Inland Waterways Commission

The Inland Waterways Commission was a United States federal agency, created by Congress in March 1907 at the request of President Theodore Roosevelt, to investigate the transportation crisis that recently had affected the nation's ability to move its produce and industrial production efficiently.

The immediate crisis centered on insufficient railroad capacity developed by the private sector, and competing but neglected inland shipping, the navigation of which had been deemed under federal purview since 1824.

The president wanted water projects to be considered for their multiple uses and in relation to other natural resources and asked for a comprehensive plan for the improvement and control of the river systems of the United States.

[2] On March 14, 1907, President Roosevelt appointed the Inland Waterway Commissioners and charged them to prepare and report "a comprehensive plan for the improvement and control of the river systems of the United States.

At the same time, the government's inland waterways have received scant attention as a whole, and it was becoming clear that the nation's streams should be considered and conserved as great natural resources.

The commission's appointment followed numerous petitions from commercial organizations in the Mississippi valley asking for such study, and he said, "the common knowledge that the railroads of the United States are no longer able to move crops and manufactures rapidly enough to secure the prompt transaction of the business of the nation, and there is small prospect of immediate relief."

"[3] Roosevelt noted that while the nation's rivers are natural resources of first rank, they are also liable to become destructive agencies, endangering life and property; and that some of our most notable engineering enterprises have grown from the effort to control them.

The vast quantity of annual suspended sediment and an enormous but unmeasured amount of earth-salts and soil-matter carried in solution not only causes the Mississippi channels to clog and flood the lowlands of the lower river, but also renders the flow variable and difficult to control.

Roosevelt noted that any feasible plan for utilizing inland waterways should recognize both the existing federal means, including the Departments of War, Interior, Agriculture, and Commerce and Labor, and those in the states and their subdivisions.

The cost necessarily will be large and proportional to the magnitude of potential benefits to the people, but it will be small in comparison to the $17 billion in current capital investments for steam railways nationally.

A third meeting and inspection trip took place from September 21 to October 13, which traveled on the Great Lakes from Cleveland to Duluth, on the Mississippi from St. Paul to Memphis, and on the Missouri River from Kansas City to St. Louis.