Excerpt from Joint Debate on the St. Lawrence River Ship Channel

I am not going, in the time that I have, to burden you with a mass Of statistics. Any of you who are deeply interested in this and wish to form your own conclusions can secure all Of this data. It is printed in the report Of the International Joint Commission, which you may Obtain. It is printed in other public documents which you may Obtain, and we Of the Great lakes-st. Lawrence Tidewater Association will gladly facilitate your desire for anything of that sort.

We have two sets Of arguments to meet, and I shall not deal with them in detail. The opponents are represented by New York, and it is mighty fine that we have Governor Miller with us today to present their Opposition, but, after reading him for many hours, the conclusion that I arrived at is that their opposition is in two forms. One is that it can't be done. It does not matter what these reports are; what the arguments are in its support. It does not matter what the engineering investigation may have been nor the conclusions thereon, but we Of New York State say it cannot be done. It is not feasible. It is im possible.

The second division Of the opposition lies in the claim that, if it is done, the great traffic of the interior Of the continent will flow out by the water route, and New York port, New York harbor, New York City and New York State will suffer. I hope I am too good an Ameri can to desire, or that any of you would desire, the adoption of any policy that would be destructive Of the interests of the Empire State. I think it is almost childish to imagine that any such result would follow. And in that second argument New York makes the statement that it will cost several hundred millions of dollars. The Joint Com mission says to be divided between the two countries, Canada and the United States.

And then recently through the public press, whatever the sources may have been we do not know, the suggestion has been made to the people Of the Mississippi Valley - and I had the honor Of being for two years the president of the Mississippi Valley Association-that this development would not be in their interest, because forsooth it would require enormous sums out Of the Treasury Of the United States Government in order that this project Of the Great lakes-st. Law rence might be carried through, and to that extent the necessarydevelopment of the Mississippi Valley and the Mississippi River and its tributaries would be damaged, put Off, postponed.

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