Mr. HOGAN. Mr. Speaker, it is a remark able stretch of may nanimit to allow to an advocate of the unohstrncte navigation of the Mississippi river 5.minutes to reply to efforts in behalf of chartered monopolies to destroy its navigation. Do gentlemen of this House know the magnitude of the business of the Mississippi river? Let me call their attention to the act that in the year 1865 the enrolled carryin capacity of the steamers on the Mississippi an its tributaries was 292,000 144 tons, there being 910 steamers engaged in the navigation of that river. And those 910 steamers have cost the people who havebuilt them $30,000,000. And ogentlemen know that the commerce of that Missis sippi river, if left undisturbed by the power of moneyed monopolies endeavoring to destroy it, is equal to the whole foreign commerce of the U.S.? 5 It is not only the States bordering upon the river that are interested in this commerce. There are 11 States that could find outlets to market through that medium if left undis turbed by the monopolizin railroads. But it is not only those States that are interested. Gentlemen from Maine are as much interested in the free navigation of the Mississippi river as my constituents are. If the people of Maine are buying from the West 600,000 barrels of flour every year, let me assure them that they can transport that flour from the falls of StAnthony, at the extreme u perart of the naviation of the river, to Port and, Iaine, for one dollar or one dollar and a halflcss perbarrel than they can transport it b any railroads now existing in the country. i very ear nearly a million dollars is taken out of the pockets of the people of Maine for breadstuffs alone, in the shape of flour, to be put into the pockets of monopolizing railroad companies, who are seeking to destroy the navigation of that great river. am not opposed to bridges. I have no opposition to bridges. I hope the mississippi river may be bridged at every mile if that he wanted to be done. I have no objection as to how many bridges are constructed; but why shall you give e right to obstruct the navigation of that river to the railroad companies and prevent thereby the free transit of these commodities through that channel to the markets of the world? These companies can construct bridges that will not obstruct the navigation of that river. It will cost a little more money to do it. I ask this Congress, members of all parties, whether they are going to disturb the interests of the people of the western country in the navigation of this river in order to save money to these few railroad kings who have grown up and fattened upon the spoils they have gathered from the people. If they would carry freight at fair rates would have no objection to their bridging the Mississippi river. if they will build bridges so as not to obstruct the navigation of the river, I have no objection. The Supreme Court has said, and Congress has enacted that for the Ohio riverabi idge must be 50 feet above high water mark. Why should it not be so for the Mississippi river? '