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connect

ITH the expenditure of not more than $4,000,000 the United States government can open up and not less than 8,000 miles of water ways having a sufficient depth to successfully carry steamboats of the Mississippi river class. Since the citizens of this country awakened to the fact that light draft navigation, so long neglected by the federal government, is the only safe and sure means to protect themselves from transportation trusts, and the only way to develop the resources of sections not traversed by railroads, no project has been advanced or presented to the government of such far reaching importance as the Intercoastal canal now being advocated. by the states of Texas and Louisiana. Although the Texas-Louisiana Inter

coastal canal will cost but a small fraction of the sum already appropriated for the construction of the Panama canal, the project is of almost equal importance and will benefit directly more citizens of the United States than the big ditch between the two oceans.

In a few words, the project is to connect the Rio Grande River, at a point not far from the little city of Brownsville and near its mouth, with the Mississippi River at Donaldsonville, Louisiana, thereby uniting the various navigable. rivers of Texas with the Mississippi river, the Ohio River, the Missouri River and all their tributaries, joining together fully 8,000 miles of streams and canals in one vast system. To one who understands the situation, the proposition is a simple one, and as evidence of its feasibility stands the fact that the Rivers and

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sufficient to float vessels six feet in draft or more. The proposition calls for the connection of the bays skirting the coast by dredging across narrow necks of land separating them and deepening those sections which are now too shallow to be navigated. No great feat of engineering is required nothing but an appropriation of money and some steady, consistent digging is needed to make the canal a reality, and $4,000,000 will be sufficient to make this

tion of the Texas congressmen called to its feasibility and commercial importance. Again in 1890 it was brought up and in 1900 those interested in it succeeded in getting the attention of the congressional committee. Unfortunately for the project, the Spanish-American war took the attention of both people

in other sections, but all are lending a hand and a voice in agitating the proposition. During the past year five largely attended meetings have been held in different cities of the state in which no other queston came up for discussion. The Trans-Mississippi Congress approves of the project, as does the National Rivers and Harbors Congress, and with their influence and the energy of the citizens of Texas and western Louisiana, there is no doubt in the minds of the Texans that the government will take an immediate and active interest in seeing it through to completion.

The vast possibilities of this projected waterway are almost beyond the scope of the mind. It is impossible even to estimate its benefits to the present generation, and when the commerce through it increases, as the country tributary to it

cussion. No one realizes more than they do the need of federal improvement of waterways, and the descendants of the Alamo defenders, the victors at San Jacinto, and those who within a period of six years resurrected Galveston, built the great sea wall, raised the grade of the city, and made the port second in importance in export values to New York, will not cease to work for and talk of the canal until it is an accomplished fact and they see their cotton, their sugar, their tobacco, lumber, fruits and other products going to market at freight rates reduced from present levels; until they hear the music of the steamboat whistles on their rivers and know that the railroads of the state must compete with water transportation or go out of business.

That portion of the canal running