Wednesday, March 11, 2020
Reprint of the Great Interstate Canal
I noticed that one of the occasional human readers of this blog was looking at this item. I had forgotten the item. It's another reminder that Social Economics and non-interventionist attitudes were common before FDR. Harding picked up these attitudes, and FDR implemented them fully.
= = = = = START PARTIAL REPRINT:
As I was browsing through maps, bumped into this splendid piece of belated utopianism. It's a 1914 proposal for a canal running more or less along the Dry Line from Canada to Galveston. (Not too far from my recent idea for a giant railroad to replace barge traffic.)
The route:
Proposed by Mr JC Hopper of Ness City, which is pretty much self-explanatory....
On the horizon, glowing like the rising sun, is NESS CITY!!!!! CENTER OF THE KNOWN UNIVERSE! ALL ROADS LEAD TO NESS!!!
And there's old JC, looking portly and prosperous despite the Scotch Tape over his head.
In his hand is a scroll:
Peaceful homes are better than dreadnaughts.
Below him:
Internal improvements rather than external make a nation great.
Painted on the side of the canal:
Irrigation beats the standing army.
All a little clunky, but all ABSOLUTELY CORRECT.
We DESPERATELY need to relearn and reapply all three.
Well, what happened to the Great Interstate Canal? Nothing. This map was its only product. Hopper tried to interest the gov't, with no results. BUT: Twenty years later, when the Corps of Engineers started its major dam-building, it followed the same basic principle. Hold back water behind the Dry Line, to smooth out the irregular rainy periods and provide irrigation.
Bigger map here.
= = = = = END PARTIAL REPRINT.
JC Hopper wasn't an alienated radical. He was a small-town real estate man. He figured that his futuristic project would help the farmers and mechanics. He believed in avoiding war, not obliterating everything except Israel.
¶ 6:22 AM 
Proposed by Mr JC Hopper of Ness City, which is pretty much self-explanatory....
On the horizon, glowing like the rising sun, is NESS CITY!!!!! CENTER OF THE KNOWN UNIVERSE! ALL ROADS LEAD TO NESS!!!
And there's old JC, looking portly and prosperous despite the Scotch Tape over his head.
In his hand is a scroll:
Peaceful homes are better than dreadnaughts.
Below him:
Internal improvements rather than external make a nation great.
Painted on the side of the canal:
Irrigation beats the standing army.
All a little clunky, but all ABSOLUTELY CORRECT.
We DESPERATELY need to relearn and reapply all three.
Well, what happened to the Great Interstate Canal? Nothing. This map was its only product. Hopper tried to interest the gov't, with no results. BUT: Twenty years later, when the Corps of Engineers started its major dam-building, it followed the same basic principle. Hold back water behind the Dry Line, to smooth out the irregular rainy periods and provide irrigation.
Bigger map here.
= = = = = END PARTIAL REPRINT.
JC Hopper wasn't an alienated radical. He was a small-town real estate man. He figured that his futuristic project would help the farmers and mechanics. He believed in avoiding war, not obliterating everything except Israel.
¶ 6:22 AM
