portion to the commercial interest at stake than upon the ocean or the lake, because at the same time they would protect the hardworking and industrious people in the mighty valley against overflows, or because they would reclaim the most productive region on this continent and secure to it an intelligent, vigorous, population to develop its inexhaustible resources and contribute to the strength and glory of our country?

TUESDAY, July 1, 1879.

Mr. GIBSON. I move to suspend the rules and put upon its passage the bill (H. R. No. 2383) to amend an act entitled "An act to provide for the appointment of a Mississippi River Commission, for the improvement of said river from the head of the passes near its mouth to its headwaters."

The bill amends the second section of the act of June 26, 1879, by striking out the words "appointed from the Engineer Corps of the Army" after the word "commissioners" where it occurs the second time in said section; so that it will read:

He (the President) shall designate one of the commissioners to be president of the commission.

Mr. DUNNELL.. I think there ought to be some explanation of this bill.

Mr. GIBSON. I will make the explanation, with the permission of the House.

The bill constituting the commission on the Mississippi River, while providing for the appointment of two civil engineers, one citizen, and three engineers from the Army, limits the choice of the President in the selection of the presidency of the commission to one of the members thereof from the Engineer Corps of the Army. This, in effect, imposes upon the other members of the commission the disability and disqualifies them, or any one of them, no matter what his merit, in the event of a vacancy, from ever becoming the head of this important commission.

This is regarded by the gentlemen thus excluded as an invidious distinction against them. It was the expectation of the friends of the original bill that this feature would be amended before it became a law; but circumstances transpired to prevent it. What justice is there in this disqualification? It is well known that the conditions of the Lower Mississippi River are novel and difficult, and that practical knowledge as well as experience are quite as much demanded as the engineering taught in our Military Academy.

Nay, more than this, eminent engineers, graduates of West Point, but who are no longer in the Army, might feel the exclusion put upon them by this restriction when called upon to serve under those who were once their juniors and subordinates. There is no justice or propriety in this disabling clause in the bill. Every member of this commission should feel and be made to feel that the way is clear for him, is open to him, by energy, by the exhibition of superior character and ability-it may be of genius-to rise to the first and highest place on the commission.

At all events, we should not impose an arbitrary barrier against any one of the members of the commission or upon the discretion of the Executive. It is not necessary or just or proper. I know this will be the sense of this House, nay of the Congress, when the issue is once made. I trust in the mean time the civil engineers of the country and the civilian who may be selected to be members of this commission may be willing for a short period to sacrifice amour propre

and mere personal considerations to that profound sense of duty to the country that should animate every man in the public service There is such a sentiment as genuine patriotism, lifting men above mere placemen and out of mere personal or professional pride. The people of the Mississippi Valley will appreciate and applaud the men who shall dedicate themselves unselfishly to the development of their great interests.

WEDNESDAY, February 5, 1879.

The House having under consideration the bill (H. R. No. 4318) to provide for the organization of the Mississippi River Improvement Commission, and for the correction, permanent location, and deepening of the channel and the improvement of the navigation of said Mississippi River, and the protection of its alluvial landsMr. GIBSON said:

Mr. SPEAKER: I shall not attempt, at this stage of the discussion to do more than to state as briefly and as clearly as I can some of the reasons which should commend the bill reported from the committee on the improvement of the Mississippi River to the favorable consideration of this House, and to utter an emphatic protest against the amendment offered by the gentleman from Illinois, [Mr. SPARKS,] the effect of which would be fatal to every interest concerned. This measure constitutes a board of able military and civil engineers to make and complete a critical survey, and only hydrographical and hydrometrical, but topographical, of the river and its banks, and to take into consideration and test in the light of facts and science all theories that may be presented to them; and finally to report what, in their judgment, is the best plan for its improvement. Only partial surveys have hitherto been made, and every engineer engaged in the work has urged that such a commission should be appointed.

No river in the world presents phenomena so peculiar and extraor dinary. It is not simply a great stream flowing to the sea, but it possesses ceaseless activity, is the architect of the continent, forever carrying on its work of destruction and reconstruction. The ablest investigators hold that it is three former rivers now united in one, that once forming a series of great lakes from the Ohio to the mouth of the Wisconsin, it cut through the chain of the Ozark Mountains and forced its passage to the Gulf of Mexico. At first a clear and bold stream passing over mountain barriers and roaring cataracts, but finally having worn away the rocky strata which formed its bed, opened out into an inland sea, bringing down the body of the hills and mountains to build that vast region which surpasses in extent, in fertility, and productiveness any other portion of our country, or indeed of the habitable globe, not excepting the valley of the Nile. Unlike other rivers it forms its own bed, it makes its own channel, it determines its own course, so that the country through which it flows is inseparably connected with the regimen of the river itself, and any plan for the improvement of its navigation would be faulty and imperfect unless it also embraced the treatment of its banks and the alluvial through which it passes.

But while the phenomena appear discordant and irreconcilable we know from analogy that they are controlled by and are obedient to fixed laws. This commission is established for the purpose of ascertaining these laws. When once fully understood we shall become masters of the forces to which all these phenomena are subordinate, and with this knowledge we shall be able to adopt a plan so comprehensive and satisfactory as to command universal support.

There are two distinct phenomena. At certain seasons of the year

the water subsides, the channel is blocked up by snags and sand-bars, and for a great distance there is only four and a half to eight feet depth. This condition continues not for a few days or a few weeks but for several months during every year, interrupting trade and commerce and making its navigation difficult and perilous; the largest and costliest boats in which great sums are invested and that give employment to thousands of people, are compelled to lie idle; the navigation of the river is almost as effectually closed as if artificial dams were built across its bed. The recent able report of Major Suter shows how serious and numerous these obstacles are.

Then, again, at other seasons the opposite condition prevails. On December 22, 1822, General S. Bernard and J. G. Totten submitted a report, after an examination of the river, to Major-General Macomb, in which they so accurately describe it in high water that I will quote from them:

*

When the floods of the Mississippi have obtained their greatest elevation the whole valley through which it runs is submerged and presents a breadth of water in some places fifty or sixty miles." While the waters of this river are over its banks, the operation of the current being in proportion to its elevation and consequent increase of velocity, the changes which are produced in the bed of the river are great, sudden, and numerous. Then are produced those multiplied turns and elbows which so strikingly characterize this great river, and which increase its channel to the double of what it would have been if the banks could have resisted its current. The corresponding concave parts of these turns are sometimes separated only by a very narrow neck, which being cut through by the waters, as often happens, present a new and navigable channel of perhaps a half mile in length in lieu of the old one of fifteen or twenty miles. The abandoned channel is entirely divided from the river except in floods, and on the west side, especially, becomes a lake.

This view has been confirmed by all subsequent observation and reports. A flood of this river through its alluvial region must not be confounded with its overflow in the highlands, or with a freshet in an upland stream. In both cases it is true property upon the banks is destroyed, crops, live stock, farming utensils, houses, the thrift and earnings of life's struggles, are swept away and the frugal and hardworking people are left in a pitiable and desolate condition; but when the Father of Waters swells into an inland sea fifty or sixty miles wide, covering the whole alluvial region, the bed itself is often changed and its channel and course altered. And in storms or at night there are no sheltering piers, no buoys, no light-houses for the shipping; they cannot be applied to these conditions so as to afford shelter or protection. Great boats propelled by steam are sometimes destroyed and often detained several days by the extraordinary obstacles they encounter; and smaller boats, barges and flatboats, propelled by the current of the river itself, are absolutely at its mercy and are borne sometimes into the forests of the adjacent country and lost or whelmed and destroyed in the furious eddies and surging countercurrents. Navigation in such seasons is perilous, the cost of transportation is thereby increased, and insurance is doubled. It is with these two distinct and different phenomena of the Mississippi River that we are called upon to deal.

First, what can be done to remove the snags and bars that fill its channel in seasons of low water and to secure the necessary depth for the carrying trade of this great outlet.

Secondly, what can be done to improve the navigation in the high stages of the river; to render the channel permanent, and to afford shelter and security to the shipping, and to facilitate trade and commerce. These are plain, practical propositions.

An opinion prevails that when you come to apply the constitutional power to regulate commerce to rivers, all you can do is to deepen their

channels or to overcome obstacles by building canals around them. Thus Congress appropriated ten millions to unite the Wisconsin and the Fox Rivers, and four and one-half millions to build a canal around the Des Moines Rapids-sums sufficient nearly for the improvement of the Lower Mississippi. But it will not do to regard the Mississippi as an ordinary river; it is in fact an inland sea, and its relations to the Constitution are analogous to those of the lakes and sea-coast. The first act passed by the Federal Government under the power to regulate commerce was not to deepen or widen channels-there was plenty of water on the Atlantic sea-board-but it was for the establishment and support of light-houses, beacons, buoys, and public piers, to guide in safety the mariner on his voyage against the dangers of capes, reefs, and shoals, and to point out the best and safest channel; in fact, to indicate the channel. Our coasts have been studded with such aids to navigation and commerce; we have constructed public piers, including harbors for protection where vessels might take shelter in storms. In all these instances it was not to secure deep water, but, in the language of the acts themselves, it was to render navigation " easy and safe."

It is true that when the Constitution was made its framers had in contemplation the Atlantic coast only. A very small portion of our population had passed into the valley of the Mississippi, and none had reached the lakes. There was not a State wholly within the valley; the greater part of it, including the whole of its right bank and all on both banks below the thirty-first parallel, belonged to Spain, who claimed the exclusive right to navigate the river to the south of it, and a right in common with us to the residue. Steam had not then been applied to navigation, but the principles laid down in the Constitution are not confined to particular cases, but are broad, general, and comprehensive. It cannot be held now that we have the power to expend millions upon millions for the benefit of the trade and the commerce on our ocean fronts, lakes, and rivers in the uplands, but have not the power to do anything for the benefit of the people living upon the borders of the Mississippi River because its conditions are different and peculiar.

The tonnage built last year on the Mississippi River and its tributaries was 460 vessels, 68,928 tons; on the lakes 101 vessels, 11,438 tons; and on the Atlantic and Pacific seaboard 697 vessels, 155,133 tons.

The carrying trade upon this great internal artery and its tributaries exceeds our whole foreign trade, and is rapidly increasing, so that within a few years it shall surpass all other avenues of commerce in the country put together. It was acquired by treaty and paid for out of the common treasure of the people of the whole country; it was dedicated, not only by the terms of the treaty but by the conditions of the bills for the admission of the riparian States, to the untaxed and free enjoyment of the people of the country, so that in every sense the Mississippi River is a national highway. The States bordering upon it can exercise no jurisdiction over it. Chief-Justice Taney says, in The propeller Genesee Chief et al. vs. Fitzhugh et al.: In regard to the power to regulate commerce "the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction granted to the Federal Government by the Constitution of the United States is not limited to tide-waters, but extends to all public navigable lakes or rivers where commerce is carried on between different States or with a foreign nation. There were no navigable waters upon which commerce was carried on except tidewater until the valley of the Mississippi was settled and cultivated and steamboats invented."

As to the limitation of maritime jurisdiction by the tide-water in England he says:

This definition in England was a sound and reasonable one, because there was no navigable stream in the country beyond the ebb and flow of the tide.

Whether we consider, therefore, the magnitude of the interest involved, or the political aspects of the question, or the decision of the Supreme Court, it is clear that the power to regulate commerce applies with as full force to the Mississippi River, and to the construction of the proper appliances to give it a permanent channel and deep water, and to afford protection and shelter, " to secure ease and såfety,” in the language of the old acts, and facilities to its trade and commerce, as to the lakes and seaboard. And if it can be shown that levees and dikes and jetties are as essential to accomplish these beneficent purposes as water-gaps and sheltering-piers, why should not the Federal Government undertake their construction?

We have listened in the course of this debate to able and strenuous advocates of the outlet theory. The honorable member from Texas [Mr. REAGAN] insists that it should be examined; the veteran member from Massachusetts, [Mr. BANKS,] who has spoken with a patriotism as broad as his country, also insists that this view should be thoroughly considered. I cordially concur in this opinion. Let the friends of this plan be heard, as I have no doubt they will be with great respect by the commission. Others advocate the plan of making immense reservoirs in the mountainous regions in which the waters shall be confined so as to prevent an excess or a scarcity in the river. This was the favorite plan of the Emperor Napoleon for the treatment of the river Rhone. Others again insist that the best plan is to confine the water to a narrow channel where it is unduly extended and shallow by jetties, where they can be applied, or by levees where they cannot be applied. A jetty is a levee in the popular sense of the word within the bed or channel of the river, while a levee is a jetty on the bank of the stream. This plan rests upon the theory that in sedimentary rivers, in the Mississippi particularly, as the water is confined the velocity and depth is increased and the surface lowered, and that thus two great objects may be accomplished by one and the same method, namely, "ease and safety" to navigation and protection to the industrious people on its banks from the dreaded floods. The amendment of the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. SPARKS] would exclude from the consideration of this commission this theory. It appears to me that if we are to have a commission at all it should be left free and uninstructed; it should be permitted to take into consideration all plans, all theories, and to report to us the one that they may agree upon as the best to accomplish the purpose we have in view.

I have already stated that the conditions of the Mississippi River are novel and difficult, and that no complete survey has ever been made to the satisfaction of the engineers who have been engaged in the examination of that river. Let us, therefore, not hamper the commission about to be appointed by any instructions or views of our own, but afford them every facility in the great work of ascertaining the laws which control the river. We have before us the report of a board of engineers appointed to examine the jetties at one of the passes of the Mississippi River, dated January 20, 1879. This report furnishes ample food for reflection; it declares that the plan of Eads has passed from the field of experiment to a practical success. Upon what is this plan based? It simply runs out two parallel levees or jetties, like sheltering piers, from the mouth of South Pass over the bar into the Gulf, thus compelling the water into a narrower channel, and the result has been that the increased velocity of the current