Page:America's Highways 1776–1976.djvu/37

 The Meeting of the Rails

Fierce and ruinous competition ensued among the shipowners, whose plight was compounded by the railroads because they began actively extending their lines as soon as hostilities were over. Short lines leading to river ports were extended inland linking up with others, and eventually connecting with each other to form parallel transportation systems which were able to capture the passengers of the steam packets and most of their profitable freight. The unregulated railroads cut freight rates below the cost of haulage on sections where they were in direct competition with water transportation, recouping these losses by charging higher rates on other parts of their systems. Another weapon of the railroads was their refusal to establish joint rail-water rates with the steamboat companies.

Fighting back, the shipowners formed freight pools and organized common carrier packet lines controlling a number of boats. They instituted dependable scheduled service between the principal river ports. These measures slowed the drift to disaster but were unable to check it entirely. Water transportation on the Mississippi system reached its peak in 1889, when over 28 million tons were carried. Thereafter, traffic declined, in spite of tremendous increases in the Nation’s population and wealth, to about 19.5 million tons in 1906, and 16 million tons in 1916. Practically all of this was heavy bulk freight, such as coal, stone and gravel, carried in long barge tows. The romantic river packets were becoming things of the past.

Early Federal subsidies to railroads had been in the form of surveys made at Government expense by civil engineers and officers of the U.S. Army and the remission of import duties on railroad iron. The numerous turnpike and canal projects of the early 1880’s created a brisk demand for civil engineers and surveyors, yet the supply of such individuals in the United States was quite limited. The largest group was employed by the U.S. Army in its Corps of Engineers.

In April 1824, Congress passed the General Survey Bill (4 Stat. 22), appropriating $30,000 annually and authorizing the President to use a limited number of civil engineers and officers of the Corps of Engineers to prepare the necessary surveys, plans and estimates for “&thinsp;‘such roads and canals as he may deem of national importance, in a commercial or military point of view, or necessary for the transportation of the public mail.’&thinsp;” The employment of Government engineers was not limited to surveys ordered by law or by resolutions of Congress, but was interpreted by the President to apply also to “&thinsp;‘Surveys of a national or highly interesting commercial character, applied for by states or incorporated companies,’&thinsp;” and when engineers could be conveniently spared from other work.

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