drhess
September 23, 2005, 7:20pm
1
In the Thomas Nast cartoon below, and some others from the Machine Boss era of urban politics, there’s a reference to “Free Canals”. What is it there to represent?http://www.thomasnast.com/TheFeatures/NastFeatures.htm
The link doesn’t go to the cartoon, but here’s a little light reading on the controversy.
Commercial interests for some time had teen trying persistently and openly to secure a free canal system, and Auditor Schuyler was an earnest advocate of the plan. In presenting arguments therefor, he stated that 170,000,000 tons of freight had been transported over the canals since their opening. It was alleged by those who opposed free canals that the expenditures for canal purposes, since their opening, exceeded their revenues by nearly $35,000,000, and that this sum represented their net cost to the people, raised by taxes. Admitting this for the purpose of comparison, the State [of New York] owed by far the largest share of its prosperity to the canals. The total amount of tolls collected since the opening of the canals was $130,034,897.09. But in addition to this, during the preceding forty years, the carriers of the canal were paid for transportation $146,868,964, exclusive of tolls, and the merchants and warehousemen were estimated to have received at least $100,000,000. These sums were direct benefits to the people of the state from the tonnage of the canals, to which should be added the almost incalculable benefits resulting from the increase of wealth and population.