NATIONAL RIVERS AND HARBORS CONGRESS
By Joseph Eugene Ransdell, LL. D.
SENATOR-ELECT RANSDELL, who enters the upper branch of Congress March 4, 1913, having lived on the Father of Waters from early manhood, has taken the liveliest possible interest in the development of every worthy waterway project. Mr. Ransdell has been a fearful figure in public life since his election to the House in 1899, and is a member of the Committee on Rivers and Harbors. Mr. Ransdell tells of the origin and growth of the National Rivers and Harbors Congress, but he fails to tell how much of the power and influence of that association is due to the energy,devotion and genius for organization of the man who has been its president since 1906.
ON March 3 and 4, 1901, the late Senator Thomas H. Carter. of Montana, talked to death a Rivers and Harbors Bill which carried appropriations for waterways aggregating fifty-six millions. His professed excuse was that the House conferees refused to agree to a Senate amendment appropriating sundry sums for irrigating lands in arid sections of Montana where, as Chairman Burton expressed it, "there were no streams deep enough to float a birch-bark canoe." Rumor gave other reasons for the defeat of this bill. but at any rate it was killed
and a grievous blow struck at river and harbor legislation. Then the friends of the cause throughout the land began to rally
and unite their forces.
One of the most important projects in the defunct bill was for a channel of 35 feet through the South West Pass of the Mississippi River. and its special advocates before the committees of Congress were M. J. Sanders and John W. Bryant of New Orleans. These two gentlemen felt their defeat very keenly. and immediately laid plain for arousing public indignation against Senator Cartel-'s action and sentiment in favor of a liberal bill next session.
The result of their eflorts was a great waterways convention which opened in Baltimore. Md. on October 8. 190:. Mr. Geo. E. Bartel of Philadel is was made permanent president. any delegates attended from various sections. The or- ganization was christened The National River: and Harbor: Cangterr. The utmost harmony prevailed. Resolutions denoun- cing the past policy of Congress towards waterways and insisting upon more liberal
treatment thereafter were passed unanimously. The press gave great prominence to the proceedings, and the whole Union was aroused as never before in fifty years in regard to waterways. An executive committee was appointed to carry on the work outlined in the convention and to perpetuate the organization, but it existed only in name. never held a meeting. and performed no functions for four years. The good effects of the Baltimore convention were felt in the next session of Congress which. in the spring of root. passed a river and harbor bill carrying $6s.1o7.xo1~l.he largest ever enacted to that date—and waterway people were in high feather. Then came the depressing years mo; and 1904 without any general legislation for waterways. and in 1905 a bill was passed appmpriating only $35.- 6o,531—but little more than half that of iooz, although the nation was growing rapidly and demands for waterway improvements were increasing in proportion. The act of loo; was a bitter disappointment. and the amounts it carried were totally inadequate to the country's needs. in June. 1905. the Ohio Valley Improve, ment Association. under the lead of its great president. Col. john L, Vance. took the Rivers and Harbors Committee of the House of Representatives on a tour of the Ohio from Pittsburgh to Cairo to impress on them the importance of giving that river slack water navigation of nine feet from one end to the other. by means
of locks and dams. at a cost of sixty-three millions, That was a glorious trip, a grand triumphal march of a thousand miles down the great stream, through
