There has been renewed interest on the internets over comments Trump made at in California last September, promising the state "more water than you ever saw" if he were elected:
"Donald Trump suggested there was a 'large faucet' up North that could solve all of California’s water needs for its cities, its farms and to wet down its forests so they don’t burn so fierce.
"'You have millions of gallons of water pouring down from the north with the snow caps and Canada, and all pouring down and they essentially have a very large faucet,' Trump said on Friday [apparently referring to the Columbia River].
"'You turn the faucet and it takes one day to turn it, and it's massive, it's as big as the wall of that building right there behind you. You turn that, and all of that water aimlessly goes into the Pacific [Ocean], and if you turned that back, all of that water would come right down here and into Los Angeles,' he said."
It's exaggeration or hyperbole to suggest that Trump's remarks mean that he thinks that, because water flows downhill and Canada is above the United States on a standard map, water would naturally flow from Canada to California. But there is much that he doesn't know that he doesn't know, and elementary physics is on that list.
 |
| "The Battle of Lake Michigan" by Hal Donahey in Cleveland Plain Dealer, Jan. 15, 1925 |
But you were expecting a Graphical History Tour today, so by Gosh and Golly Alrighty then, you shall have one.
 |
| "The Precocious Boy" by Arthur G. Racey in Montreal Daily Star, Jan. 5, 1925 |
A.G. Racey at the Montreal Daily Star had plenty of reservations about Canadian cooperation with United States water usage plans.
I've lived most of my life near Lake Michigan in an area where PublicWorks Departments are acutely aware of international waterway issues. The subcontinental divide between the Great Lakes basin and the Mississippi River basin is less than ten miles from Lake Michigan around here, so water-thirsty projects that straddle that line such as Racine extending water and sewage service to the FoxConn factory practically in my back yard require approval from all the states and provinces bordering the St. Lawrence Seaway.
The divide runs through the city of Chicago. In 1900, the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal opened between the Chicago River (which flowed into Lake Michigan) to the Des Plaines River (which ultimately flows to the Mississippi). The canal reversed the flow of the Chicago River; complaints that Chicago was ignoring agreements with the Army Corps of Engineers to limit the amount of water diverted from Lake Michigan in order to carry sewage down the Des Plaines date from 1907.
In January, 1925, the Canadian government and the Great Lakes Harbor Association formally protested to the U.S. Congress and the Secretaries of War and State against the city of Chicago. At the same time, the dispute reached U.S. Supreme Court in Sanitary District of Chicago v. United States.
 |
| "It's Up to You" by Sam Hunter in Toronto Star Weekly, Jan. 17, 1925 |
The U.S. Senate heard testimony from freighter captains that water levels in the Great Lakes were lowering as a result. "The water is diminishing over the whole chain of lakes all the time," skipper Edward Fitch of Cleveland testified, adding that his ship's routine load had to be cut from 500,000 bushels of wheat to 425,000 to enable it to make harbor.
Chief of Army Engineers Brigadier General Harry Taylor told senators that Chicago's water diversion had lowered Lake Michigan and Lake Huron water levels by 5.8" (14.7 cm), Lake Erie by 5.52" (14 cm) Lake Ontario by 5.76" (14.6 cm), St. Clair River by 4.8" (12.2 cm), and the St. Lawrence River by 8.52" (21.64 cm).
I went through Chicago Tribunes for the month of January to check whether its editorial cartoonists had anything to say about the controversy. I found one cartoon by Carey Orr coming to the Windy City's defense.
 |
| "Waiting to Cross" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, Jan. 7, 1925 |
Returning Chicago sewage to Lake Michigan — where White people were allowed to swim! — instead of letting the Des Plaines River carry it to the Gulf of Mexico meant that the federal government would require Chicago to construct a sewage treatment plant. The lame-duck Congress, in session until March 3, deferred any legislation until the next Congress took office, but the new sewage treatment plant would be begun in due course.
I believe that Dearborn in Orr's cartoon refers to the mouth of the Chicago River where Fort Dearborn (destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire) had been located. As far as I've been able to determine, there was nobody by that name in Cook County government in 1925.
 |
| "The Dog and the Bone" by A.G. Racey in Montreal Daily Star, Jan. 9, 1925 |
We noted last month A.G. Racey's opposition to Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover's proposed "Super Power Project" to deliver electricity generated at the St. Lawrence River "across the line" to the U.S. eastern seaboard.
 |
| "Don't Worry, John" by A.G. Racey in Montreal Daily Star, Jan. 10, 1925 |
"Don't Worry, John" suggests that Racey's alarm was not shared by Canadian financiers (and perhaps governmental officials in Toronto?) willing and eager to cooperate in Hoover's Super Power Project. Racey took a dim view of other deals with Canada's southern neighbor as well, here accusing them of being disloyal to John Bull.
 |
| "An Easy Sucker" by A.G. Racey in Montreal Daily Star, Jan. 15, 1925 |
Racey's Uncle Sam put on a lot of weight between his January 5 editorial cartoon and this one a mere ten days later.
"Greedy American Super Power Interests" tempt the Canadian sucker with "Pretense of cheaper grain carriage rates" from a can of "Enlarged St. Lawrence Waterway Bait."
 |
| "Paging the Man with the Wad" by A.G. Racey in Montreal Daily Star, Jan. 27, 1925 |
The Super Power Project would be blocked February 21 by the opposition of Ottawa and Quebec. Mr. Canada's newspaper, however, lists other sources of friction in U.S.-Canada relations, such as a long-standing Canadian resentment against forestry deals which, Racey charged, favored the Yanks.
In closing, I'd just like to caution the incoming Even More Corrupt Trump Administration not to screw up the amicable relations that our country and Canada have ironed out over the century since these cartoons were drawn. We've come to agreements on water and hydroelectricity and forestry now, and everything is hunky dory between us resource-management-wise.
No comments:
Post a Comment