XV. A ROLLCALL OF THE PRESIDENTS ON THE DIFFUSION OF WATERWAY BENEFITS TO THE PUBLIC The foregoing analysis is confirmed by the Report of President Truman's Water Resources Policy Commission, as follows: "The benefits from the inland waterways must be gaged by the transportation savings which may reasonably be expected to result from their use, in the light of the cost and value of the transportation services which they are capable of rendering, compared with alternative forms of transportaion. On the forty-odd billion annual ton-miles of freight now moving on the inland waterways, the sabings estimated by the Army engineers of 6 mills per ton-mile produces an annual total return in excess of $200 million, or 20 percent on the gross public investment, even after Federal maintenance and operation charges are deducted. "These savings will increase as the tonnage grows. Over the past 20 years, ton-miles have increased on the inland waterways at the average rate of 1.75 billion a year. At the present rate of growth, tonnage and ton-miles will double within the next 25 years. In view of the fact that total ton-miles of the country have been increasing since 1929 at the rate of 20 billion annually, it would seem reasonable to expect that, by 1975, with the substantial enlargement of the waterways after completion of the channels now under construction and authorized, total river ton-miles should be in excess of 100 billion annually (which is the figure already reached both on the highways and in the pipelines, and less than one-sixth of the present railway ton-miles). On such a volume of tonnage the savings to the public in lower transportation charges, computed at the rate shown above, would exceed half of a billion dollars annually. "In order to translate these general estimates of total savings from inland waterways into the specific benefits that accrue to a region from the lowering of transportation costs, one must visualize the benefits to farmers of the Missouri and Arkansas Basins which would flow from increasing the value of their grain 5 to 10 cents a bushel through lower transportation charges to market; the benefits to both producers and consumers from moving the coal and other mineral and forest products of the Tennessee, Arkansas, and Missouri River Basins at substantially lower rates, thus increasing their dollar value as raw materials and putting them to economic use where they now are undeveloped. One must consider how industries and industrial population concentrate around navigable water, creating work, income, new traffic for other modes of transport, and wealth for people, bringing farms and markets, producers and consumers closer together, making living conditions better for farmers and industrial workers alike." But perhaps the best evidence, certainly the most impartial, that can be marshaled on this issue is the opinion of the Presidents of the United States. Before reviewing that record, it should be noted that historically waterway improvements have been regarded as only one class of the general category of internal improvements. In our early history, canals, roads and improvements to natural waterways were the principal items. Now, of course, the list is almost endless aids to housing, health and education; reforestation, reclamation, soil conservation, hydroelectric power, flood control-all these and many more are classed as internal improvements. They are federally provided funds, services or facilities, made available under one or a combination of constitutional powers to promote the general welfare or some more specific purpose of national importance. Reference has already been made to the controversy as to the constitutional power of Congress to provide for internal improvements. It ceased to be a political issue after 1860. But Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and certain others questioned the power of Congress in this area and although they will be cited as authority for the diffusion of benefits from such improvements, their negative position on the constitutional issue should be borne in mind. They favored an amendment to the Constitution to permit such expenditures. We shall proceed then to call the roll of the Presidents of the United States on this critical issue: Who are the beneficiaries of internal improvements, specifically waterways: Presidents George Washington.. Thomas Jefferson. James Madison... James Monroe. John Quincy Adams. Zachary Taylor..... Millard Fillmore. James Buchanan.. Abraham Lincoln. Warren Harding..... Calvin Coolidge. Herbert Hoover.. Franklin D. Roosevelt.. Harry S. Truman. Dwight D. Eisenhower. Answers The well being and strength of the Cementing the Union. Public benefit; general prosperity. Public benefit... Treasures for posterity. Distinguishes national and local The general public; national ad- Benefits of many improvements Widespread benefits. The Nation, through cheap trans- Some for general welfare, others of The public and general advantage The public welfare from proper The Nation.. The people, through benefits to The people through adequate low- All the people; the Nation.. Multitude of laborers, small busi- National economy as a whole; in- Source Letter to George Planter, Oct. 25, 6th annual message, Dec. 2, 1806. 1st annual message, Dec. 4, 1849. 1st annual message, Dec. 2, 1850. Veto message, Dec. 30, 1854. Veto message, Feb. 1, 1860. Speech in Congress, June 20, 1848. 5th annual message, Dec. 1, 1873. Message to House of Representatives Aug. 1, 1882. 1st annual message, Dec. 3, 1889. Veto message, May 29, 1896. Special message, Dec. 8, 1908. Address, Kansas City, Mo., June 4th annual message, Dec. 7, 1926; Budget message for fiscal 1947; Message to Rivers and Harbors Those Presidents not named have not, so far as research discloses, said anything on the subject. The views of Abraham Lincoln on the benefits of waterway improvements are set forth at length above. They were an answer to objections raised by President Polk and others of much the same character as those presented by the Hoover Commission. President Polk favored provision of harbor improvements by the States which would finance them through tonnage duties. Thus, said President Polk, the taxes would be levied "upon the commerce of those ports which are to profit by the proposed improvement" and expenditure being in the hands of those who are to pay, "will be more carefully managed * * *" (James K. Polk, veto message, December 15, 1847). Mr. Lincoln, entirely refuting President Polk, established beyond any reasonable doubt the wide diffusion of benefits derived from and the national importance of sound waterway improvements. The views of all but a small group of strict-constructionist Presidents such as Polk and Buchanan are fully in ac cord. In order that the prevailing presidential attitude toward waterway im provement may be better appreciated, certain passages from their official statements are quoted below: (1) George Washington (quoted by President Hoover in Louisville, Ky., address, October 29, 1929): "Prompted by these actual observations, I could not help taking a more contemplative and extensive view of the vast inland navigation of these United States, and could not but be struck with the immense diffusion and importance of it, and with the goodness of that Providence, which has dealt her favors to us with so profuse a hand. Would to God we may have the wisdom to improve them." (2) Thomas Jefferson, sixth annual message, December 2, 1806 (speaking of surplus funds arising from tariffs and attitudes of persons able to buy luxuries affected by tariffs): "Their patriotism would certainly prefer its continuance and application to the great purposes of the public education, roads, rivers, canals, and such other objects of public improvement as it may be thought proper to add to the constitutional enumeration of Federal powers. By these operations new channels of communication will be opened between the States, the lines of separation will disappear, their interests will be identified, and their union cemented by new and indissoluble ties." (3) James Madison, seventh annual message, December 5, 1815: “Among the means of advancing the public interest the occasion is a proper one for recalling the attention of Congress to the great importance of establishing throughout our country the roads and canals which can best be executed under the national authority. No objects within the circle of political economy so richly repay the expense bestowed on them; there are none the utility of which is more universally ascertained and acknowledged; none that do more honor to the governments whose wise and enlarged patriotism duly appreciates them. Nor is there any country which presents a field where nature invites more the art of man to complete her own work for his accomodation and benefit. These considerations are strengthened, moreover, by the political effect of these facilities for intercommunication in bringing and binding more closely together the various parts of our extended confederacy." (4) John Quincy Adams, third annual message, December 4, 1827: "*** the appropriations for the repair and continuation of the Cumberland road, for the construction of various other roads, for the removal of obstructions from the rivers and harbors, for the erection of lighthouses, beacons, piers,and buoys, and for the completion of canals undertaken by individual associations, but needing the assistance of means and resources more comprehensive than individual enterprise can command, may be considered rather as treasures laid up from the contributions of the present age for the benefit of posterity than as unrequited applications of the accruing revenues of the Nation." (5) Andrew Jackson, first annual message, December 8, 1829: “Every member of the Union, in peace and in war, will be benefited by the improvement of inland navigation and the construction of highways in the several States." Second annual message, December 6, 1830: "It is indisputable that whatever gives facility and security to navigation cheapens imports, and all who consume them are alike interested in whatever produces this effect. If they consume, they ought, as they now do, to pay; otherwise they do not pay. The consumer in the most inland State derives the same advantage from every necessary and prudent expenditure for the facility and security of our foreign commerce and navigation that he does who resides in a maritime State. *** "All improvements effected by the funds of the Nation for general use should be open to the enjoyment of all our fellow citizens, exempt from the payment of tolls or any imposition of that character." (6) John Tyler, veto message, June 11, 1844: "It (the Mississippi River) belongs to no particular State or States, but of common right, by express reservation, to all the States. It is reserved as a great common highway for the commerce of the whole country. To have conceded to Louisiana, or to any other State admitted as a new State into the Union, the exclusive jurisdiction, and consequently the right to make improvements and to levy tolls on the segments of the river embraced within its territorial limits, would have been to have disappointed the chief object in the purchase of Louisiana, which was to secure the free use of the Mississippi to all the people of the United States. Whether levies on commerce were made by a foreign or domestic government would have been equally burdensome and objectionable. The United States, therefore, is charged with its improvement for the benefit of all, and the appropriation of governmental means to its improvement becomes indispensabily necessary for the good of all." (7) Millard Fillmore, second annual message, December 2, 1851: "The unobstructed navigation of our large rivers is of equal importance. Our settlements are now extending to the sources of the great rivers which empty into and form a part of the Mississippi, and the value of public lands in those regions would be greatly enhanced by freeing the navigation of those waters from obstructions." (8) Franklin Pierce, veto mesage, December 30, 1854: “At the time of the adoption of the Constitution the vast Valley of the Mississippi, now teeming with population and supplying almost boundless resources, was literally an unexplored wilderness. Our advancement has outsripped even the most sanguine anticipations of the fathers of the Republic, and it illustrates the fact that no rule is admissible which undertakes to discriminate, so far as regards river and harbor improvements, between the Atlantic or Pacific coasts and the great lakes and rivers of the interior regions of North America. Indeed, it is quite erroneous to suppose that any such discrimination has ever existed in the praetice of the Government. To the contrary of which is the significant fact, before stated, that when, after abstaining from all such appropriations for more than 30 years, Congress entered upon the policy of improving the navigation of rivers and harbors, it commenced with the rivers Mississippi and Ohio. "The Congress of the Union, adopting in this respect one of the ideas of that of the Confederation, has taken heed to declare from time to time, as occasion required, either in acts for disposing of the public lands in the Territories or in acts for admitting new States, that all navigable rivers within the same 'shall be deemed to be and remain public highways.'' (9) William Howard Taft, special message, January 14, 1910: "He would be blind, indeed, who did not realize that the people of the entire West, and especially those of the Mississippi Valley, have been aroused to the need there is for the improvement of our inland waterways. The Mississippi River, with the Missouri on the one hand and the Ohio on the other, would seem to offer a great natural means of interstate transportation and traffic "But it is certain that enormous quantities of merchandise are transported over the rivers and canals in Germany and France and England, and it is also certain that the existence of such methods of traffic materially affects the rates which the railroads charge, and it is the best regulator of those rates that we have, not even excepting the governmental regulation through the Interstate Commerce Commission. For this reason, I hope that this Congress will take such steps that it may be called the inaugurator of the new system of inland waterways* * *” (10) Calvin Coolidge, first annual address to Congress, December 6, 1923: ***The time has come to resume in a moderate way the opening of our intercoastal waterways; the control of floodwaters of the Mississippi and of the Colorado Rivers; the improvement of the waterways from the Great Lakes toward the Gulf of Mexico; and the development of the great power and navigation project of the St. Lawrence River, for which efforts are now being made to secure the necessary treaty with Canada. These projects cannot all be undertaken at once, but all should have the immediate consideration of the Congress and be adopted as fast as plans can be matured and the necessary funds become available. This is not incompatible with economy, for their nature does not require so much a public expenditure as a capital investment which will be reproductive, as evidenced by the marked increase in revenue from the Panama Canal. Upon these projects depends much future industrial and agricultural progress. They represent the protection of large areas from flood and the addition of a great amount of cheap power and cheap freight by use of navigation, chief of which is the bringing of ocean-going ships to the Great Lakes * * Fourth annual message, December 7, 1926: "The large Federal expenditure in improvement of waterways and highways in all comprise a great s ries of governmental actions in the advancement of the special interest of agriculture." (11) Herbert Hoover, address as Secretary of Commerce at St. Louis, Mo., November 14, 1927: "I am concerned with this improvement (of inland waterways) because it will contribute to the wealth and economie progress of every section of the Union. It will contribute to the unity of the Nation. It is of concern to every one of our millions of farms and homes. "I believe there is general agreement that the cost of transportation is a deduction from the price the farmer receives at the world's markets and besides that the price at which he realizes his surplus in foreign seaboard markets makes the price of his whole product at home, so that the effect of increased transportation rates to these markets is far greater than the bare amount as applied to exports only. "It is an enormous sum when applied to our crops and is one of the contributing causes of the farmers' postwar difficulties. It is not all the farm problem but it is a substantial part. "From all this serious shift in economic currents in its effect on agriculture and upon business we surely have something worthy of our best effort to remedy. And remedy lies as I have said in finding cheaper transportation in bulk products of agriculture and in raw materials. "In any examination of our country for remedy we have naturally turned to a consideration of the magnificent natural waterways which Providence has blessed us with. It is therefore our conception that we should deepen our rivers to permit modern barge trangsportation; deepen the outlet to the Great Lakes to permit oceangoing shipping, and to connect them all together into a definite transportation system. "I believe that the statement often made that by the modernization of the Mississippi and the Great Lakes system of waterways we shall decrease the freight on grain to the world markets by 10 cents a bushel is not far wrong. And by so doing we should increase the price of all grain to the farmer by 10 cents per bushel, and this 10 cents is the profit end of the price. One single year of such increase to our Midwest farmers would more than equal the entire capital outlay which we propose. I doubt if since the days when we transformed transportation from the wagon to the railroad have we seen so positive an opportunity to assist the prosperity of our people. "That a Nation with an annual income of $90 billion (this was in 1927) can undertake to spend a tenth of 1 percent of its national income in such works requires little argument. Upon this point we can do no better than quote the most successful statesman in economy in our national history-President Coolidge who in his message to Congress said in referring to these very projects: 'Expenditure of this character is compatible with economy. It is in the nature of capital investment.' "Another criticsm to which I have given great consideration is that the opening of these great waterways would endanger the stability of our railway system. Taking the country as a whole, the railways must ever bear the major burden of our goods traffic. And there are many classes of goods which will always go by rail even parallel with the waterways. And there is an old saying that is true: 'New transportation facilities create business.' It is well proved by our new highways. "At one time in our history we practically abandoned the highways and waterways for the railways. The invention of the gas engine has restored our highways and multiplied their traffic 10,000 fold. Yet the total volume of passengers and goods on our railways has increased threefold in 25 years; the next quarter of a century promises even a larger addition to our population than the last 25 years. The railways must provide for the major burden of this increase, and I believe most railway operators agree that our railways can well be supplemented in their provision for this increased traffic by fully developed waterways. I have no fear for their prosperity." Address at Louisville, Ky., October 29, 1929, on completion of Ohio River project: "And the new waterways are not competitive but complementary to our great and efficient railways. It is the history of transportation that an increase of facilities and a cheapening of transportation increases the volume of traffic. "It is the river that is permanent; it is one of God's gifts to man, and with each succeeding generation we will advance in our appreciation and our use of it. |