William Peters Hepburn . ts which seemedto him unwise.^^^ While there were somepraiseworthy items in the river and harborbill which he heartily endorsed he did not hesi-tate to voice his opposition to the use of publicmoney for local works. If, in his opinion, thepreponderance of the bill was good he gave ithis vote — but not without first doing his ut-most to eliminate the bad features.^^- When the Civil A¥ar closed the MississippiRiver to the commerce of the Northwest, thetransportation of agricultural products to theAtlantic seaports was handled by the railroads;and never again did New Orle
William Peters Hepburn . ts which seemedto him unwise.^^^ While there were somepraiseworthy items in the river and harborbill which he heartily endorsed he did not hesi-tate to voice his opposition to the use of publicmoney for local works. If, in his opinion, thepreponderance of the bill was good he gave ithis vote — but not without first doing his ut-most to eliminate the bad features.^^- When the Civil A¥ar closed the MississippiRiver to the commerce of the Northwest, thetransportation of agricultural products to theAtlantic seaports was handled by the railroads;and never again did New Orleans regain herplace as the great outlet of the Mississippi Val-ley. It was with that fact in mind that Con-gressman Hepburn approached the question ofappropriating millions of dollars to deepen theMississippi River by means of levees when theriver could be made sufficiently navigable byremoving snags and sand bars at comparativelysmall expense. He pointed out that when therewere volumes of water there that would float. WILLIAM PETKRS HEPBURN PORK BARREL LEGISLATION 109 the navies of the world Southern CongTess-men agitated improvement, but when the peoplefarther north desired to make the stream nav-igable (hiring periods of low water these gentle-men were not interested. Again and again heasserted that he was heartily in favor ofproper appropriations for the improvement ofthe navigation of the Mississippi River, buthe was not in favor of appropriations for theimprovement of the banks of the MississippiRiver and the plantations on either side of it .163 When the annual river and harbor bill camebefore the House in 1885 Hepburn arose to saythat he did not approve of spending enormoussums for the improvement of the MississippiRiver when not one of the distinguished engi-neers that have charge of this work has yet hadthe temerity to say in any official document thattheir plans will result in success. Year afteryear they come to us saying that the wholescheme is experimental in i
Size: 1391px × 1796px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookauthorbriggsjo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookyear1919
