Thomas Ewing Dabney

“ The Navigation Canal is essentially a harbor improvement. It enables practically unlimited industrial development and commercial interchange. It is an important link in the Intracoastal Canal system which the government is developing to provide an inland waterway from Boston, Mass. to Brownsville, Tex., and, with the dredging of a channel through Lake Pontchartrain to the Gulf, a problem which U.S. engineers have been studying for some time and an undertaking which they have found feasible, it will put the nation's second port about fifty miles closer to the sea. ”

“ The floating of the bond issue is a simple matter, if you men think we ought to do it; but where is the money for meeting the interest to come from? The $600,000 interest on bonds now outstanding is being paid, $550,000 by the Levee Board, and $50,000 by the Public Belt Railroad. The Public Belt's share is paid from its earnings; but the Levee Board's share is being paid by direct taxation on the citizens of New Orleans. Must we increase that tax? I personally won't object to any taxation as a citizen to pay my part towards financing the Canal. ”

“ There were a few houses helter-skeltered about, like blocks in a nursery, but the principal signs of human life were the cows that grazed where the grazing was good, and sought refuge from the noonday beams of the sun under the occasional oaks that had strayed out into the open and didn't know how to get back. ”

“ Ninety per cent of the nation's wealth is produced in the Valley, of which New Orleans is the maritime capital. It is the source of supply of wheat, corn, sugar, lumber, meat, iron, coal, cotton oil, agricultural implements, and many other products. It is a market for the products of Latin-America and the Orient.
With the co-ordination of river, rail and maritime facilities, and sufficient space for development, it is inevitable that New Orleans should become a mighty manufacturing district. ”

“ With the Industrial Canal open, sites available on long leases to business enterprise, and with our tax laws relating to the processes of industry and commerce revised and made more favorable, New Orleans will enter a period of expansion and development on a scale hardly yet dreamed of by her most far-visioned citizens, with enlarged profit and opportunity for all her people. ”

“ New Orleans is the principal fresh water-ocean harbor in the United States. Landlocked and protected from storms, it is the safest harbor on the Gulf Coast. Almost unlimited is the number of vessels that can be accommodated at anchor. Alongside the wharves the water is from thirty to seventy feet deep. The government maintains a 33-foot channel at the mouth of the river.
The "port of New Orleans" takes in about 21 miles of this harbor on both sides of the river. This gives a river frontage of 41.4 miles, which is under the jurisdiction of the Dock Board, an agency of the state. ”

“ If the Dock Board were to stop the work, it would forever kill its credit for any other bond issue that might be proposed for wharf development, new warehouses, or anything else.
"The cost of the canal is a surprise to everybody. I was present when the cost was originally estimated at $3,500,000 with a leeway of $1,000,000. I said then, and I repeat now, that the canal could be financed if the people of New Orleans stood squarely behind it.
"The cotton warehouse and the grain elevator cost a great deal more than the original estimates. ”

“ As soon as the Florida Walk canal can be deepened and a few link-ups in the drainage system can be made, the entire drainage of New Orleans, in normal weather and during light storms, will, according to announcement by the Sewerage and Water Board, be sent through this outlet. During the occasional cloudbursts it will be necessary to send some of the drainage into the lake, but this will be rapidly flowing water and will sweep offshore. It means a great deal to the suburban development of the city. ”

“ New needs for taxable property will arise. The tax burden on all will be distributed more widely and when contrasted with the earning power of such property will become less and less of a burden.
This will be so because the water frontage through which the Canal is being created for the attraction of many enterprises which cannot locate on the river front, is all within the limits of the city of New Orleans.
With this Canal in operation, New Orleans will possess to the fullest degree the three great systems of port operation: Public ownership and operation of the river harbor facilities ”

“ They realized that the Dock Board could not be required to build their bridges over the waterway, and although the Thompson board financed the work at the time, they knew that sooner or later would come a day of reckoning. The Hudson Board has since then taken steps to collect several million dollars from these roads.
But why build a canal almost large enough, only? Why build a 25-foot lock when ships drawing 30-feet of water come to New Orleans? A lock cannot be enlarged, once it is completed—and the tendency of the times is towards larger ships. ”

“ An infinitesimal part of the trade that flows through New Orleans originates or terminates there. The back country gets the bulk of the business. The development of the harbor is for the service of the interior. It is essentially national.
From every point of view, therefore, it is the duty of the national government to take over the Navigation Canal and release the monies of the state so they may be devoted to the improvement of the waterway with wharves and other works in aid of the nation's commerce. ”

“ But Man knows that what the mind can conceive, that can he execute. So Man sits in his room and plans the things the world thought impossible. From the known he dares the unknown. He covers paper with figures, conjures forth a blue print, and sends an army of workmen against the forces of Nature. If his mind blundered, he would waste millions in money and perhaps destroy thousands of lives. But Man can trust his mind ”

“ To meet the situation, New Orleans has constructed the greatest drainage system in the world. There are six pumping stations on the east side of the river, connected with each other by canals, and with a discharge capacity of more than 10,000 cubic feet a second. The seven billion gallons of water that these pumps can move a day would fill a lake one mile square and thirty-five feet deep.
Three of the canals empty into Lake Pontchartrain, the fourth, the Florida Walk Canal, into Bayou Bienvenu, which leads into Lake Borgne, an arm of Pontchartrain. ”

“ The Mississippi is too mighty a giant to risk such liberties. The 2,000-foot cut between the river and the lock would have to be done last of all, when the rest of the canal and the lock were finished, and the new levees that would protect the city against its overflow, were solidly set. ”

“ But there is no law, however good, that meets all conditions, and a number of private enterprises—warehouses and factories—have undoubtedly been kept out of New Orleans because they could not secure water frontage.
An artificial waterway, capable of indefinite expansion, on whose banks private enterprise could buy or lease, for a long period of time, the land for erecting its buildings and plants, without putting in jeopardy the commercial development of the port ”

“ For the drainage, the plans called for the construction of an inverted siphon passing under the Canal, a river under a river, so to speak. In the meantime, however, the drainage canal had to be blocked off with two cofferdams, to cut off the water from the city and the bayou, and enable the construction of the siphon between.
Additional railroad tracks, too, had to be built to handle the immense volume of material needed for the work; roads had to be built for getting supplies on the job by truck; the trolley line had to be extended for the transportation of labor. ”

“ The Atchafalaya Bay Ship Channel, extending from the mouth of the Atchafalaya River across the shoal waters of Atchafalaya Bay, to about the 20-foot contour of the Gulf, a distance of fifteen miles, is through a material of slushy mud, with occasional thin pockets of sand. The shoaling runs from 540,000 to 1,680,000 cubic yards a mile a year. The highest rate is obtained in shallow water. Except in the stretch mentioned, the material on the Pontchartrain route is not as soft as on the Atchafalaya, nor are the depths as shoal, nor is there the exposure to cross currents. ”

“ The government barge line connects New Orleans with the Warrior River section of Alabama and the Upper Mississippi Valley, including a great deal of inland territory to which river and rail differential rates apply, as far as St. Louis. It is operating a fleet of 2,000-ton steel covered barges and 1,800 horsepower towboats. There is a weekly service. Rates are 20 per cent cheaper than rail rates.
The port is supplied with some of the most modern freight handling machinery. Harbor dues and other expenses are low. The water supply, for drinking purposes and boilers, meets the strongest tests. ”

“ Such enterprises as coke ovens, coal by-product plants, flour mills, iron furnaces, industrial chemical works, iron and steel rolling mills, shipbuilding and repair plants, automobile factories and assembling plants, soap works, packing plants, lumber yards, building material plants and yards, warehouses of all kinds, etc., would be encouraged to establish here if given the proper facilities, and the Industrial Canal is the answer to this need, for under the laws of Louisiana private industries can not acquire or lease property on the river front. ”

“ Hecht summarized the confidence of the far-visioned men in the new New Orleans when he declared in a public interview: "I feel there is absolutely nothing to prevent the immediate realization of New Orleans' long dream of becoming a great industrial and commercial center and having great shipbuilding plants located within the city limits." ”

“ Then last year the Dock Board would not assign a ship a berth until it was within the jetties. These are some of the difficulties.
"What New Orleans needs is 50 to 100 per cent more facilities for her port. Last summer the port of New Orleans was congested, but she held her own because other ports were congested. But that may not occur again. If you want to hold your own you must improve your facilities."
Wharves can be built a great deal cheaper on the fixed-level canal, with its stable banks. And that is the only place specialized industries can secure water frontage. ”

“ For the protection of the valley we should have at New Orleans armament mounted on floating platforms which will hold the enemy beyond the point where his shells may not reach their objective, and in this operation the canal, affording means of rapid transport, will render invaluable and essential service."
A country's ports are its watergates. ”

“ The concrete alone cost $170,000. Machinery and the work of housing and installing it cost $60,000 more.
Four bascule steel bridges now cross the Industrial Canal. They are the largest in the city. Three of them—at Florida Walk, for the Southern and Public Belt Railways; Gentilly, for the Louisville & Nashville; and on the lake front, for the Southern, weigh 1,600,000 pounds each—superstructure only. The fourth—at the lock—weighs 1,000,000 pounds. They are balanced by 800-ton concrete blocks and concrete adjustment blocks. Their extreme length is 160 feet ”

“ Admirable housing conditions which render it feasible for labor to live under most sanitary conditions in houses closely proximate to both the plants and the city, with sewerage and water connections, and with street car transportation facilities to and from the plants and to and from the amusement centers of the city ”

“ They will support 50-ton street cars or 15-ton road rollers—New Orleans has nothing as heavy as that now—and trains a great deal heavier than are now coming to the city. No bridge in the South will support as heavy loads.
The tensile strength of the steel of which the bridges are constructed is from 55,000 to 85,000 pounds to the square inch, and they will bear a wind load of 20 pounds to the square inch of exposed surface. ”

“ But this new phase of the plan was far from the canal that was finally built. In fact, the accomplishment of this project has shown a remarkable development with the passing years, reminding one of the growth of the trivial hopes of the boy into the mighty achievement of the man. ”

“ But a few hundred feet from the turning basin, was Bayou Bienvenu, which runs into Lake Borgne, part of Lake Pontchartrain, and one of the refuges of Lafitte in the brave days when smuggling was more a sport of the plain people than it is now with European travel restricted to the wealthy. So through Bayou Bienvenu a small excavator was sent to cut a passage into the turning basin, to allow the mighty 22-inch dredges to get in and work outwards towards the lake and the lock site. ”

“ Storage capacity of the Public Grain Elevator is 2,622,000 bushels. This is about 25 per cent of the grain elevator storage capacity of the port, but the Public Elevator handles 60 per cent of the business—proving its efficiency. Its unloading capacity is 60,000 bushels a day from barges or ships, and 200,000 bushels from cars. Loading capacity into ships is 100,000 bushels an hour—to one or four vessels, simultaneously. ”

“ The concrete work gives the impression of lightness, as well as strength, as though every yard of concrete was doing its special share of the work without overstraining, which is, of course, the characteristic of well-designed reinforced masonry. ”

“ Part of Operating Machinery for Lock Gates
Now nearing completion is the Public Coal Handling Plant. Built by the Dock Board to develop the business in cargo coal, it is costing more than $1,000,000.00, and will have a capacity of 25,000 tons. It is of the belt-conveyor type. The plant will be able to:
1. Unload coal from railway cars into a storage pile; 2. Unload coal from cars into steamers or barges; 3. Load coal from storage pile into steamers or barges ”