July 3 – Tuesday
A Tidbit about the Erie Barge Canal:
The Canal had been in existence as an important transportation route so in the early 19 hundreds when Theodore Roosevelt was Governor of New York, it was decided to expand the Canal. Larger locks were needed for the bigger barges that could carry goods more efficiently. Concrete was a very new construction material at that time and was being considered for use, but the stone cutters and layers raised holy heck and demonstrated against the new material. They argued that concrete would never hold up to the New York winters or last as long as stone. Governor Roosevelt sent out a team of engineers and tech. guys (no girl engineers around back then) to look into concrete used on other projects around the country. He also had a team of accountants do a cost comparison between stone and concrete and the results showed that concrete would be millions of dollars less. I don’t know what the technical report had to say but they used concrete.
The same Roosevelt also said in a speech:"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."
Enough of that – this is no place for my political views, I am not working for the New York Times.