two great barriersone of rock, that can be measured. drilled, blasted until the waters run deep and free, until the ships can go out and in.

The other barrier is that of misunderstanding as to need and purpose. And it, too, bearing in mind the history of this America of ours, is removable.

I

HAVE been asked to discuss the economic and national significance of connecting the Great Lakes with the sea, by the St. Lawrence route.

Speaking first of its national significance, it is demanded by 40,000,000 of our people in the West, more than onethird of our population, because of the economic benefits that will result in bringing the Atlantic Ocean to the heart of the continent, and making ocean ports of all of our cities upon the Great Lakes. It is also demanded by a large majority of the people of our New England States because of transportation benefits and the cheap power that will be developed for their use, which will remove one of the most serious handicaps to the continued existence of their industries.

The history of the idea of connecting the Great Lakes with the sea is most interesting. It has been a dream of many years, almost since the Republic was founded, and its history is not so dissimilar to the history of the Panama Canal. It may not be generally known that the first project for connecting the Great Lakes with the sea was inaugurated by George Washington. In 1792 he obtained the passage of an Act of Incorporation by the Legislature of the State of New York for the construction of a waterway between the Hudson River and Lake Erie by a system of canals and slack water and lake navigation by way of the Mohawk River, Oneida Lake and River, and Oswego Lake and Ontario. Of course, Wash

ington little dreamed of the leviathans of the deep that we have in our day. As we all know, canals have been constructed. We have today the Erie Canal, but it does not permit the passage of ocean-going vessels into the Lakes, and although the State of New York has expended more than $200,000,000 upon this project, it has proved to be a colossal failure, and Government boards, one after another, engineering and otherwise, have reported that it is not practical, except at a prohibitive cost, to construct a canal between the Great Lakes and the Hudson River, that will admit ocean-going vessels to the Lakes.

Twenty-two states have joined in an association, known as the Great LakesSt. Lawrence Tidewater Association, to promote the St. Lawrence route, the governors of each being ex-officio a member of the Council of States directing the activities of the Association. The mere recital of the names of the states indicates the national character of the organization. They are Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Washington, Oregon, South Carolina, West Virginia, and Kentucky. Its Executive Director is Charles P.

Craig, of Duluth, with headquarters at Washington.

The International Joint Commission, a permanent official body consisting of three persons appointed by

the President of the United States, and three persons appointed by the Government of the Dominion of Canada, in 1922 made a report upon this subject unanimously recommending the St. Lawrence route. They said:

The conclusion is obvious that if countries that had for the most part to import their raw materials from abroad were able to build up a great foreign trade because of their ready access to the sea, the region economically tributary to the Great Lakes, with its limitless resources, its raw materials within easy reach, its facilities for industrial expansion, can hardly fail to become an even greater factor in the world's markets than it is today, if given a practical and efficient water route to the sea.

On March 14, 1924, President Coolidge appointed a commission with Hon. Herbert Hoover, Secretary of Commerce, as chairman, to make a further study of the subject. On December 27, 1926, it made its report unanimously recommending the St. Lawrence route. I quote from its report:

The construction of a shipway of sufficient depth to admit ocean-going shipping from the Atlantic to the Great Lakes will lessen the economic handicaps of adverse transportation costs of a vast area in the interior of the continent. Within the United States it embraces all or large portions of the states of Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Montana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania and New York. It includes a large part of Canada. Within this area there are more than 40,000,000 inhabitants who gain their livelihood from its basic industries. It produces a vast surplus both from agriculture and manufactures, much of which demands long transportation. . It has been estimated that the values in a single year to the farmers alone would equal the capital cost of the waterway. . .

The interior states which are affected by this situation have not been neglectful of the benefits to be derived by the bringing to them of ship transportation to the sea.

Eighteen of them have associated together by acts of their legislatures, under the nam of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Tidewater Association. They represent nearly twofifths of our population. They have made their own independent investigation and have concluded and declared that the opening of the Great Lakes to ocean-going ves sels through the St. Lawrence is a major public necessity in the economic interest of their communities.

The Commission further stated that

The construction of the shipway from the Great Lakes to the sea is imperative both for the relief and for the future development of a vast area in the interior of the continent.

The shipway should be constructed or the St. Lawrence route, provided suitable agreement can be made for its joint undertaking with the Dominion of Canada.

Of its benefit to the entire nation, the Commission said:

In the wider view, the increased prosperity of the mid-continent, the relief of many of their present economic difficulties, and development of huge water power for stimu lation of industry and commerce in New England shall add to the prosperity of the country as a whole and thereby benefit every citizen and every city,

A New England committee, consisting of prominent citizens of Maine. New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, of which Col. Charles R. Gow of Boston is chairman, has made a study of the subject, and a few months ago made a report unanimously recommending the St. Lawrence route. I quote from its conclusions:

It is our belief that a reduction in transportation costs is the primary requisite of the central section of the country today and that its accomplishment would afford more real relief to the farming and other elements of that community than would any of the proposals which so far have been advanced for the proposed amelioration of the farmers' condition.

Every impartial body that has studied this subject has recommended the St. Lawrence Waterway as a great national undertaking of great national benefit. The only opposition comes from the State of New York, and that state is not unanimous in its opposition. A large part of northern New York is enthusiastically in favor of the project. The opposition is selfish, fearing that the commerce of the cities of New York and Buffalo will be injured by the project. It is hard to believe that the intelligent patriotic citizens of that great state when they fully understand the question will be in favor of compelling the distressed farmers of the West to pay a wholly unnecessary toll to the cities of New York and Buffalo solely for their benefit.

THE ECONOMIC SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ST. LAWRENCE ROUTE

That our farmers of the West have ever since 1920 been in great financial distress we all know. That they have for years been demanding from the Congress relief from their economic condition we also know. In their dire need for relief many of them have become the innocent victims of designing politicians who make impossible promises to them, and propose remedies that cannot stand either the test of constitutional authority or common sense.

Because these things are so should not cause us to fail to realize that our farmers are suffering under a great economic handicap, and because most of the plans that are proposed for relief are impracticable or unconstitutional should not cause us to take the position that there is nothing the Government can do for them. We are living in an age of organization. Manufacturing is Manufacturing is organized; finance is organized; labor is organized; mining is organized; but our farmers are not organized. The farmer is essentially an individualist and the

agricultural industry does not lend itself to either the corporate form of manufacturing or the association form of labor. The coöperative organization is the only practical form open to the farmer, and such organization as to a staple product produced generally throughout the country is very difficult. The result is that he finds himself paying high prices for everything he has to buy, produced under conditions that prevent excessive surpluses.

The farmer, however, goes right on producing crops greater than domestic consumption can care for, and he has a surplus which must find a market abroad. In such cases he receives very little benefit from tariff rates, and he therefore buys in a high market and sells in a low market. In wheat, especially, he gets as a rule the Liverpool price, less the cost of transporting his wheat from his railroad station to Liverpool, and thus the price is fixed, not only for wheat that he ships to Liverpool, but also for the wheat that he sells to be consumed in the United States. The farmer, also, pays the transportation rate upon everything that he buys. If he buys a Ford car he pays the Detroit price plus the transportation rate to his nearest railway station. If he buys a piece of agricultural machinery he pays the factory price, plus the transportation rate to his town, and so with all his other purchases. The farmer is the only American engaged in industry who pays the transportation upon both what he buys and sells. It is for this reason that the farmers of the West, far from markets, are constantly clamoring for lower transportation rates, and often demand such low railroad rates that if granted would throw every railroad serving them into bankruptcy. True, most of the farmers' troubles are economic, beyond relief at the hands of the Government, but this makes it all the more

necessary that when the Government can give him real assistance that is sound, and rational, it should do so without any delay. When it can lower his transportation costs without injustice to anyone it should not hesitate to do so. The St. Lawrence Waterway furnishes this opportunity. Mr. Alfred H. Ritter, Transportation and Expert Specialist, has written a book upon this subject embodying the results of his studies of the transportation economics of the St. Lawrence project. He estimates the saving to the farmer in transportation rates upon grain to be about ten cents per bushel. He states that the average export movement of United States grain from Atlantic seaboard and St. Lawrence ports for the years 1921 to 1923 averaged 192,000,000 bushels, and upon this alone our farmers would have saved nearly $20,000,000 a year if they could have used the St. Lawrence Waterway. He also estimates there would be a general enhancement in price of five cents per bushel generally. Upon the last page of his book, under the Title "Conclusions," Mr. Ritter

says:

The probable transportation savings on grain alone are equal to five per cent on $800,000,000, while the annual transportation savings plus farm price enhancement are estimated to equal or exceed the total expense of the improvement properly chargeable to navigation, under the original project submitted to Congress by the International Joint Commission.

But it is not grain alone that will be transported over this waterway at a great saving of transportation costs.

The flour mills of Minneapolis in 1922 exported 659,000 barrels of flour. Mr. Ritter estimates that the St. Lawrence Waterway will effect a saving of $6 per long ton on flour shipped from Minneapolis to Europe.

Our packing house exports now amount to more than 2,000,000,000

pounds annually. Seventy-three per cent of this, or 1,560,000,000 pounds, originate in the territory tributary to the Great Lakes. Mr. Ritter estimates that upon shipments of these products from Chicago to London the St. Lawrence route will effect a saving of $17 per ton in transportation cost.

The heart of the automobile industry of the world is situated upon the Great Lakes. Exports of automobiles are increasing every year. The rail rate to the seaboard is high. It is estimated that over 115,000 tons of automobiles will be exported annually over the St. Lawrence route. I might name iron and steel products, agricultural implements, and many other commodities produced in territory tributary to the Great Lakes.

Thus far, I have spoken only of exports of commodities produced in Great Lakes territory, but imports of commodities used in this territory could also be carried over this waterway at a great saving of transportation costs. One of the most important of these is rubber. Our imports of rubber amount to more than 300,000 tons annually. Sixty-one per cent of the rubber imported is used by manufacturers tributary to the Great Lakes. This amounts to about 200,000. tons annually that could be carried over the St. Lawrence route, and Mr. Ritter estimates that this will effect a saving of more than $5 per ton in transportation costs, or more than $1,000,000 annually. This saving wil effect every user of automobiles in the United States.

For the immediate territory affected imports of sugar will be the most important. The Great Lakes territory produces about 900,000 tons of beet sugar annually. The people of this territory consume about 1,800,000 tons annually, thus making necessary imports of 900,000 tons for their use annually. Every ton of this could come