sable improvements had to carry a large number of dredgings
of streams, creeks, and bayous, which never could be made navigable.
Many millions a year were thrown away in these river and harbor
bills, but four millions a year to restore the American mercantile
marine aroused a flood of indignant eloquence, fierce protest,
and wild denunciation of capitalists, who would build and own
ships, and it was always fatal to the mercantile marine.

Happily the war has, among its benefits, demonstrated to the
interior and mountain States that a merchant marine is as necessary
to the United States as its navy, and that we cannot hope to expand
and retain our trade unless we have the ships.

I remember one year when the river and harbor bill came up for
passage on the day before final adjournment. The hour had been
fixed by both Houses, and, therefore, could not be extended by
one House. The administration was afraid of the bill because of
the many indefensible extravagances there were in it. At the
same time, it had so many political possibilities that the president
was afraid to veto it. Senator Carter was always a loyal
administration man, and so he was put forward to talk the bill
to death. He kept it up without yielding the floor for thirteen
hours, and until the hour of adjournment made action upon the
measure impossible.

I sat there all night long, watching this remarkable effort. The
usual obstructor soon uses up all his own material and then sends
pages of irrelevant matter to the desk for the clerk to read, or
he reads himself from the pages of the Record, or from books,
but Carter stuck to his text. He was a man of wit and humor.
Many items in the river and harbor bill furnished him with an
opportunity of showing how creeks and trout streams were to be
turned by the magic of the money of the Treasury into navigable
rivers, and inaccessible ponds were to be dredged into harbors
to float the navies of the world.

The speech was very rich in anecdotes and delightful in its success
by an adroit attack of tempting a supporter of the measure into
aiding the filibuster by indignantly denying the charge which
Carter had made against him. By this method Carter would get
a rest by the folly of his opponent. The Senate was full and
the galleries were crowded during the whole night, and when the
gavel of the vice-president announced that no further debate was
admissible and the time for adjournment had arrived, and be