Waterways

Last week the House passed a rivers and harbors bill. Such bills are usually like public buildings bills--something of a pork barrel measure. The scene in the House at passage seems less like a logrolling match than a cat and dog fight. There were three parts of the bill that aroused special opposition: 1) An appropriation of $1,500,000 to provide a nine-foot waterway from Chicago to the Mississippi River, thereby connecting the Great Lakes and the Gulf. 2) $100,000 for a survey of the so-called All-American route (through New York) for a canal for large vessels from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic (TIME, April 5, SHIPPING) and an appropriation of $11,500,000 to buy the Cape Cod Canal from its private owners.

The delegations of the Great Lakes states, all except Illinois, led by the veteran onetime Senator Burton of Ohio, fought the Illinois waterway tooth and nail, because they alleged it would lower the level of the lakes. They also charged that the survey of the All-American route was a waste of money because the project was impracticable. Another group opposed the Cape Cod Canal purchase, charging that it. was an attempt to unload an unprofitable* private enterprise on the Government.

Detailed debate on the bill began at 11:00 one morning and continued without recess until 1:05 a. m. the following morning. The supporters of all three of the contested measures held to their stand, defeated amendments to strike out the contested provisions, overrode a determined filibuster. The opponents of the measure had only one success. They succeeded in adding a provision for a six-foot channel in the Missouri River from Kansas City to Sioux City, 400 miles. As the bill was taken up, it carried appropriations of $36,000,000. With the added project it may cost the Government from $52,000,000 to $73,000,000. The reason they favored the Missouri project was to make the bill so cumbersome as to defeat it.

So far as the House was concerned, they did not succeed. The bill was passed 219 to 127. In the Senate the bill will have very rough going because of the three contested provisions and its increased size. Its fate in this Congress is dubious indeed.

*The late August Belmont and onetime Secretary of War Weeks were reputedly interested in it.