Meantime our internal development should go on. Provision should be made
for flood control of such rivers as the Mississippi and the Colorado, and
for the opening up of our inland waterways to commerce. Consideration is
due to the project of better navigation from the Great Lakes to the Gulf.
Every effort is being made to promote an agreement with Canada to build
the, St. Lawrence waterway. There are pending before the Congress bills for
further development of the Mississippi Basin, for the taking over of the
Cape Cod Canal in accordance with a moral obligation which seems to have
been incurred during the war, and for the improvement of harbors on both
the Pacific and the Atlantic coasts. While this last should be divested of
some of its projects and we must proceed slowly, these bills in general
have my approval. Such works are productive of wealth and in the long run
tend to a reduction of the tax burden.