Show transportation AND ITS PROBLEM minnesota governor finds answer in waterways and motor truck to railway ques tion points out economic loss to world in failure of roads to move crops when ripe BY J A 0 PREUS preas GOVERNOR OF MINNESOTA editors note J A 0 amus is governor of a great state whose wealth has long been depend dependent eni upon its transportation facilities its greatest products were wheat and wood and the former is stir its most valuable output trans trane por tation swift and sure has a ways been a dominant need in the state and its le leading acting citizens in all walks of life have devoted much thought to the problem governor preus is no exception as the following shows the transportation problem has become the most important and at times the most acute lern lem before the american people previous to the nineteenth cen tury people got along without any general transportation terns tents they lived where they could get fuel food and building material mater P at close r range ange clothing was wag mostly homespun corn merce such as existed by ship or caravan was wag largely in lumur ies there was no general ex change of everyday necessities such as exists under such circumstances a region which was rich in some special resources but which lack ed in others could never hope for rapid development the fer tile plains of the central states could produce food to support millions of people but those peo pie could not reach the degree of comfort and culture which ch they enjoy e today without railroads to bring in an abundance of fuel lue lumber machinery and other nee essi ties in like manner the coal regions 0 of f pennsylvania the cotton fields of the south the lake super superior or iron districts the orchard valleys valle ys of california the copper country of montanna and dozens of other regions would be limited to ito a small fraction of their present output the greatest era the greatest era of railroad development came during the twenty five year period following foil owing i the civil war whew when a network of lines was built all over the con railroad marf managers agers were criticized and ridiculed for build ing through thousands of miles of wilderness but the rails turn ed wilderness into civilization soon business developed taxed the capacity of the rail roads railroad building slowed down but business kept on grow ing during the last decade or two we have seen all too frequent ly crops going to wast and busin ness of all kinds hampered be cause railroads were unable to supply cars or move materials expeditiously A group of sixteen central and western states of which minne sota is one supplies 75 per cent of the wheat 65 per cent of the per cent of the flax 85 per cent of the iron ore 74 per cent of the zinc and more than half of the beef pork butter cheese eggs potatoes and beet sugar pro deuced in the united states the question lon now is shall we increase our production of these things as the demand increases and ex exchange chanZe them for things thing which can be produced more aas ily and profitably elsewhere or we sl slow ow up and begin pro ducine articles which we now im rort port we can do the latter if it becomes necessary cesary ne but we pre fer to do the former if we may our future course depends upon our transportation facilities the rail problem it has been estimated that thal t 4 would be needed to t i supply the tracks terminals and zolling idling stock which would enable who he railroads to handle eppedi bously an amount of traffic such is they had to handle in 1917 to 1919 before investors will con money to railroad build ng jig it will be necessary to in rease the earnings oi the rail oads but there is a point be ond olid which freight and er rates cannot be increased without destroying the business L hat has become quite plain durl ng the last year and a quarter what then must we doa do we annot get along witheat the ral rail oads we must acee ee that thai their awnings are to enable hem to maintain a high stand rd ird of efficiency but we must develop Lev elop supplemental tran aaion systems lt it we want wani to con mue our agricultural and corn com hercial ner cial development this must some ome along two lines bettel highways nigh ways and greater use oi 01 au omo biles and trucks tor lor short hauls hauls and greater use of water for long hauls and buky Arel cles most moat of the states have made a start along the right lines in hig highway liway building build ng and if they con ibue according to present pro bams yams ram we will in a few years have an excellent system of high the use of automobiles or passenger traffic long ago reached a point where it serious ly cut into the railroad ger traffic we may however ook for a much greater use of trucks for short hauls much of their business is new business but they will also take away from the railroads much of the short haul traffic which has never been very profitable to the roads but which has had much to do with congestion in terminals our waterways in the use of waterways we have gone backward rather than forward this is partly because our railroads have been so effice ent no other country in the world has railroads which can be compared with ours nor is there any civilized commercial nation making so little use of waterways as we do true Eu ropes contour has given her better access to the ocean than we have but she has also gone much farther than we in develop ing streams and canals we have wasted hundreds of millions of dollars on en our inland waterways no one in particular is to blame the main reason is that we have gone on without any definite plan or where there was a plan it was carrid out if at all only piecemeal in the case of the panama can al however our government had a definite complete plan and went in and finished the job in a business like way the whole country has benefited and no one questions the wisdom of the ex pend iture the states on the coast cast south anji ana west how ever are receiving the greater benefits and states in the north central grop like minnesota get campara comparatively dively little denef it from he canal true we have the areat lakes but they are not open to the sea when we start a cargo from du luth to europe we must pay for a portage across new york state which costs as much or more than the combined cost of gatei transportation down the laker lake and across the atlantic here is a remedy to remedy this it is now pro posed that the united states join johl with canada in opening up the st lawrence river the U US S army eng r hae ha e reported that for about locks and dams can be built which will permit all ocean gong vessels ex capt the largest leviathans levi athans to come up to our lake ports cana da offers to pay half the cost making the cost to us a little more than one fourth of what we spent on the panama canal the army engineers believe that the dams to be built will not only take care of the cost of operation but will in time pay for the en tire cost of construction these power benefits canada offers to share with us the states which will vill benefit most are those which receive the lesser benefits from the panama canal that would make things fair all around we beleve ho how w ever that the entire country country will benefit except the private inter ests which now profit from the thel transfer of freight across new york the soo canal has a ton nage of seventy to ninety mill ions a year while the panama canal exceeded for the first time in 1920 with the way open to 10 the sea on the reat great lakes will be doubled or trebled we cannot doubt that this his i great agricultural and indus trial region which includes americas second fourth and fifth largest cities will send down through the st lawrence a tonnage much greater than panamas pajamas Pa these states are en titled to a route direct to the ocean there are several olier oher water way projects which are worthy of consideration each should be investigated and costs weigh ed cd against benefits wherever it can be shown that benefits ex aeed the cost the bork ork should be expedited expenditures for emeal and haphazard waterway improvements should be stopped |