The canal for which the legislature made provision in 1914 bears about
the relation to the one that was finally built as the acorn does to the
oak. It was to be a mere barge canal that might ultimately be enlarged
to a ship canal. Its cost was estimated at $2,400,000, which was less
than the cost of digging the New Basin canal nearly a century before,
which was a great deal smaller and ran but half way between the lake
and river.
The panic of the early days of the World War shoved even this modest
plan to one side, and it was not until the next year that enthusiasm
caught its second wind. Then the leading men and the press of the city
put themselves behind the project once more.
As the New Orleans Item said, October 22, 1915, "the lack of that canal
has already proven to have cost the city much in trade and developed
industry."
Commenting on the "astonishing exhibition of intelligent public spirit"
in New Orleans, the Chicago Tribune said that "no other city in or near
the Mississippi Valley, including Chicago, has shown such an awakening
to the possibilities and rearrangements that are following the cutting
of the Panama canal. * * * The awakening started with the talk of the
new canal."
Other papers throughout the country made similar expressions.
In 1915 the engineering firm of Ford, Bacon & Davis made a preliminary
survey of conditions and how development would be affected by the
canal. At about the same time the Illinois legislature voted to spend
$5,000,000 to construct a deep water canal, giving Chicago water
connection with the Mississippi River; and the New Orleans Item linked
the two projects when it said, January 16, 1916, "the Illinois-Lake
Michigan Canal and the New Orleans Industrial Canal are complementary
links in a new system of waterways connecting the upper Valley through
the Mississippi River and New Orleans with the Gulf and the Panama
Canal. This system again gives the differential to the Valley cities in
trade with the markets of the Orient, our own west coast, and South
America."
Commodore Ernest Lee Jahncke, president of the Association of Commerce,
issued a statement to the press January 16, 1916, declaring that the
prospect of the canal "brightened the whole business future of this
city and the Mississippi Valley"; the New Orleans Real Estate Board and
the Auction Exchange, in a joint meeting, urged its speedy building;
and Governor Luther E. Hall, in a formal statement to the press January
16, 1916, gave his endorsement to the construction of the canal "long
sought by many commercial interests of New Orleans," and said that work
would probably begin in "three months."
In August, 1916, the governor dismissed the Dock Board and appointed a
new one.
In the confusion attending the reorganization the canal project was
again dropped. The New Orleans American, on August 28, 1916, attempted
to revive it, but the effort fell flat, and the plan laid on ice until
1918.
America had in the meantime thrown its hat into the ring, and the cry
was going up for ships, more ships, and still more ships. National
patriotism succeeded where civic effort had failed. New Orleans brought
out its Industrial Canal project to help the country build the famous
"bridge of boats."
But this new phase of the plan was far from the canal that was finally
built. In fact, the accomplishment of this project has shown a
remarkable development with the passing years, reminding one of the
growth of the trivial hopes of the boy into the mighty achievement of
the man.
Ships could not be built on the Mississippi River. The twenty-foot
range in the water level would require the ways to make a long slope
into the current, a work of prohibitive expense, and as nearly
impossible from an engineering standpoint as anything can be.
Early in 1918 a committee of representative Orleanians began to study
the situation. This was known as the City Shipbuilding Committee. It
comprised Mayor Behrman, O. S. Morris, president of the Association of
Commerce; Walter Parker, manager of that body; Arthur McGuirk, special
counsel of the Dock Board; R. S. Hecht, president of the Hibernia Bank;
Dr. Paul H. Saunders, president of the Canal-Commercial Bank; J. D.
O'Keefe, vice-president of the Whitney-Central Bank; J. K. Newman,
financier; G. G. Earl, superintendent of the Sewerage and Water Board;
Hampton Reynolds, contractor; D. D. Moore, James M. Thompson and J.
Walker Ross, of the Times-Picayune, Item and States, respectively.
On February 10, 1918, this committee laid the plans for an industrial
basin, connected with the river by a lock, and ultimately to be
connected with the lake by a small barge canal. Ships could be built on
the banks of this basin, the water in which would have a fixed level.
Mr. Hecht, and Arthur McGuirk, special counsel of the Dock Board,
devised the plan by which the project could be financed. The Dock Board
would issue long-term bonds, and build the necessary levees with the
material excavated from the canal.
The committee's formal statement summarized the public need of this
facility as follows:
"1. It will provide practical, convenient and fixed-level water-front
sites for ship and boat building and repair plants, for industries and
commercial enterprises requiring water frontage.
"2. It will provide opportunities for all enterprises requiring
particular facilities on water frontage to create such facilities.
"3. It will permit the complete co-ordination, in the City of New
Orleans, of the traffic of the Mississippi River and its tributaries,
of the Intracoastal Canal, the railroads and the sea, under the most
convenient and satisfactory conditions.
"4. In connection with the publicly-owned facilities on the river
front, it will give New Orleans all the port and harbor advantages
enjoyed by Amsterdam with its canal system, Rotterdam and Antwerp with
their joint river and ocean facilities; Hamburg with its free port, and
Liverpool with its capacity as a market deposit.
"5. It will give New Orleans a fixed-level, well protected harbor.
"6. It will serve the purposes of the Intracoastal Canal and increase
the benefits to accrue to New Orleans from that canal.
"7. In connection with revived commercial use of the inland waterways
upon which the federal government is now determined, it will open the
way for an easy solution of the problem of handling, housing and
interchange of water-borne commerce, and of the development of
facilities for the storage of commodities between the period of
production and consumption.
"8. It will prove an important facility in the equipment of New Orleans
to meet the new competition the enlarged Erie Canal will create. The
original Erie Canal harmed New Orleans because Mississippi River boat
lines could not build their own terminal and housing facilities at New
Orleans."
[Illustration: W. A. KERNAGHAN Vice-President
RENE CLERC Secretary
ALBERT MACKIE
HUGH McCLOSKEY
COMMISSIONERS
Board of Commissioners of the Port of New Orleans]
This meeting made industrial history in New Orleans. The Hecht plan was
studied by lawyers and financiers and declared feasible. Mr. Hecht
summarized the confidence of the far-visioned men in the new New
Orleans when he declared in a public interview: "I feel there is
absolutely nothing to prevent the immediate realization of New Orleans'
long dream of becoming a great industrial and commercial center and
having great shipbuilding plants located within the city limits."
And the Item said, in commenting on the undertaking (February 17,
1918): "Millions of dollars of capital will be ready to engage in
shipbuilding in New Orleans the moment that piledrivers and steam
shovels are set to work on the shiplock and navigation canal."
It was a time of great industrial excitement. Victory was at last in
the grasp of New Orleans. The eyes of the country were on New Orleans.
The cry was, "Full Speed Ahead!"