Transportation is a matter of supreme importance to every nation, and the question of improving transportation is of more fundamental concern to most nations than any other problem which confronts them. "The most profound economic changes of modern times," said the Deep Waterways Commissioners, "have been brought about by the improvements in transportation. These began with small canals and later with railroad construction, in the first half of the century, and have proceeded with accelerating speed to the present time."

The importance of transportation to the welfare of a nation was most strikingly illustrated by the attitude of the Chinese delegates at the recent Limitation of Armaments Conference. To this body were presented for consideration some of the weightiest problems in the world's economy, among them the whole Oriental policy, but early in the deliberations these delegates said that so far as China was concerned the Conference would result in utter and irredeemable failure if control of the Kiaochow-Tsinanfu railway in Shantung were not again restored to her.

What student of history can doubt that the possession of natural transportation routes has been a controlling factor, often the predominant factor, in the destiny of nations? Transportation has been important all through the history of the world, but never so important as now. In the earlier days countries and even small localities were often self-sufficient, but at present all parts of the world are dependent for many of their necessities as well as their luxuries on nearly every other part. Competition too has become very keen in the race for supplying the world's needs and the nation which has the best means for transporting its products has an enviable advantage over its less-favored rivals.

Coming nearer home we are moved to ask, why did New York become in fact as well as in name the Empire State? We may answer this by asking another question. Why did the earlier possessors of the same region, the Six Nations, occupy their position of preëminence among the aboriginal tribes? We answer that the situation of their lands, at the headwaters of the streams which flowed into all the neighboring territory, giving them easy access to these regions both in peace and war, had quite as much to do with their fortunate estate as their valor. In like manner New York's natural endowment of transportation routes, strengthened by wise development, has been her making. New York is the only state fronting on both Great Lakes and ocean. New York has the best harbor on the Atlantic coast. The great river flowing into this harbor is the only stream in the country that has cut a navigable channel through the Atlantic coast range of mountains. New York has the only feasible route in the United States for a waterway between the great inland seas and the ocean and by the same token it has the route of easiest grades for railroads or other wheeled media of transportation. Other favorable routes in New York, one straight through to the northern boundary and several scattered about the central region, have conduced to vigorous local development. If anyone doubts that these potential transportation routes gave New York its start toward preëminence, let him read history and learn that before she began to avail herself of these natural advantages, she did not stand at the top commercially. But New York's greatness is not just at present our special theme. Mention of it is purely incidental to showing that transportation is paramount. It was a matter of accident that she possessed these natural advantages.

In serving herself, New York served her country even more. Much of the development of the vast central region and also of the eastern section of our land is due to these routes of travel and transport, by water and by rail, which happen to lie in New York state.

A generation ago there was an idea prevalent in the land that canals were a worn-out institution. If one still holds to this notion, he need only review the trend of enlightened public sentiment for the past quarter century; he has but to read the account of the recent National Rivers and Harbors Congress, in which the most prominent men of the whole country took active part and at which the delegates squarely and boldly demanded that Congress at once appropriate not less than the minimum amount recommended as necessary by the chief of engineers, he should but be reminded that Europe awoke to the need of a waterway revival earlier than America and that within recent years every great European country in which topographic conditions permit has developed its canal system to a greater extent than its railroad system.

Since, therefore, the subject of transportation is so vitally important to our common welfare, since canals are again coming into their own and also since America's natural and logical canal route to the interior is that which traverses New York state, the building by the State of a great modern canal along this route is a matter which concerns not only New York alone but the whole nation. A history of the project accordingly, if it does justice to its theme, should be a valuable contribution to the literature of great achievements and moreover should contain something of interest to a wide circle of readers. Such a contribution the present volume attempts to be, and even if it falls short of its high privilege it cannot fail to become, because of the importance of the subject, of some appreciable value.

The entrance of the Barge canal idea into New York's waterway plans marked a new and radically changed era in the history of the State canals. Viewed from one angle the Barge canal, to be sure, is simply the enlargement of four existing canals, and to get the true historical setting and to understand why things happened as they did we must consider the undertaking from this point of view, but the new canal is much more than a mere enlargement; it is a change so fundamental in many particulars that the likeness between the old and the new is completely lost. Perhaps we can best explain this difference by first quoting from the report of the Committee on Canals, the body that gave concrete form to the Barge canal idea, and then adding a few words in elaboration.

"In our judgment," says the committee, "the efficiency of the canals depends quite as much upon the way the business is handled on them as upon their physical size, and we advise against the expenditure of any more money for their enlargement unless it shall be accompanied with measures which will lead to the adoption of more modern methods in conducting the business of water transportation across the state."

The appointment of this Committee on Canals by Governor Roosevelt, it will be observed as we proceed with the account, marked the clear line of cleavage between the old and the new in New York State canal history, and the following of its recommendations wrought the beginning of the change. The Barge canal is as much a modernization as an enlargement of the old waterway and perhaps its former characteristic is the more important, for probably upon its present-day methods and contrivances must depend the major part of whatever success crowns the venture. Not that there had been no worth-while improvements on the old canal. Several new ideas had been worked out with more or less success, but in the main the waterway as it then existed was a thing of the past, the best of its day when it was inaugurated, it is true, but now worn out and being continued into a new age, vainly trying to compete with the marvelous improvements of that age. Against such odds any improvement which was not revolutionary could make little headway. Misinterpreting the situation, many persons said that the canal principle itself was out of date. They were mistaken; it was this particular canal which needed rejuvenating. The boats were old-fashioned; the animal-power method of propulsion was even more antiquated; the locks were still worked by main strength by the lock-tenders; the whole form of canal operation and management was equally old-fashioned. And worse still, the people of the state according to their several opinions on canal matters were either indifferent, complacent or tolerant of what they wanted to do away with entirely but had not the power, and a few were chafing under their inability to improve conditions. It needed a violent jolt to shake the State out of its lethargy and such a shock the failure of the nine-million-dollar project proved to be. Immediately following that undertaking (unfortunate it seemed at the time, but in the light of more mature judgment perhaps a most fortunate occurrence and the only thing that would have accomplished the necessary awakening) there came the careful study and the expert opinions of the Committee on Canals, men who were capable of giving unbiased and dependable advice. At last the State realized that it must make a radical change in its canal policy. It became willing finally to scrap its old canal and build in its stead a modern waterway.

Of the importance and magnitude of the Barge canal there can be no doubt. It is only natural of course that most New Yorkers should recognize this, but lest our opinions may become prejudiced it is well to view the enterprise through the eyes of an outsider but withal one who by training and experience is qualified to speak with authority. Let us listen then to the words of a Federal engineer who was sent by the Government to inspect the Barge canal in order that he might the better undertake certain national work.

"The first impression that comes to one on visiting the Barge canal," said this engineer, "is a feeling of respect for the energy and progressiveness of the people of the state who, having seen the necessity of an enormous engineering work to hold for the State and its metropolis their supremacy in the shipping of the country, do not hesitate to enter and push to rapid completion a work which any nation would hesitate to undertake." [Excerpt from a letter by Major C. O. Sherrill.]

As one reads the following pages he will observe that the complete Barge canal plan did not spring into being Athena-like, full panoplied, but rather was a development, an evolution, a work which rounded out in completeness as its construction was being carried on to completion. Perhaps, however, it should not be said that completeness has already been attained. State Engineer Williams said recently that he did not expect the canal ever to be entirely completed, and the people of the state may well echo this statement in the spirit in which it was spoken and let it become for them a desire and an aim -- that the time may never come when the growing commerce of the canal will not need new facilities.

The reader may perceive also how opportune has been the building of the Barge canal. It seems that it could not have been more timely if its sponsors had known the future in advance and had laid their plans accordingly. It was ready to serve the emergency of war, and that such service was curtailed was not the fault of the canal. But now it is ready for another service, a service as essential perhaps as that of war -- the struggle for commercial supremacy that is following the wake of war. And America needs all the help it can get in this struggle. In none of the European countries are the distances from the interior to the sea very great. The American handicap of long hauls must be made as small as possible.

It cannot be denied or even overlooked that there is abroad in our own state as well as in other quarters a prejudice against the New York canals. This feeling may be due in part to certain unsavory charges against the canals of a by-gone day. Perhaps some it is due, especially in normally anti-canal regions, to the inveighing against the canals by politicians who have accepted this easy road to popularity by using the tools of the demagogue and appealing to an already existing antipathy, but who thereby have strengthened this feeling to the injury of the canals. Much of the prejudice is due doubtless to lack of information, especially a lack of accurate knowledge concerning the possibilities of the improved waterway and what it may accomplish for the State as a whole and for its individual users, if it is given a fair chance. Probably, however, the major portion of this opposition is the result of direct attempts to create a sentiment against the canals on the part of those whose interest is that the canals should be discredited even to their complete undoing. And chief among those who are thus attempting to undermine the waterways are the railroads. It would seem that the citizens of the state long ago should have perceived that this very opposition of the railroads proves the worth of the canals, and also that they should have ceased to be misled by the attacks.

At the latest National Rivers and Harbors Congress Major-General Lansing H. Beach, Chief of Engineers, gave vivid expression to this thought. As reported in the daily press he said, "You cannot get a better argument for the waterways than the attitude of the railroads toward them. They won't prorate, they won't issue bills of lading. It seems to be one of the principles of modern business to put a competitor out of the running before the consumer comes into consideration. And much that has been done by the railroads toward the waterways is simply the question of eliminating a competitor in business."

It is hoped that the present volume by setting forth what are believed to be accurate accounts and pertinent facts may in some degree help to remove this unfavorable judgment upon the canals and be the means of establishing a more open-minded attitude.

The testimony of European experience is that modern canals are a most valuable asset to a nation and moreover that even the railroads are benefited where the two systems are operated as complementary adjuncts rather than as antagonistic competitors.

In any public movement there is always a lively interest in the human agencies that brought it into being and that fostered its growth. So it is with the Barge canal. We want to know who conceived the idea, to whom we are indebted for the creation of a public sentiment it its favor, who guided its course through the maze of political strife and organized opposition, who were entrusted with its execution, in a word, the dramatis personae of the whole canal project. In these pages the names of the chief actors will usually appear and generally to them belongs much of the credit for what has been accomplished, but we must not forget that there have been many others who have played minor parts but whose names even must be sought among inconspicuous records. But there is one class of persons to whom honor is due whom we desire to mention in particular. These are the people who have been in the fight for canal improvements without any seeming personal interests at stake, men actuated apparently by little besides a constraining desire for the public good. Generally these persons have worked through the various waterway organizations that have been in existence more or less continually for the last thirty-five or forty years. They have been men of vision and to their voluntary, unremunerated labor the State is beholden for much of whatever success may attend its waterway system. In time of crisis, when a public awakening has been needed, they have been the faithful few who could be depended on to rally to the support of their espoused cause.

It may seem at first thought somewhat early to write the history of the Barge canal. It is true, of course, that a contemporary writer lacks the perspective of years, but if, as in the present instance, he has the advantage of having taken part in the events he describes and of having had personal acquaintance with the men who were chiefly responsible for the happening of those events, such a contemporary writer may bring to his task much that a later author would lack. While he may miss the broad interpretation of the whole subject as viewed in the light of later history, he can better interpret the smaller parts. Knowing the circumstances, he may be able even to give true interpretation to certain records which another might entirely fail to understand. Also from his own personal knowledge he may often supply missing details.

A few words concerning the framework of the volume seem pertinent. The attempt has been made to present a broad outlook of waterway affairs, national as well as state, since most of these affairs had an influence in shaping Barge canal policies and in directing the course of events. In like manner the relationships existing between the New York canals and other water transportation routes in the country have received attention. The first six chapters deal with events occurring prior to the actual work of constructing the canal. The arrangement in these chapters is mainly chronological and even the division into chapters is chiefly for convenience of reference. In the remainder of the volume the arrangement is largely topical, the multiplicity of subjects involved in a complete treatment of the theme seeming to demand such procedure. Of course occasional overlappings have resulted and sometimes rather arbitrary divisions have been made. In explanation of the omission of quotation marks in making certain verbatim quotations from the annual reports of the State Engineer, the History of the New York Canals, published as a supplement to the 1905 State Engineer's report, the Barge Canal Bulletin and other publications of the State Engineer's department, it may be said that such action seems not improper, especially since often the author is quoting his own earlier words. In a sense this volume is a work of reference, but it does not profess to be a complete reference book. The aim has been to study causes, discern the results, review policies and methods, and record important facts, but not to go exhaustively into the minutiæ of detail. Such detail may be found, however, by him who must have it, and the sources of this information are described in the chapter on canal and terminal construction. Not much as been said concerning the financial and legal aspects, the process of land acquisition and various other phases of the project. The manner in which the work has been financed is important, and many features connected with the vast amount of litigation and legal procedure are interesting as well as important, but more time than is now available would be required to do these subjects justice and even then they would have less popular interest than the topics which have been included.