BIERY EXHIBIT C [From the Cincinnati Enquirer, Tuesday, September 27, 1955] FULL CIRCLE OF THE RIVER Latest project put forward for further improvement of the Ohio River is through modernization of lock and dam No. 41 at Louisville. This has been approved by district and division engineers and also by the Army's Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors. It now must be approved by the Secretary of the Army, the Bureau of the Budget, and finally by Congress. Cost of the Louisville project is estimated at about $53 million. This is somewhat more than the cost of the new lock and dam at New Cumberland, but rather less than the price tag on the Greenup and Markland Dams. The rapid fall of the Ohio at Louisville has been a problem for many years. When the river was first used for flatboats and keelboats in the opening of the West, the falls of the Ohio at Louisville was the one really serious barrier to navigation-aside from the extreme low water in dry seasons before any dams were built. It was in 1820 that Congress first authorized improvements at Louisville. And before 1830 a dam and lock were built and opened to traffic. A century later, in 1929, the lock and dam system throughout the 981 miles of the Ohio was completed, with a minimum 9-foot stage. Now, with vastly expanded traffic, standards are higher. The three high-level dams now under construction, and the improvement at Louisville, if authorized, will lengthen pools and speed navigation materially. It is to be hoped that the modernization of dam 41 will be approved all along the line at Washington. The falls of the Ohio River was the first bottleneck on the Ohio, a century and a half ago. Now we have come full circle, and Louisville again will be the most serious bottleneck, once the three authorized high-level dams are completed. [From the Cincinnati Enquirer, October 8, 1955] RIVER TOLLS-AND YOU We have heard a good deal here in Cincinnati in the last few days about the threat of toll charges on the barge traffic of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. The strong protests are from individuals interested in river shipping, men who have been attending the convention of the Ohio Valley Improvement Association. They are acting properly in defense of their own large interests. It would be quite wrong, however, to think that the main argument against river tolls lies in the fact that they would injure the barge lines, their owners, managements, and employees. The real case against river tolls lies in what they would do to the whole population of the Ohio Valley. The largest field of the best coal in the United States spreads over West Virginia, western Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and southeastern Ohio. And coal is today, as it has been for a century and more, the backbone of industry. That coal can be brought to cities and their industries along the Ohio at remarkably low cost, by river barge. That is why Cincinnati has strikingly low electric rates a great advantage to individual householders, but an even greater advantage to industries in the area. During and since World War II, the Ohio Valley, including the Cincinnati area, has enjoyed a truly spectacular industrial growth. Anyone who wants to see the most important single reason for this has only to drive out to any promontory overlooking the river and watch the tows of coal and other bulky products moving up and down the river. This great artery of commerce is limited to a few bulky commodities of low value per ton-aside from automobiles, a special case. Yet these commodities-coal, oil, steel, lumber, chemicals, building materials-are stuff of life for the industry of our valley. The river trade today is many times greater, in tonnage, than it was in the so-called golden age of steamboats a century ago. And it is just as important to the complex, specialized industrial economy of this region today as it was to the pioneer corn-hog economy of 100 years back, when Cincinnati was a lusty, growing pork-packing and whisky-distilling metropolis. Tonnage tolls on the barge traffic of the river would be painful for the shipping companies engaged in the river trade. But that is not important, except to them. The real threat of river tolls is to the whole economy of the Ohio Valley. For that economy has been built-over 150 years-on the free use of a river which is the greatest natural resource of the region. [From the Cincinnati Times-Star, October 10, 1955] THREAT TO THE VALLEY Next month a House subcommittee will hold hearings on a subject of vital concern to the Ohio Valley-the question of imposing tolls for use of the inland waterways. This proposal was made by the Hoover Commission with the argument that the present system of Government maintenance of navigation facilities constitutes "special privilege." But no attention was paid to the effect which such a drastic change would have on the economy of the whole Nation. The particular position which the Ohio Valley enjoys as an industrial area is based on river transportation. Bulk shipments of coal and oil can be made cheaply by barge and thus enable great industries to locate here. If their raw materials must cost more, because of higher transportation charges, they must charge more for their product and that means not only the Ohio Valley but people throughout the country would be paying higher prices. This is only one of the many points that can be raised in rebuttal. Another is that the delicate balance now existing among all forms of transportation, based on present river costs, would be disrupted, with inevitable unfortunate results and nationwide repercussions. Free use of the Ohio is a tradition going back to a guaranty written into the Ordinance of 1787. Time and again Congress has refused to change that policy. There is no adequate reason for changing it now. [From the Cincinnati Times-Star, October 4, 1955] WATCHDOG OF THE RIVER For more than half a century the Ohio Valley Improvement Association has been keeping its eyes on the river and working for everything that is best for the Ohio Valley. Tuesday it held its 60th annual meeting and an imposing list of speakers were on hand. What the speakers said was important, but the problems facing the association are even more so. The OVIA worked for the canalization of the Ohio. It backed the fight against pollution, and it has thrown its weight into many other activities. But river matters, like the river itself, are forever shifting their currents. Today the new high-level dams are a major project. And lurking in the background is the threat of tolls on river traffic. The Ohio Valley Improvement Association has an opportunity to render even more service to the valley and, judging by its determination, it is not going to rest on its oars. IT HAPPENED HERE (By George P. Stimson) RIVER MATTERS Residents of this area were given at least two warnings by speakers at the meeting of the Ohio Valley Improvement Association. There is a growing scarcity of water and this valley is not exempt. Also, the Hoover Commission proposal to impose tolls on river commerce is far from dead. Because of river floods, Cincinnatians are prone to forget the ground-water problems. The water table has been steadily falling and many industries dependent upon wells for water are worried. Something will have to be done. As for tolls, most thinking people in the valley regard that scheme as a real threat to the whole economy of the region. On paper the charging of tolls for the use and maintenance of navigation facilities sounds all right. But once the free use of the river terminates, the delicate balance between various forms of transportation would be upset and industry would suffer drastically. [From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 6, 1955] THE GREAT RAILROAD DEBATE Should the railroads be freed of some of the existing Federal regulation, to let them undersell competing forms of transportation when they can? This question is being raised with more vigor than in many a year. Its answer will affect the pocketbook of every consumer of transported goods and the futures of whole industries, including the millions of jobs they represent. In July of last year President Eisenhower created a Cabinet Committee on Transportation Policy and Organization, headed by Secretary of Commerce Weeks. That committee's report was made public last April. These recommendations were considered in preliminary hearings by a House Commerce Subcommittee last month, and are expected to become the basis of one of the great national debates in Congress when that body reconvenes. One of the most significant innovations proposed by the committee would "suspend the requirement that prior approval by the Interstate Commerce Commission must be obtained before a railroad can establish a rate charging less for longer than for shorter distances over the same line in the same direction." This would reopen the way to the abuses on the part of railroads which fired the Populist and Granger movements of the last quarter of the last century. Western farmers and tradesmen saw railroads placing their localities at a burdensome disadvantage by charging more to haul freight there than to the distant seaboard where there was competition. The ICC already offers the railroads relief from the long-and-short-haul clause, as it is called, whenever necessary to meet (but not quash) competition. Is more than that desirable? Do we want to go back to wildly discriminatory rates which meant life for one section of the country and death for another? Another major innovation proposed by the Cabinet Committee would limit to 3 months the time during which the ICC can suspend a new rate. At present such suspensions may be continued indefinitely. No doubt the railroads have a good case when they say that the competitive value of a new rate has often been dissipated by the time long suspensions are over and it finally becomes effective. But if the ICC were compelled by an arbitrary time limit to end its suspension regardless of whether or not it were through considering the arguments for and against the proposed new rate, its regulation would become perfunctory. Expeditious handling of requests for new rates is unquestionably desirable. But would not the better way be to augment the ICC staff so that it could do its work faster? The Cabinet Committee has based its general case for reduced regulation on what seems a fallacy. It says regulation was necessary when the railroads were a monopoly but now the railroads have ceased to be a monopoly. The case for regulation, however, rests on a broader base than that. Rate discrimination-which in effect is what the railroads are asking permission to practice-historically has been used, not just to meet competition, but to destroy it. Regulation is needed to prevent that from happening, whether the competition be between railroads and other forms of transportation, or between railroads and other railroads. The continuing need for regulation of the railroads is succinctly stated in these words from Railroad Regulation, by Leo Sharfman: "Railroad discrimination, like rate-cutting, springs primarily from the very nature of the railway business." And the nature of the transportation business so intimately affects the whole public welfare that its regulation cannot be disregarded or skimped except at heavy public cost. |