Address at Louisville, Kentucky, Celebrating the Completion of the Ohio River Improvement Project.

To my fellow citizens:

I am speaking tonight from the deck of the steamboat at the Louisville Levee. During the day we have completed the journey from Cincinnati to Louisville as part of the celebration of the Ohio Valley [p.347] upon the completion of the improvement of the Ohio River into a modern waterway.

The river has now been formally opened to traffic from above Pittsburgh, 1,000 miles to Cairo, on the Mississippi, from which point another 1,000 miles of modernized waterway leads to the sea at New Orleans. By dams and locks, by dredging and revetments, we have transformed the Ohio River from a stream of shallows, ofttimes dangerous even to rafts, into a canalized waterway of an assured 9 feet of depth at all seasons. This transformation will not revive the romantic steamboatin' days of Mark Twain, but it will move more goods.

The picturesque floating palaces of Mark Twain's day drew 2 or 3 feet of water and even then found their way precariously around the bends among the snags and over sandbars. In time they were unable to compete with the spreading railroads, and river navigation passed into its Dark Ages. But now is its day of renaissance. Upon deep and regular channels unromantic diesel tugs now tow long trains of steel barges. What the river has lost in romance it has gained in tonnage, for in steamboatin' days 500 tons was a great cargo, while today 10,000 tons is moved with less men and less fuel. It is thus by deeper channels and new inventions that our rivers come back as great arteries of commerce after half a century of paralysis. 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 increase the volume of traffic.

In the steamboatin' days the rivers were the great arteries for travel. Those who must hurry will have little inclination to journey by river steamers, but those who wish recreation may well return to this magnificent and powerful river. The majesty of the Ohio was born of the Ice Age, half a million years ago. Its beauty remains today undisturbed by our improvements, and will remain long after our Nation and race have been replaced with some other civilization. And those who love the glories of "Ole Man River" may now again find rest and food for the soul in travel on its currents.

The Ohio has a large place in the history of our race. On this route [p.348] 250 years ago birch canoes carried La Salle and his first party of white men into the wilderness of the Middle West. He was the first to visit the falls of Louisville, whose roar is this moment in my ears. Down this valley through succeeding centuries poured the great human tide that pioneered the greatest agricultural migration in history. In turn came the explorer, the trapper, the early settler, the sweep of farmers ever pressing back the frontier in search of virgin land and independent homes, the merchant, the manufacturer, the city builder, until this great valley is today one of the rich places of the earth. It is rich not alone in the sense of property but in the sense of happy and independent homes of virile men and women. From forefathers schooled of courage, adventure, and independence, of a spirit tempered by hardships, has sprung a race of men and women who have oft given leadership to the building of our Republic.

The improvement of this great water route has been ever present in the vision of our statesmen. George Washington first voiced its potentiality to our new-born Nation. In reporting on one of his early journeys he said:

"Prompted by these actual observations, I could not help taking a more extensive view of the vast inland navigation possibilities of the United States, both from maps and the observations of others as well as myself, and could not but be struck with the immense extent and importance of it and with the goodness of that Providence which has dealt its forces to us in so profuse a hand. Would to God that we may have the wisdom and courage to improve them."

Today, after this 160 years, Washington's prayer is come true in a greater sense than ever he dreamed. Other Presidents in succession over our history have striven for its development, from Jefferson on down. Lincoln's first political speech was a plea for its improvement. Our Nation sometimes moves slowly, but its will is not to be thwarted. It has been a gigantic task, this transformation of the Ohio. It represents an expenditure and a labor half as great as the construction of the Panama Canal. Like many current problems, the development of our rivers is never a finished accomplishment, it must march with the progress of life and invention.

While I am proud to be the President who witnesses the apparent completion of its improvement, I have the belief that some day new inventions and new pressures of population will require its further development. In some generation to come they will perhaps look back at our triumph in building a channel 9 feet in depth in the same way that we look at the triumph of our forefathers when, having cleared the snags and bars, they announced that a boat drawing 2 feet of water could pass safely from Pittsburgh to New Orleans. Yet for their times and means they too accomplished a great task. 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. And with each generation it will grow in the history and tradition of our Nation.

And while we celebrate the completion and connection of a great waterway 2,000 miles, from Pittsburgh to New Orleans, we have still unfinished tasks in improvement of our other great waterways up to the standards we have established upon the Ohio.

Some have doubted the wisdom of these improvements. I have discussed the subject many times and in many places before now, and I shall not repeat the masses of facts and figures. The American people, I believe, are convinced. What they desire is action, not argument. I may, however, mention that as the improvement of the Ohio and its tributaries has marched section by section during this past 12 years the traffic has grown from 25 million tons to over 50 million tons annually. Yet it is only today this great branch line is connected with the main trunk of this transportation system, the Mississippi. It is only now that the full movement of goods can take place between the great cities of Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville, on one hand, and St. Louis, Memphis, New Orleans, and the wide ocean on the other.

PLANS FOR IMPROVEMENT OF OTHER WATERWAYS

With the completion of our national job on the Ohio, with the celebration of this day, we can well turn our minds toward the other great jobs in waterway improvement which lie before us. The Ohio [p.350] is but one segment of the natural inland waterways with which Providence has blessed us. We have completed the modernization of but one other of the great segments of this system--that of the lower Mississippi.

Five or six years ago I had opportunity to join with those many representatives of the Midwest in council as to the method by which we could strengthen national interest in the energetic development of the other parts of this great system. At that time I suggested that all these tributaries of the Mississippi and the Great Lakes comprised a single great transportation system. That it must be developed in vision of the whole and not in parts.

Without delaying to traverse the detailed ramifications of these great natural waterways, I may well summarize their present condition and enunciate the policies of my administration in respect to them:

1. As a general and broad policy I favor modernizing of every part of our waterways which will show economic justification in aid of our farmers and industries.

2. The Mississippi system comprises over 9,000 miles of navigable streams. I find that about 2,200 miles have now been modernized to 9 feet in depth, and about 1,400 miles have been modernized to at least 6 feet in depth. Therefore, some 5,000 miles are yet to be connected or completed so as to be of purpose to modern commerce. We should establish a 9-foot depth in the trunk system. While it is desirable that some of the tributaries be made accessible to traffic at 6 or 7 feet, yet we should in the long view look forward to increasing this latter depth as fast as traffic justifies it.

This administration will insist upon building these waterways as we would build any other transportation system--that is, by extending its ramifications solidly outward from the main trunk lines. Substantial traffic or public service can not be developed upon a patchwork of disconnected local improvement and intermediate segments. Such patchwork has in past years been the sink of hundreds of millions of public money.

3. We must design our policies so as to establish private enterprise in substitution for Government operation of the barges and craft upon [p.351] these waterways. We must continue Government bargelines through the pioneering stages, but we must look forward to private initiative not only as the cheapest method of operation but as the only way to assured and adequate public service.

4. We should complete the entire Mississippi system within the next 5 years. We shall then have built a great north and south trunk waterway entirely across our country from the gulf to the northern boundaries, and a great east and west route, halfway across the United States. Through the tributaries we shall have created a network of transportation. We shall then have brought a dozen great cities into direct communication by water; we shall have opened cheaper transportation of primary goods to the farmers and manufacturers of over a score of States.

5. At the present time we have completed 746 miles of intracoastal canals. We still have approximately 1,000 miles to build. We should complete this program over a period of less than 10 years.

6. We should continue improvement of the channels in the Great Lakes; we should determine and construct those works necessary for stabilizing the lake levels.

7. One of the most vital improvements to transportation on the North American Continent is the removal of the obstacles in the St. Lawrence River to oceangoing vessels inward to the Great Lakes. Our Nation should undertake to do its part whenever our Canadian friends have overcome those difficulties which lie in the path of their making similar undertakings. I may say that I have seen a statement published lately that this improvement would cost such a huge sum as to make it entirely uneconomical and prohibitive. To that I may answer that after we have disposed of the electrical power we could contract the entire construction for less than $200 million divided between the two Governments and spread over a period of 10 years.

8. We shall expedite the work of flood control on the lower Mississippi in every manner possible. In the working out of plans we find it necessary to reconsider one portion of the project, that is, the floodway below the Arkansas, but work in other directions will proceed in such [p.352] fashion that there will be no delay of its completion under the 10-year program assigned to it.

9. With the increasing size of oceangoing vessels and the constantly expanding volume of our commerce, we must maintain unceasing development of our harbors and the littoral waterways which extend inland from them.

10. The total construction of these works which I have mentioned amounts to projects three and four times as great as the Panama Canal. In order that there may be no failure in administration, and as an indication of our determination to pursue these works with resolution, we have in the past month entirely recast the organization of this executive staff in the Government. With the approval of the Secretary of War, and under the newly appointed Chief of Engineers, we have assigned to each of these major projects a single responsible engineer. We thus secure a modern business organization, direct responsibility, and continuous administration. We wish to see these projects completed with all the expedition which sound engineering will permit. We shall be able by this means to place responsibility, without question in failure, and to give credit without question to the men who bring these great projects to successful completion.

At the present time we are expending approximately $85 million per annum on new construction and maintenance of these works. To complete these programs within the periods I have mentioned will require an increase in the Government outlay by about $10 million per annum not including the St. Lawrence; at most, including that item, an increase in our expenditures of say $20 million a year. A considerable proportion of this will end in 5 years' time. It is of the nature of a capital investment.

This annual increase is equal to the cost of one-half of one battleship. If we are so fortunate as to save this annual outlay on naval construction as the result of the forthcoming naval conference in London, nothing could be a finer or more vivid conversion of swords to plowshares.

To carry forward all these great works is not a dream of the [p.353] visionaries--it is the march of the Nation. We are reopening the great trade routes upon which our continent developed. This development is but an interpretation of the needs and pressures of population, of industry, and civilization. They are threads in that invisible web which knits our national life. They are not local in their benefits. They are universal in promoting the prosperity of the Nation. It is our duty as statesmen to respond to these needs, to direct them with intelligence, with skill, with economy, with courage.

A nation makes no loss by devotion of some of its current income to the improvement of its estate. That is an obligation we owe to our children and our grandchildren. I do not measure the future of America in terms of our lifetime. God has truly blessed us with great resources. It is our duty to make them available to our people.