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AND
NEW YORK, OCTOBER 3, 1914
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HARBOR IMPROVEMENTS ADVOCATED
Seventh Annual Waterways Convention Held and Tour of
Empire State Made—State and City Officials Enlisted in Cause
By WILLARD REED MESSENGER
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MAYOR MITCHEL, of New York,
visited the army of delegates at¬
tending fhe Seventh Annual Convention
of the Atlantic Deeper Waterways As¬
sociation at their headquarters in the
Hotel Majestic on Tuesday of last week
and opened the battle for river and har¬
bor improvements. He fired some pretty
big guns and sounded the keynote ot
the convention, a vigorous protest
against delay or abandonment of water¬
way improvements. Throughout the
convention (which on Wednesday was
continued aboard the steamboat Berk¬
shire, accommodating;-eight hundred pas¬
sengers, which, after an inspection of
New York Harbor, proceeded up the
Hudson on a three-day trip to Albany
and Troy, stopping at eight cities) there
were no kid gloves or velvet lining used
regarding the statement of facts or de¬
mands for waterway improvements.
Governors, Mayors and Congressmen
forsook oratory and generalities, aban¬
doned formal requests and appeals and
emphatically uttered the demand of the
people of the Atlantic Seal:)oard, New
York and the Hudson Valley for their
just and fair share of Federal appropri¬
ations for river and harbor improve¬
ments. Mayor Mitchel delighted the
hundreds of already enthusiastic dele¬
gates assembled from Maine to Florida,
when he declared that the European war
was a reason for hastening Atlantic
WILLARD REED MESSENGER.
had been provided in the River and Har¬
bor bill, but which was being filibustered
in the United States Senate, and which
action was denounced throughoi!t the
Convention.
Mayor Mitchel declared that if the
River and Harbor appropriation was to
if the Federal appropriation was held
up. He pointed out also that the strat¬
egic naval advantage of the East River
Improvement was important, as it would
permit naval vessels in case of necessity
to enter or leave New York Harbor by
way of Long Island Sound.
The New York delegates also added a
new argument in favor of the intra-
coastal canal trom Maine to Florida and
the Gulf based upon the proposed es¬
tablishment of a free port in New York
Harbor, declaring that a free port would
increase the importance of New York,
both as a manufacturing and distributing
centre, and that the intra-coastal canal
would be of great advantage in this new
commerce which a free port, as now
proposed, would develop.
J. Hampton Moore,' President of the
Atlantic Deeper Waterways Association,
in his address at Albany said that $63,-
000,000 had been expended by the Fed¬
eral Government on the Ohio River,
while only $5,000 had been spent on the
Arthur Kills between New Jersey and
Staten Island, and only $5,000 on the
Hudson River under the same provision;
and the walls of the beautiful auditorium
in the State Educational Building, con¬
sidered the finest in the world, echoed
the cheers of approval, when he declared
that the people of New York State
should no longer tolerate such self-evi¬
dent injustice.
Governor Glvnn made his words of
CONVENTION OF THE ATLANTIC DEEP WATERWAYS ASSOCIATION ON THE STEPS OF THE CAPITOL AT ALBANY.
seaboard improvements rather than an
excuse for delay, and confided to the
delegates that he had that day written
President Wilson earnestly urging that
the policy of economy and retrench¬
ment should not be permitted to delay
the important improvements in the East
River, for which thirteen million dollars
be lessened at all that it should be re¬
duced proportionately for all localities,
but that the proposed East River im¬
provements should not be entirely de¬
layed. He also pointed out the danger
and difficulty of blasting in the East
River after the new subway tunnel was
in operation, which would be necessary
welcome cordial but brief, and almost at
once began to fire out facts about water¬
ways. He showed that the Federal Gov¬
ernment spent a total of only five mil¬
lion dollars on the Hudson River, while
the State of New York had expended
more than $200,000,000 on the Erie Ca¬
nal, or about one-third as much as the