nts, automobile factories and assembling plants, soap works, packing
plants, lumber yards, building material plants and yards, warehouses of
all kinds, etc., would be encouraged to establish here if given the
proper facilities, and the Industrial Canal is the answer to this need,
for under the laws of Louisiana private industries can not acquire or
lease property on the river front. Even before the completion of the
Canal, the dream has been partly realized--with the establishment of
two large shipyards on the Canal, which otherwise would have gone
somewhere else, and the building of the army supply base on the same
waterway, largely due to the enterprise of the port.

As Colonel E. J. Dent, U.S. district engineer, said before the members'
council of the Association of Commerce, February 17, 1921, the
Industrial Canal will be the means of removing the handicaps on New
Orleans' foreign trade. "I hold no brief for the Industrial Canal," he
continued, "but speaking as one who has no interest in it but who has
studied the question deeply, I will say that five years from now, if
you develop the Industrial Canal as it should be developed, you will be
wondering how on earth you ever got along without it."

Before the constitutional convention of Louisiana, on April 4, 1921, he
elaborated this thought as follows:

"The Industrial Canal will furnish to New Orleans her greatest need. It
should be possible to build docks there where the entire cargo for a
ship may be assembled. Under present conditions in the river it is
often necessary for a ship to go to three or four docks to get a
complete cargo.

"Last year there passed through the port of New Orleans 11,000,000 tons
of freight valued at $1,100,000,000. This required 1,000 loaded freight
cars a day passing over the docks, fifteen solid trainloads of freight
each day. The inbound freight was about 5,000,000 tons and the outbound
about 6,000,000. This is extraordinarily well balanced for any port in
the United States. This would mean about 5,000 steamers of an average
capacity of 2,000 tons.

"The proper place to assemble a cargo is on the docks. Last year the
Dock Board allowed but seven days for assembling the cargo for a
ship--only seven days for assembling 250 carloads of stuff. Then last
year the Dock Board would not assign a ship a berth until it was within
the jetties. These are some of the difficulties.

"What New Orleans needs is 50 to 100 per cent more facilitie