How the Money la Raised Planning a Apart from the value of the fill seventy-five freight cars of 80,000 pounds' results obtained by the people capacity each. If the old style canal boats through the expenditure of pub- were to be retained in service, six of them lic money, there is always the complicated could be put through one of the new locks at a problem of raising the State revenue by means time, but all six would carry only half the the most equitable and the least burdensome. tonnage of one of the new barges. FurtherFor a period of several years the State of more, it is promised that the barges will be New York had income enough from indirect propelled at a speed two and one-half times sources to leave direct taxes entirely to the speed of the old boats. More than half Counties, cities, towns, villages, and school of the new canal line is through lake or natdistricts. But the growth of recent expendi- ural river channels, where enhanced speed will ture has made it necessary to impose a general be possible. State tax of one mill, that is to say, one dollar qon each thousand dollars of assessed valuaIn this new period of great underth. Governor Sulzer had believed that by Great Public takings, public and private, for nomy this direct tax could be dropped. the better handling of commerce The controller, however, declares that it and movement of populations, there is ample Annot be done. During the year past the opportunity to study the relative merits of receipts from inheritance taxes were more public and private activity. Where an enterthan $12,000,000, but there was an unusual prise is to serve the public in a large and number of large estates to pay this form of general way, it is best that its planning should al. The State tax on corporations amounted not be left wholly to the initiative of those to more than $10,000,000. The excise taxes whose motive is private gain. New York produced more than $9,000,000; stock trans- City, for example, is now entering upon the fers nearly $4,000,000; the State's share of construction of a great system of new underthe tax on mortgages nearly $2,000,000. The ground rapid-transit electric railways. These nual license fees of motor vehicles provided new lines with equipment will cost, in the State income of a million dollars, in round fzures. The direct tax of one mill yielded rote than $11,000,000. Not to discuss these tems in detail, it suffices to say that they are subject to a good deal of yearly fluctuation, nd that the great State of New York has y no means reached a final solution of the taxation problem. New York's aggregate, about $300,000,000. Approximately half of the investment will be made directly by the city government, and the other half by the operating companies that will equip and run the roads for long terms of years as lessees from the city. The routes have been laid out, after great study, by the Public Service Commission, with the cooperation of the ultimate authority in the In 1915 the State of New York municipal government. The Interborough will have completed and opened Company and the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Canal to traffic its Barge Canal, with Company, which will operate the lines, have wholly modern equipment, a great outlet to of course shared in the initial study. The the sea for western grain shipments. In addi- result has been a well-planned and maturely tion to the original bond issue of $101,000,000, considered project, in which the present and voted by the people of the State, an addi- future welfare of the people has been the tional $20,000,000 was provided by a special dominant motive. However great may be the vote in 1911 for canal terminals, and it is well faults of city government in New York,—and understood that further appropriations will they are not to be lightly regarded,-it can be be required to complete the work, but now asserted with confidence that the new subway that the State has entered on the task there is a general desire to have it thoroughly and satisfactorily finished. The progress in construction during the past two years has been especially rapid. Some sections of the canal are already completed. A siphon lock, the irst of the kind to be built in the United States and the largest in the world, has been Perhaps the most notable input in commission at Oswego, where the canal York Central's stance of a great transportation connects with Lake Ontario. All the canal improvement, brilliantly worked locks are built to accommodate barges of out under private initiative and control, is 3000 tons' capacity,-a tonnage that would that of the New York Central's electrifica scheme, which amounts to one of the largest engineering undertakings in the world, has been wisely and ably devised. Its completion will greatly facilitate the distribution of population throughout the area of the greater New York. The New Great Project Photograph by the American Press Association, New York. From a drawing THE NEW YORK CENTRAL'S GREAT TERMINAL (With suggestion of related buildings not yet completed) tion project, with the new station and nificent and convenient terminal station terminal arrangements in New York City. cannot be expected to increase very much the The great station is virtually completed, and number of passengers passing through it nor will be opened to the public in all its parts will those passengers pay higher rates of fare. within a few weeks. Several scores of tracks The management of the New York Central enter this station on different levels, and all has adopted a great idea, never before carried the trains will turn upon loops and serve the out on so large a scale, although once before needs of outgoing passengers, an improve- exemplified in a striking way, also in New ment of such obvious value as to need no York City. The so-called McAdoo Tunnels, explanation. The electrical zone, when com- those of the Hudson and Manhattan Railpleted, will extend about thirty miles, heavy road system, connect the New Jersey suburbs express trains being drawn by electric loco- with New York City by means of short but motives, and suburban trains being equipped very expensive railroads under the Hudson on the multiple-unit plan and taking the River. It was desirable to have a downtown electric current from a third rail. The new station and terminal, with a loop that would station, while of great architectural merit admit of the continuous movement of trains. and beauty, is chiefly notable for the con- It was necessary to occupy an expensive site, venience of its arrangements as worked out comprising the area of two city blocks. Mr. by the officials of the road. The station McAdoo and his associates provided ample communicates directly with the subway station accommodations, far underground with system; and when affiliated enterprises are easy inclined planes for entrance and exit. completed there will be several large hotels Above this station they built twin office buildalso connecting by subway passages with ings twenty-two stories high. The rent of this great traffic center. these buildings not only carries the cost of the terminal station, but also helps to pay interest upon the cost of tunneling under the Hudson. The New York Central yards (which had always been open and uncovered, with the smoke of hundreds of locomotives and the noise of many trains constituting a great nuisance in the heart of the city) are now to be completely covered over with great buildings, a wonderful transformation. To Earn This yard space is equivalent to Interest Upon about thirty-two city blocks. $200,000,000 Vast excavation has depressed the tracks far below the street level. A number of public streets, formerly interrupted, are now carried across as viaducts, with one great north-and-south avenue bisecting the yards. Steam power has entirely disappeared, and there will be no sound of the movement of electric trains beneath the great buildings. Heat, light and power will be distributed from a common center to all the buildings on these thirty-two blocks. It is confidently stated by the highest financial authorities of the New York Central that the use of the "air rights" above their yards will pay a good interest upon $200,000,000, and thus save the stockholders of the railroad from any bur den or loss due to the vast expense of the Copyright by Pach Brothers, New York new terminal and the electrical installation. Financing PRESIDENT BROWN OF THE NEW YORK CENTRAL It becomes increasingly manifest on the upper Mississippi which will facilitate a Government that we are just beginning to the shipment of wheat and flour from the Project apprehend the physical and eco- Northwest to New Orleans. Barges propelled nomic possibilities of this electric age. And by power-boats are likely within a few years it is all the more necessary that all our re- to be as familiar a sight at St. Paul and sources of intelligence and public spirit, as Minneapolis as they are to-day on the Rhine. well as of science and capital, should be Improved terminals and terminal equipment brought to bear upon every new or suggested will soon replace the antiquated docks that project. In Mr. Tiffany's article, on the are picturesque survivals of ante-bellum life Mississippi River improvement at Minne- and customs. The opening of the Panama apolis, it should be particularly noted (see Canal is expected to give new vitality to page 180) that the United States Govern- north-and-south trade currents, and meanment, for the first time, is going into the busi- while commerce is continually seeking new ness of marketing hydro-electric power. A channels to the eastern seaboard. great dam, that will improve Mississippi River navigation in a very important way, is to be made productive, at the same time, of water power that will entirely (or at least to a great extent) repay the Government for its outlay. Many other projects in which the Government is concerned can be worked out upon analogous principles, if there is as much intelligence and public spirit on the side of those representing the Government as there is energy and ability upon the side of those seeking water-power concessions or having other private interests at stake. The That part of the Census Bureau's work which the public hears most about is the decennial count of noses, but there is a wide range of useful activities included in the bureau's functions which go on from year to year, without noise and with very limited publicity, but which should concern every intelligent citizen. The gathering of facts about the nation's population, agriculture, and industries every ten years would be of little service to the general public unless this great mass of facts were reduced to some sort of presentable The national waterways move- form. It is this formidable task of editing ment has entered on a phase that and compiling for publication that has occuseems to have a new meaning for pied Director Durand and his corps of able some of the country's transportation inter- assistants since the collection of data for ests. Mr. Tiffany's article, to which we have the Thirteenth Census was completed more referred, sketches the work now under way than two years ago. Our Water Traffic DIRECTOR E. DANA DURAND OF THE CENSUS (Who has achieved unusual success in compiling and popularizing the results of the Government's elaborate statistical investigations. Dr. Durand, who is now in his forty-third year, is a graduate of Oberlin College and Cornell University, and for more than twelve years has been employed upon statistical undertakings for the Government. He has succeeded in reducing to the compass of a single volume of moderate size all the important and significant results of the census of 1910) Figures Made The volume containing the "Abstract of the Census," recently Interesting issued from the Government Printing Office, is in itself a justification of the toil and expenditure involved in the world's greatest statistical undertaking. Furthermore it is a book with which every American should acquaint himself. Nowhere else can he find such a picture of his country's progress, material and intellectual. We say "picture" advisedly, for never before has the Census Bureau given so graphic a presentation of its own figures. Readers who have made use of the "Abstract" of preceding censuses, and think of it as merely a succession of unexplained tables of figures will be agreeably surprised on opening the new volume to find, in addition to the tabulations, many pages of illuminating text, illustrated with maps and diagrams of the most pertinent and serviceable kind, the whole forming a really useful and fresh treatment of a wide field of economic and social interest. With the first edition of the "Abstract" is printed a supplement for Maine, containing statistics for the State, counties, cities, and minor divi sions. This volume is intended for distribution in Maine; and editions for distribution in other States will contain similar supplements relating to those States. Thus a resident of any State of the Union, of Alaska, of Hawaii, or of Porto Rico, will be able to find in a single volume of 600 or 700 pages a compendium of all the general results of the census of 1910, together with the details pertaining to his own State or locality. It is to be hoped that Congress will make an appropriation for a large edition of this work, -say, 500,000 copies. Crossing the The United States Government's wireless station at Fort Myer, Pacific near Washington, with its towers 450 feet in height, has been able to read messages thrown out from Cliffton, Ireland, and works directly with the naval stations at Mare Island, near San Francisco, Guantanamo, and Panama. High-powered stations have been erected or are now rising at Havana, at Santiago, in Mexico, and in Costa Rica. The most powerful of wireless stations is to be built in connection with the Panama Exposition. By using the stations at Hawaii and Guam as stepping stones, it will be possible to transmit wireless messages across the Pacific, linking California with Japan, the Sandwich Islands, and Australia. The outposts of the wireless have already been carried far north into Alaska. The remote sections of the Pacific coast have been brought within instant communication with its great cities. The long-distance wireless system, by overleaping every obstacle, abolishes the frontier Copyright by the American Press Association, New York at a stroke. Prospects at Panama HON. CHARLES P. NEILL, UNITED STATES COMMISSIONER Official reports show that on (Dr. Neill, whose term is just expiring, has served with President Taft has reappointed him, and he should be unanimously confirmed. No other man in America in recent years has done so much as Dr. Neill for the peaceable adjustment of disputes between labor and capital) Copyright by the American Press Association, New York PRESENT STATUS OF GATUN LOCK, PANAMA CANAL has made provision for such contingencies. The countries to the south are already preparing to avail themselves of the opening of the great waterway. The voyage from New York to Valparaiso will be shortened by 4000 miles, and the Chilean Government has appointed a commission to advise on port improvements and treaties of commerce and navigation with the United States incidental to the opening of the canal. |