Page:Journal of Negro History, vol. 7.djvu/189

 of economic significance, made a forceful appeal. Measures designed to provide superior facilities for the trade and commerce of their communities constituted, in some instances, the most valuable service rendered by these legislators.

With the interests of his constituency ever in mind, Benjamin S. Turner of Alabama, a member of the Forty-second Congress, proposed various measures to effect local improvements. He urged a distribution of the public lands, proposed a bill to erect a public building in Selma, sought to increase the appropriation for rivers and harbors from $50,000 to $75,000, and made efforts to secure improvements in navigation in Alabama waters.

Of all the Congressmen, Josiah T. Walls of Florida was perhaps the most persistent in the effort to secure improvements for his district and State. He introduced numerous bills to erect in his district custom houses and other public buildings, and to improve the rivers and harbors of his State. Walls introduced also bills to provide a lifesaving station along the coast of Florida, to amend an act granting right of way through public lands for the construction of railroad and telegraph lines through Florida, and to create an additional land district. He sought further to amend an appropriation bill to the end that $50,000 be made available for the establishment of a navy yard at Pensacola.

James T. Rapier, who succeeded Turner in Congress, continued, to some extent, the policy of the latter to secure local improvements. Of two measures introduced by Rapier, one proposed to erect public buildings in his district, the other to make improvements in the rivers and harbors of the State. He succeeded in having enacted into law his measure to constitute Montgomery, Alabama, a port of entry.