In a letter sent out to representatives of the commercial bodies of the State in September, 1888, by the Hon. George Clinton, president of the Union for the Improvement of the Canals, and the Hon. Orlando B. Potter, chairman of the Executive Committee, it is stated that: "In our State Legislature the proposition has been strenuously opposed by sections of the State lying away from the line of the canal, on the plea that they are to be taxed without benefit to themselves and for the good of the western producer and manufacturer. Up to the present time, we have been successful and in three years appropriations for this object [improvements of locks and deepening of channel] have been made amounting in the aggregate to $1,340,000."

The success attending the enlargement of lock 50 at the eastern end of the Jordan level was such that locks 47, 48, 49, 51 and 52 were recommended by the engineer in his report in 1885 for similar enlargement, and therefore in 1887 appropriations for increasing the size of locks 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 44, 45 and 46; and also 53, 54, 55, 56, 60, 61, 62 and 72, were recommended for enlargement. All these were completed before the opening of navigation in the year 1888 except lock 46, which was not completed owing to litigation with the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad Company.

An appropriation of $200,000 was made in 1888 for lengthening the remaining locks of the Erie canal, and locks 27, 28, 29, 30, 63, 64 were designated for enlargement, the appropriation being insufficient, however, to enlarge lock 26. The increased size of the locks necessitated an additional water supply and it was proposed to build storage reservoirs in the Adirondacks, at an estimated expense of $60,000 for that purpose.

The tonnage on the canals was still large, and in the year 1889 aggregated 5,370,363 tons.

In 1889 an additional sum of $10,144.61 was appropriated to complete the lock improvements on the Erie canal. The Superintendent of Public Works was authorized to expend certain money in his hands for deepening and cleaning

out the canal which had been authorized the previous year, to a uniform depth of seven feet.

At the close of navigation in 1889, 27 locks had been lengthened and seven were in process of enlargement, thereby enabling two canal boats without uncoupling to navigate 314 miles of the canal. In 1889 nearly one-third of the entire Erie canal had been "bottomed out" under the direction of the Superintendent of Public Works. The enlarged locks required an increase in the amount of water necessary for lockages, which occasioned some anxiety with reference to the long, high levels of the canals. The fleets of two or three boats necessitated additional power, and it was found advantageous to employ triple teams in drawing them and that necessitated a widening of the tow-path to 18 feet at a further expense to the State.

In the literature relating to canal affairs appears a letter under date of February 29, 1888, from ex-Senator Roscoe Conkling, in which he says:

"I believe in the maintenance, enlargement and freedom of this great artery of commerce for reasons too many to be stated in a brief letter. . . . Not only as a feeder, but as a regulator and safeguard the canal is so needful that the day will be ill-starred when the people or legislature shall turn deaf ears or blind eyes to whatever honest demands it makes on the State or its revenues."

This well illustrates the intelligent sentiment of the foremost citizens of the State in regard to its artificial waterways, and was potential enough to impress the Legislature with the necessity of making appropriations from year to year for the enlargement of the locks and the "bottoming out" of the prism.

Thirty-eight locks on the Erie were lengthened prior to 1892, covering a distance of 323 miles. In 1891 an Assembly committee of seven was appointed to investigate "the management of canal affairs for the preceding eleven years."

That committee made its report on February 24, 1892, in which it found that "not a dollar had been unnecessarily appropriated or otherwise than carefully expended."

I. See Assembly Doc. No. 57, 1892.

In a speech by the Hon. Chauncey M. Depew, president of the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad Company, reported in the Elmira Advertiser on October 24, 1891, he is quoted as saying:

"The canals compete with the roads with which I am connected at every point. That is true. The canals compel very low rates of transportation, lower than on any other railroad in the world. This is true. But the canals in their connection with the Great Lakes, these inland seas of our country, compel the commerce which floats upon those seas to find the port of Buffalo in the hope of getting through the canal to the seaboard. The surplus which the canal cannot carry comes to the railroads, and the prosperity which the canal and the lakes give to the State of New York in the promotion of their business comes in turn to the railway."

In 1891 a bill formulated by the Union for the Improvement of the Canals was introduced, calling for an appropriation of $500,000 for lengthening the canal locks and deepening the canals in furtherance of a policy which had prevailed for several years of making annual appropriations for continuing the work of lock enlargement and canal improvement.

When the bill was under consideration in the Senate, Senator John Laughlin of Buffalo made a carefully prepared speech on the subject, in the course of which he said:

"Mr. Chairman, I wish to say that in view of the fact that the State holds in sacred trust all these surplus revenues of the Erie canal, and it is for the Erie canal that I plead upon this floor, that the State, which holds these millions upon millions of dollars in excess of all that the canal has cost it to this very hour at which I speak, shall hereafter pursue a more liberal policy toward that canal, shall expand it, enlarge it, improve it and do everything that can add to its capacity to receive and transport through our borders the majority, the great bulk of the commerce of the country. It stands ready for us if we will only open our arms and receive it. No transportation known to civilization is as cheap as that by water, and if we will keep this canal open and free and unobstructed, and of sufficient capacity to receive and transport the commerce which will come to us by water from the West, we will continue the supremacy of this State as it has acquired and held it since the canals were built."

The bill passed the Senate, but failed to pass the Assembly.

Senator John Laughlin during his career in the Senate from 1888 to 1891, and thereafter, was one of the ablest canal advocates in the State. He was preceded in the Senate by the Hon. Daniel H. McMillan, an astute lawyer, who, on various occasions, was equally strong and forceful in his advocacy of canal measures.

In the Senate and Assembly Journals from 1870 to 1900, the critical period of our canal history, may be found the record of canal advocates from various parts of the State, and notably the records of such senators from Erie county as Loran L. Lewis, John Ganson, Albert P. Laning, Sherman S. Rogers, E. Carleton Sprague, James H. Loomis, Dr. Ray V. Pierce, Benjamin H. Williams, Robert C. Titus, Daniel H. McMillan, John Laughlin, Mathias Endres, Chas. Lamy, Henry H. Persons, Simon Seibert, George A. Davis, William F. Mackey and Samuel J. Ramsperger and others; and such Assemblymen from Erie county as Edward Gallagher, Charles F. Tabor, Charles A. Orr, David F. Day, Harvey J. Hurd, Henry F. Allen, James Ash, James A. Roberts, Arthur W. Hickman, George Clinton, William M. Hawkins, William F. Sheehan, Henry H. Guenther, Edward K. Emery, Le Roy Andrus, Myron H. Clark, Cornelius Coughlin, J. L. Whittet, Philip Gerst, John K. Patton and others.

These, or nearly all of these, were sentinels to watch and defend from hostile attack the canal policy of the State as expressed in memorials, petitions and legislative enactments. And in their advocacy of various canal measures that were presented from time to time involving many and divers questions in engineering, finance and economics, they voiced the intelligent sentiment of the people of the State in relation to its commercial policy and rendered public service of a high order.

New York and several other counties during this critical period were represented by senators and assemblymen fully alive to the commercial interests of the State and able and aggressive in the advocacy of all canal measures. United

States senators and members of Congress from the State of New York, although unable to secure Federal appropriations, were nevertheless in accord with the predominant sentiment of the great commercial cities of the State, whose interests largely depended upon the cheap transportation afforded by the artificial and natural waterways of the State.

Judging from my own five years' experience in the Assembly and eight years' experience in the Senate, with a score or more of important canal statutory and constitutional measures, I can appreciate something of the demands made upon the members of the Senate and Assembly during the critical period of canal history and the efforts they were required to put forth to carry successfully through the Legislature canal measures against the well-nigh solid opposition of the rural counties of the State and railroads. Their work was not for the immediate benefit of individuals, or of a temporal character, but for the public good and farreaching in its scope, and, therefore, it was such as not to provoke popular applause. Its effect, however, on future generations will be enduring.

XVIII. SOME CONVENTIONS-THE CANALS AND THE CONSTITUTION.

To recur again to the narrative, it will be remembered that an important canal convention was called in the fall of 1892 by the Union for the Improvement of the Canals of the State, of which the Hon. George Clinton of Buffalo was then president, Orlando B. Potter of New York chairman of the executive committee, and Robert H. Cook of Whitehall, treasurer; Frank S. Gardner of New York and Arthur W. Hickman of Buffalo, secretaries.

In their formal call issued on that occasion is set forth the problems then confronting the people of the State and especially its commercial interests, requiring important consideration. It was stated that railway freight rates had been materially reduced by reason of the competitive influence of canal rates, but that as soon as the canals were closed rail rates advanced and in some instances doubled. Special