Show MISSISSIPPI RIVER IMPROVEMENTS When President Taft raft was at Memphis he dis dis- ed in a general way improvements for the great Mississippi lIe Tic did not go into details he simply cid that there must be millions spent on the Father of ot Waters That is s a speech that anyone one could have made made made- that is the the- substance of it but Shut that docs does not 20 go o into i to the qu question tion at all oi or what will be bethe the nature of r tl the e improvements j. j The finest engineers arc are puzzled and then so solo soto o ot t lo to speak speak the tendency is a ag the Mississippi 1 That rh ha t is the Atlantic seaboard wants the goods that would naturally float down the river dyer if it there ll no no railroads New York especially is growing grow grow- ing sensitive over ovel U the e loss of her her export export trade trade she she is Us i making a struggle to make a ship canal of the theold old ia Eric Erie canal Canada is working with 1 us eus l s energy clergy to draw through her railroads m and d da canals a als the grain and products ets generally that are arc ro abroad from all that old in- in sent country In chiding eluding Wisconsin Minnesota th thc and the country c ry farther west The rhe one difficulty is to I make ako improvements that thai 4 will be 10 pelman permanent nt nt because se thin the forests have been swept away war around the sources of the he Ohio and aud the tho lissis i Mississippi ippi and the other large rivers that merge i in it that central west The Mississippi comes down t il the thc spring uncontrollable and then it it is filled fille with snags and bars bar through the summer an and early winter an arid and how to bridle that monster and make makei i all the round is the tim H Hs H's s serviceable year ear question s' s In some sonic current publication is a picture of a anew i new v style of boat built to navigate and to calr carry freight on oil the Missouri ti river It is something after the he fashion of the s on the lakes and if expectations are arc realized it will carry arl tons of if f I freight and draw raw only eighteen inches of w water That t. t looks loul like lil a big improvement in iri a practical ir and find to outsider i it would way an seem seem- as though the thu proper course to pursue would be he to have government gay gov tugs Lugs en enough ugh to keep the river clear of nf uagS ua and then in the autumn where sandbars obstruct navigation pur pursue uc the course that was pursued at South SO Pass to open a deep fl channel l from flom New Kew Orleans to the sea that is by y reducing the width of or the stream to reasonable reason reason- able Jim limits ts and ancl so increasing the current that it would scour out lilt its own wa way and it jt would not lt lie too to much lunch t to do that so that boats drawing only Eighteen inches of could easily pass There have haye been millions and millions spent on tie the thc Mississippi Not much o of oZ it is available except around the one mouth that mouth that is where the tho jetties R Rl 5 are l' l and land and in the embankments along the rich lauds lands of Louisiana C and Mississippi and wd even those are arc l' l ky thi things gs because in a great flood Hood they the will ak k sometimes and when wilen they cy do the profits cf tf dozen q z n years cars of the planter arc are taken away uway J j I So So-it So o it seems to to us that three things should hein be he Hf in iu the improvements One is to keep th the H snags gs' gs out The next is where great bodies of rich the river that arc are naturally below it 1 current thc they should be bc lc which would save saye the laud land and aud at the same time increase the thi matu mo- mo tu tu nt m of the water And nd then where sandbars aJ arc by jetties otties confine the waters in the narrow v channel and aud let them scour their own wa wand way And nd after all nih as s long as the railroads can Jo tho the work most of the freight will go po through the tho Atlantic cities because to those cities ships from froni ah abroad oad brin bring cargoes and ancl they will win carr carry cargoes buck back cheaper than th they would go around to New Kew Orleans to get them |