Senator George A. Davis, the introducer of the referendum measure in the Senate, and chairman of the Senate Canal Committee, presided over the joint hearings and occasionally indulged in a mild jeu d'esprit, much to the discomfort of the opponents of the measure. His skillfullyframed interrogatories propounded to them exposed the fallacy in their argument which was thus resolved into a reductio ad absurdum. It was evident from the opposition, which appeared openly to the canal referendum measure and from the introduction of counter propositions in the Legislature, such as the concurrent resolution presented by Senator Henry S. Ambler, on January 23d, proposing an amendment to the Constitution by striking out section 8 of article 7, which is the section preventing the sale, lease or other disposal of the State canals,1 and the bill introduced by Senator Merton E. Lewis, on February 19th, authorizing the Governor to appoint a commission to negotiate with and inquire whether the Government of the United States would undertake the construction of a deep waterway from Lake Erie to the Hudson river, and if so, upon what terms such work could be accomplished,2 that the impending contest between the friends and foes of canal improvement was to be the most strenuous ever witnessed in the State. In reply to the editorial of Hon. John I. Platt in the Poughkeepsie Daily Eagle, which urged upon members of the Legislature the passage of the Ambler resolution, I made the following answer: "I cannot subscribe to the editorial in the Daily Eagle in relation to Senator Ambler's proposed amendment in favor of the abolition of Section 8 of Article 7 of the Constitution, and very few have ventured the suggestion that permission be given for the sale of the canal properties of the State. It is generally conceded that the canal system of the State has promoted its commercial interests to that extent which has very largely made it the greatest commercial state in the Union, and blind must be the man to history, who does not recognize the transcendant importance of the canal system to the commercial supremacy of the State. Therefore highly as I 1. N. Y. State Journal, 1903, p. 56. 2. Ib., p. 223. esteem the Daily Eagle, I am compelled to dissent from its position in this matter and to oppose the passage of the Ambler resolution and this I do in view of what the canals have achieved in promoting the commercial interests of the State of New York." XXIV. A LONG FIGHT-THE WHOLE STATE AROUSED. In order to prepare for this contest, meetings were held in various parts of the State to formulate resolutions and appoint committees to aid in the passage of the referendum measure. On February 19th, the New York Chamber of Commerce convened for the purpose of considering the subject. The meeting was attended by such well-known men as Hon. A. B. Hepburn, who was a member of the Legislature when tolls were removed from the canals, and by exMayor Schieren, Morris K. Jesup, Stephen W. Cary, Gustav H. Schwab and William F. King. At this meeting resolutions were adopted favoring the pending legislation. On February 20th, the new Canal Committee of the Merchants' Exchange of Buffalo convened and was presided over by Alfred Haines. This meeting was addressed by Theodore S. Fassett, Leonard Dodge, president of the Merchants' Exchange, Arthur W. Hickman, and others. The committee organized by electing Hon. George Clinton its permanent chairman; Theodore S. Fassett its vice-chairman, and George H. Raymond and Howard J. Smith its secretary and assistant secretary. This committee consisted of fifty men and included in its membership such well-known canal men as C. Lee Abel, W. H. Andrews, Leslie J. Bennett, Henry W. Brendel, Warren C. Browne, William E. Carroll, Frank L. Danforth, Henry Erb, T. S. Fassett, F. C. Ferguson, Gordon W. Hall, Alfred Haines, A. I. Halloway, Charles M. Helmer, L. M. Hewett, Arthur W. Hickman, Theo. Hofeller, Hon. John Laughlin, George W. Maltby, Hon. E. R. O'Malley, G. H. Raymond, John Roehrer, James M. Rozan, Edward C. Shafer, Howard J. Smith, L. Porter Smith, M. E. Taber, Frank Weaver and R. A. Eaton. The standing canal committee, or the Committee on Canals and Harbors in 1903, consisted of the following well known canal advocates: J. J. H. Brown, W. E. Carroll, Marcus M. Drake, Edwin T. Evans, Harris Fosbinder, Robert R. Hefford, and George A. Ricker. In addition to these gentlemen many other Buffalonians have served in an official and unofficial capacity in all canal controversies and have devoted much time and consideration to this and other transportation questions affecting the commercial development of Buffalo. The annual reports of the Merchants' Exchange and latterly of the Chamber of Commerce of Buffalo, will show that a diversity of interests were represented on the standing committees of that organization who have had some part in the building up of the Queen City of the Lakes. The special committees designated to represent Buffalo at the canal hearings on the referendum measure fully realized the magnitude of the questions involved and the supreme importance to Buffalo's commercial future that those questions be solved favorably to its interests. During the hearings on the bill and on February 9, 1903, Assemblyman James T. Rogers, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee of the Assembly, offered a resolution in the Assembly in substance calling upon the State Engineer and Surveyor to furnish that body detailed information in regard to the cost of the barge canal, including bridges, dams, damages to property, storage reservoirs, and increased cost of material and labor. That resolution passed the Assembly on the following day. After a second hearing on the referendum measure, pending the information sought by the Rogers resolution, little could be done other than to perfect local organizations throughout the State and solidify canal sentiment preparatory to such action as might be found necessary on the incoming of the report of the State Engineer and Surveyor in relation to the increased cost of the barge canal project. We have already seen what counter-propositions had been suggested to the barge canal measure and the desperate tactics resorted to by anti-canal forces within and without the Legislature. I. N. Y. Assembly Journal, 1903, p. 217. Canal advocates realized that it behooved them, in the language of Ben Jonson: "For their own sakes to do things worthily." It was broadly asserted by the Binghamton Republican that "It is a fact easily demonstrated that the canals do not control railroad freight rates and they cannot compete with the railroads." The New York Sun, the Newburgh News, and some of the Rochester papers shared in this view. The Engineering News called attention to the fact that in 1895 a commission was appointed by the United States Government, consisting of President James B. Angell of Michigan University, Lyman E. Cooley of Illinois, and John E. Russell of Massachusetts, to make an investigation of the project for a ship canal from the Great Lakes to the seaboard. It made its report in 1897, an appropriation was made to make surveys and the President appointed for that purpose Major Charles W. Raymond of the U. S. Engineers, Alfred Noble and George Y. Wisner. The surveys were completed in 1900. The route is described in the Engineering News as follows: "This route, beginning at Buffalo, follows down the Niagara river to La Salle, 15 miles. Here the canal proper begins and continues for about ten miles to the Niagara escarpment, which is descended by a series of locks to the lower level of the Niagara river below the gorge. There are nine locks in all between the level of Lake Erie and that of Lake Ontario, the difference of elevation being 320 feet. Leaving the lowest lock of the series, a vessel would enter the lower Niagara river which is deep enough and wide enough for any ship afloat, and it follows down the river-which is really an arm of Lake Ontario-till it debouches into the lake six miles below. Thence the vessel proceeds through Lake Ontario to Oswego, distant about one hundred miles from the mouth of the Niagara river. From Oswego the route is up the valley of the Oswego river, partly in an excavated channel, to the village of Fulton, where it turns up the valley of a small creek and continues across sand ridges to Oneida lake. The total distance from Lake Ontario to Lake Oneida is about 26 miles. The vessel then passes through Lake Oneida, a distance of about 21 miles, and then enters the longest section of excavated canal encountered, that from Lake Oneida to the Mohawk river at Herkimer, a distance of 43 miles. From Herkimer to near Rotterdam Junction, 55 miles, the Mohawk river is to be used, being converted by dams and locks into a system of slack water navigation. Over a large part of this distance the vessel will be in a channel of such depths and width that she can make as good time as on the open lake. At Rotterdam Junction the route leaves the Mohawk and passes through South Schenectady to the head of a small stream known as Norman's Kill. It follows the valley of this stream to the Hudson. Below this point about four million dollars will have to be spent on the Hudson river from the mouth of Norman's Kill to Hudson city to secure a 21-foot channel."1 The Ontario route was the original route traversed by the Indian and early traders, and was recommended in the report by Albert Gallatin and by the Surveyor-general, on the survey of James Geddes, as early as 1808.2 Ever since that time, it has been favored by some engineers and among them, in these later years, by George W. Rafter, member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, who preferred the Oneida-Mohawk route to the St. Lawrence-Champlain route, and by William Pierson Judson, member of the American Society of Civil Engineers and Deputy State Engineer, who prepared for the State Engineer and Surveyor a sketch of early projects, extending from the Great Lakes to tidewater. The Canal Commissioners in 1811, to avoid the diversion of our commerce to the St. Lawrence route and the building up of the commerce of Montreal to the loss of that of the port of New York, recommended the interior route for a canal to Lake Erie. The perils which canal craft were unable to withstand on storm-swept Lake Ontario, involving insurance problems, operated in favor of the interior route, which has been maintained ever since. In advocacy of the Ontario route Mr. Judson, in an official report made to the State Engineer and Surveyor, Hon. Edward A. Bond, said: I. Quoted by Rochester Post-Express, Feb. 28, 1903. 3. See report of Committee on Canals for 1900, p. 448. 4. 5. See Bond's Barge Canal Report of 1901, p. 968. |