Old Times on the Upper Mississippi
mercy. What man is there among the whites who would not fight under
such circumstances? Our forefathers fought under less provocation and
their cause has been adjudged a righteous cause.
[H] This is a pretty wild statement on the part of Standing
Bear, probably made through ignorance of the facts in the case
rather than a wilful misrepresentation. In the treaty made with
the Sioux Indians at Traverse des Sioux, July 2-3, 1851, the
United States covenanted to pay $1,665,000 for such rights and
title as were claimed by the Sisseton and Wahpeton tribes or
bands in lands lying in Iowa and Minnesota. In another treaty,
made with the M'day-wa-kon-ton and Wak-pay-koo-tay bands,
also of the Sioux nation, the United States agreed to pay the
further sum of $1,410,000 for the rights of these two bands
in lands lying in Iowa and Minnesota. In addition the Sioux
had already been paid a large sum for their rights in lands
lying on the east side of the Mississippi, in Wisconsin--lands
in which they really had no right of title at all, as they
had gained whatever rights they claimed simply by driving
back the Chippewa from the country which they had occupied
for generations. The Sioux themselves did not, and could not,
avail themselves of the rights so gained, and the territory was
a debatable land for years--a fighting ground for the rival
nations of the Sioux and Chippewa.
This is the Indian's view-point as stated by a civilized tribesman.
His fathers fought, and are dead. He was adopted by the nation,
educated, and started upon a higher plane of living, as he is free
to confess; but it is doubtful if he can be started upon a higher
plane of thinking than that upon which his blanketed forbears lived,
in spite of the cruelties to which they were born and educated. While
I am no sentimentalist on the Indian question, when I fall into the
hands of a Standing Bear I am almost persuaded that the Indian,
within his lights, is as much of a patriot as many of his bleached
brethren. As to his manhood there is no question. In the long
struggle that has taken place between himself and the white invaders,
he has always backed his convictions with his life, if need be; and
such men, if white, we call "patriots."
Chapter XXVIII
_Improving the River_
It was not until commerce on the upper river was practically a thing
of the past, that any effort was made to improve the channel for
purposes of navigation. A number of interests united to bring about
this good work when it did come--some meritorious, others purely
selfish. The steamboatmen, what was left of them, entertained the
fallacious idea that if the river were straightened, deepened,
lighted, and freed from snags and other hindrances to navigation,
there would still be some profit in running their boats, despite the
railroad competition that had so nearly ruined their business. This
was a mistaken supposition, and they were disabused of the idea only
by experience.
The mill owners of the upper river and its tributaries, who had by
this time begun to "tow through"--that is, push their rafts of logs
and lumber with a steamboat from Stillwater to St. Louis, instead
of drifting--were assured of quicker trips and greater safety
if the river was dressed up somewhat, insuring greater profits
upon their investments. Both of these parties in interest were
engaged in legitimate trade, and while there was no intention of
dividing the profits that might inure to them from an investment of
several millions of dollars of other people's money, precedent had
legitimatized the expenditure in other localities and upon other
rivers. They were well within the bounds of reason, in asking that
their own particular business might be made more profitable through
the aid of government.
A greater influence than any arguments drawn from commercial
necessities was found in the political interest involved. For years,
members of congress elected from districts in which there was a
harbor or a river which by any fiction might be legislated into a
"navigable stream", had been drawing from the federal treasury great
sums of money for the improvement of these streams and harbors; yet
some of these never floated anything larger than the government yawls
in which the engineers who did the work reached the scene of their
duties. At the same time, country members from the interior of the
great West drew nothing. The rapid settlement of the Northwestern
territories, in the year immediately following the close of the
Civil War, had an effect that was felt in the enhanced influence
exerted by members of congress representing the new commonwealths.
It followed that when the biennial distribution of "pork", as it is
expressively but inelegantly called nowadays, came up, these members
were in a position to demand their share, and get it, or defeat the
distribution _in toto_.
The war was over. The Union soldiers who had fought in it were either
dead, or if alive were hustling for a living. Hundreds of thousands
of them were found in Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, and Nebraska, opening
up farms and developing the country. The contractors who had fattened
on their blood were hanging like leeches to every department of the
national government, clamoring for more contracts to further inflate
their already plethoric bank accounts. The river improvement appealed
strongly to this class of men. The influences that they could bring
to bear, backed by the legitimate demands of steamboatmen and mill
owners, convinced the most conscientious congressmen that their duty
lay in getting as large an appropriation as possible for the work of
river regeneration. The result was, that the river which had given
employment to three or four hundred steamboats, manned by fifteen
thousand men, without having a dollar expended in ameliorating its
conditions, suddenly became the centre of the greatest concern to
congress--and to the contractors--and all for the benefit of a dozen
steamboats in regular traffic, and perhaps a hundred boats used in
towing the output of a score of mills owned by millionaire operators.
From 1866 to 1876 there was spent on the river between the mouth
of the Missouri and St. Paul, a distance of 700 miles, the sum of
$5,200,707. That was for the ten years at the rate of $7,429 for each
mile of the river improved. It cost at that rate $742.90 per mile per
year during the decade quoted. It is doubtful if the few steamboats
engaged in traffic during that time were able to show aggregate
gross earnings of $742.90 per mile per annum. It seems a pity that
the benefit resulting from this expenditure could not have been
participated in by the great flotilla that covered the river in the
preceding decade, from 1856 to 1866.
In this expenditure we find $59,098 charged to the eleven miles of
river between St. Paul and St. Anthony Falls. It is doubtful if a
dozen trips a year were made to St. Anthony Falls during the time
noted. It was a hard trip to make against the rapid current below
the falls, and a dangerous trip to make downstream. It would seem,
however, that with the expenditure of $5,909 per year for ten years,
over only eleven miles of river, every rock (and it is all rocks)
might have been pulled ashore, and a perfect canal built up. Possibly
that is the result of all this work; I haven't been over that piece
of river since the work was completed--for one reason, among others,
that no steamboats ever go to St. Anthony Falls, now that the river
is put in order.
From St. Paul to Prescott, thirty-two miles, there was expended
$638,498 in ten years. I can readily understand why so much money was
planted in that stretch of river. Beginning at Prescott and going
toward St. Paul, there were to be found five or six of the worst
bars there are anywhere on the river; and between the accentuated
bars--bars of sufficient importance to merit names of their own--the
rest of the river was bad enough to merit at least some of the
language expended upon it by pilots who navigated it before the
improvements came. At Prescott, at the head of Puitt's Island (now
Prescott Island) or Point Douglass bar, at Nininger, at Boulanger's
Island, at Grey Cloud, at Pig's Eye, and at Frenchman's, were bars
that were the terror of all pilots and the dread of all owners
and stockholders. I will eliminate the "terror" as expressing the
feelings of the pilots. "Resignation" would perhaps be the better
word. They all knew pretty well where to go to find the best water
on any or all of the bars named; but they also knew that when they
found the best water it would be too thin to float any boat drawing
over three and a half feet. With a four-foot load line it simply
meant that the steamboat must be hauled through six inches of sand by
main strength and awkwardness, and that meant delay, big wood bills,
bigger wage-lists, wear and tear of material, and decreased earnings.
A big packet not loaded below the four-foot line, was not laden to
the money-making point. After the work of regeneration began, it was
a constant fight on the part of the engineers to maintain a four and
a half foot channel on either one of the bars named. The expenditure
of the great sums of money placed in this district is therefore
easily accounted for.
The work of improvement was, and still is carried on under the
direction of competent engineers, detailed for the service by
the chief of engineers of the United States army. No more highly
trained men in their profession can be found in the world than these
choice graduates of the most perfect institution of instruction in
the world--West Point Military Academy. Their scientific, perhaps
academic, knowledge of the laws governing the flow of water and the
shifting of sands, the erosion of banks and the silting up into
islands and continents, which are among the vagaries of the great
river, is supplemented by the practical, if unscientific, knowledge
of men who have gained their acquaintance with the river from years
of service as pilots or masters of river steamboats. The government
is shrewd enough to secure the services of such men to complement the
science of its chosen representatives. These two classes, in pairs or
by companies, have made an exhaustive study of conditions surrounding
each of the more difficult and troublesome bars, as well as all
others of lesser note, in order to decide what was needed, what kind
of work, and how to be placed to lead, or drive the water into the
most favorable channels, and there retain it under varying conditions
of flood or drought, ice jams, or any and all the conditions
contributing to the changes forever going on in the river.
These points determined, an estimate is made of the cost of
the necessary improvements, details of construction are drawn,
specifications submitted, and bids on the proposed work invited.
There were, and are, plenty of contractors, provided with boats,
tackle, stone quarries, and all else required in the prosecution
of the work. It would not be safe, however, to assume that the
government always reaped the benefit of so much competition as might
be assumed from the number of men engaged in the business. It would
be unsafe to assume that such competition has always been free
from collusion, although possibly it has been. On the other hand,
each contractor has his "beat", from which all other bidders have