Deep water!

President Roosevelt dives off his big stick to rescue a man in water holding a “14 feet thro’ the valley” flag and crying, “Help!” “Congress”—depicted as Speaker of the House Joseph Gurney Cannon—is lying on his back in the water. Roosevelt says, “If he won’t save him, I will!”

comments and context

Comments and Context

“Infrastructure” is a contemporary term for what was once a common topic of national debate. In fact expanded its borders and settlements and trade largely through conscious efforts of the national government to build roads and bridges — usually (as befits federal involvement) between states.

The Louisiana Purchase can be seen in this light. Henry Clay’s “National Plan,” a bulwark of the Whigs, was devoted to planned expansion and development. Building of the Erie Canal and others, and land-grants institutions, free land for settlers, and protection for “infant industries” were of a kind, under Abraham Lincoln and others. In the 1880s, the rubric was “river and harbor legislation.”

By the time of Theodore Roosevelt’s administration the concept took a new and frankly exciting but very ambitious turn. That it scarcely happened is a historical mystery, and more so that it is hardly discussed in histories of the era.

The slogan of the ambitious movement was “Fourteen Feet Through the Valley,” and the goal was to establish a network of inland waterways, canals, and river improvements from the Great Lakes to the Gulf. It was coupled with another vision and slogan, “The Mississippi Floods,” because periodic flooding was an existing problem that needed addressing.

Politicians in the vast center of the continent generally supported the vision, if for no other reason, cynically speaking, than that (just as with previous programs, most recently the passel of “river and harbor” programs) vast construction projects were ripe for graft. Nevertheless the concept made enormous sense for internal trade and commerce, travel and national expansion. The grand visions never happened, possibly due to the development of automobiles and trucks, and a network of roads that served them.

But President Roosevelt made a commitment to the concept of “Fourteen Feet [in depth, for large vessels] Through the [Mississippi] Valley” and his successor William H. Taft was no less enthusiastic. Before Roosevelt’s famous bear hunt in the canebrakes of Louisiana in 1906, he sailed down the Mississippi River for the first time in his life; the trip was partly arranged to give him a first-hand feel for the proposed improvements.

At the time the ambitious project was reckoned to be a continental version (and just as important and expensive) as the Panama Canal. Representative Joseph Gurney Cannon, Speaker of the House from Illinois — in the region that would be favorably affected by inland waterway improvements — was, according to Kessler’s cartoon, lackadaisical about the concept. In the cartoon it is Roosevelt, not Cannon, coming to the assistance of the “Fourteen Feet” proponent.

If Camillus Kessler, from St. Louis, a city that was also a potential beneficiary of this program, correctly characterized Cannon’s lassitude, it might have been due to the Speaker’s momentary recalcitrance to support much of anything Roosevelt favored.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-05-15

Creator(s)

Kessler, Camillus

Language

English

Period

U.S. President – 2nd Term (March 1905-February 1909)

Page Count

1

Production Method

Printed

Record Type

Image

Resource Type

Cartoon

Rights

These images are presented through a cooperative effort between the Library of Congress and Dickinson State University. No known restrictions on publication.

Citation