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Real estate record and builders' guide: [v. 94, no. 2429: Articles]: October 3, 1914

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AND NEW YORK, OCTOBER 3, 1914 iiiiii^^ 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 iil!i|iiiiiliilllliii|i|lililliii!ii!iliiiiii!'i|'iil^ i|''1ll'll!!i!!!"'!!!'!'1'!''?'Sr |;>;:iii;i:tir iliiliiliilliliB 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