Everybody’s pullin’ and pushin’

Several men row or pull on a raft with a sail that reads “Lakes to the Gulf Deep waterway project” following a sign “To Congress,” including William Jennings Bryan, William H. Taft, Theodore P. Shonts, and David R. Francis. President Roosevelt rows with his “big stick.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

It was a rare occasion when Edward Joseph McBride, the hyper-partisan cartoonist of the Democratic St. Louis Republic, favorably depicted Republicans as well as Democrats, office-holders and candidates, in one political cartoon’s frame. The men he pictured indeed agreed on the issue at hand, and so did the city of St. Louis itself, writ large; the issue was to broaden, clean, and manage the mighty Mississippi River on whose shore it rested.

What contemporaries call infrastructure used to be classified under “river and harbor” legislation. It was viewed, in other words, and somewhat separate from, and perhaps paramount to, national policies toward roads and bridges and, eventually, railroads. Canals were an integral part of river and harbor legislation; their planning and construction predated the Republic. As they were built — the Erie Canal of New York governor George Clinton being a well known example — America’s westward expansion was mightily assisted. A major focus of the Whig Party, perhaps its raison d’etre, was river and harbor legislation, embodied by the “National Plan” of Henry Clay, a policy commitment that extended into the young Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln, by which times railroads, state agricultural schools, and and land grants joined the program.

Despite river and harbor development, and the planning of many canals, fueling the continental expansion — 1840 to 1860 is generally considered the Era of Canals — their role has largely been subsumed in history, mostly by the rapid and consequential development of river trade, the invention of railroads, and a floor of immigrants forging land routes westward.

But to the extent that canals were important, and that American expansion required planning — and on canals with more challenges than other modes — the Illinois and Michigan Canal (I+M) provides an example. It was 96 miles long and relying on the Illinois River, connected Lake Michigan to the Mississippi. It served, and helped establish, communities along its length, but at the same was a link in the waterways that enabled travel between the East Coast and New Orleans: the Erie Canal, Buffalo, the Great Lakes, the canal to the Mississippi and downriver to New Orleans. What would have been an onerous and sometimes dangerous trek on land, and 30-40 days via the Ohio River for a leg, became twelve days between St. Louis and New York.

As late as Theodore Roosevelt’s administration (indeed, into the New Deal) rivers, harbors, and canal remained priorities to the national government. Coincidentally, an ancestor of the president, Nicholas Roosevelt, was one of the first major operators steamships on the Mississippi River, active in transportation and trade.

President Roosevelt believed in the active development of rivers, harbors, and canals — not only their maintenance, but their positive expansion and development. They were perfect examples of a tenet of progressivism: as they traversed multiple states, they were appropriate for a federal role. He viewed them as essential for travel and navigation, for commerce, and for transportation.

Appropriately, Roosevelt also considered a national policy of rivers and canals as part of his vision of conservation, hand in hand with management, flood control, clean waterways, and irrigation. He devoted a major portion of his 1907 Annual Message to Congress to such a vision, with specific proposals and urging the creation of an Inland Waterways Commission. Congress complied.

Progress was made, but the grand plan Roosevelt envisioned — basically linking a multitude of rivers and lakes across a major portion of the continent — never fully was realized. It is tempting to think that had he served another term, and seen these plans through, whether history would behold a feat as consequential, on many levels, as the Panama Canal to the south.

McBride’s cartoon pictures Roosevelt and presidential candidates William H. Taft and William Jennings Bryan, as well as Roosevelt’s advisers, joining their efforts to clear America’s waterways.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-10-10

Creator(s)

McBride, Edward Joseph, 1889-

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