History leads us to look back at signature events in our past but it can also lead us to extrapolate for what change will happen in our future.
One example is the Cape Cod Canal. You might think it began with frustration over having to go out to Race Point at Provincetown and then back towards the rest of Massachusetts. You would be partially wrong. Everything you see in the modern-day layout of the waterway shortcut from Cape Cod Bay to Buzzards Bay began with a strange incident connected to World War I.
Cape Cod is a well-known summer resort area that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean from the mainland of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts; the first of the six New England states in the northeast United States without a border to Canada. There are several ways onto the Cape ranging from boats to a train and, of course, cars. US Route Six actually begins there and continues throughout the continental United States until it reaches the shores of California.
The canal opened as a tolled waterway in the Summer of 1914. A private enterprise, the canal became a shortcut for shipping between Southern New England and Long Island Sound and, of course, Boston north. It also provided a form of natural protection for our shipping lanes in that area from any intruders that would seek to undermine American domestic trade in the Northeast. That may seem like a stretch until you understand the day the First World War came to the shores of Massachusetts and New York.
Cape Cod unprepared for World War I
On July 22, 1918, a German u-boat started shelling a group of four barges off the coast of Orleans, Massachusetts. The waters were part of the shipping lanes that were not using the alternative of the then-new and privately run canal. The barges were heading south having dropped off cargo of coal and carrying one barge of stone.
Clearly, the United States was unprepared for such an attack on US Shores. According to news reports at the time, the shelling lasted for an hour and there was no shore battery to return fire. Three barges sank, the attack set another on fire along with the towboat driving the vessels. The enemy crew also successfully landed shells on the mainland of Orleans, Massachusetts. Projectiles passed over the heads of onlookers gathered on the beach to watch the drama. Obviously, civil authorities were so unprepared there was not even any official available to scream at citizens that you do not stand on a beach being shelled by enemy fire.
There was a similar attack off the coast of Fire Island in Long Island Sound. The U-boat was never captured. In neighboring Chatham, Coast Guard planes took off to drop bombs on the submarine but they never exploded.
Ironically, the only serious injury reported was to an Austrian crew member of the tug who suffered severe damage to his right arm, almost severing it from the shoulder when he was hit by shrapnel from the German shells.
Because three of the four barges were empty some believed that the Germans were looking for easy targets on the American East Coast to show the people at home they were succeeding even though the Germans were close to defeat. The war would be formally declared over on Armistice Day November 11, that same year.
US Army needs to be in charge
Immediately, Washington determined the United States Army needed to take over the operation of the Cape Cod Canal. The waterway was also natural protection against a repeat event as it cut its way between the two landmasses. There was no place for a submarine to hide as it was only twenty-five feet deep.
In Congress, there was a focused look at the proposal of the United States Government buying the canal — an idea that actually preceded the shelling but was not seriously considered. The goal was for it to be permanently run not by a private concern but the government itself. Of course, this demonstrated the importance the United States authorities placed on the waterway at least in the Northeast.
New Englander approves
The debate in congress continued for almost ten years. Under the Taft, Wilson, and Harding administrations, there was some discussion but all three presidents were against it. The Sikeston (MO) Standard reported that they considered the project “a white elephant” and the bonds of the company running the canal to be worthless. This all changed under President Calvin Coolidge, a Vermont native, he was the Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts during the time of the shelling and Governor of the Commonwealth in 1919. US President in 1927, his administration approved the sale of the canal to the United States for $11,500,000. Today that would be over 181 million dollars.
The government made the passage through the waterway free and traffic increased threefold almost immediately. This created problems on the waterway and the roads because two draw bridges transversed the canal in mainland Bourne and Sagamore which tied up both water and land traffic. The solution had to be replacing the current configuration with suspension bridges, something that happened during the WPA programs of the Roosevelt Administration in 1935.
Nothing is just over
Three days after any major event in the world, everything may appear over. The lesson of the current operation of the Cape Cod Canal by the US Army Corps of Engineers is, it may be decades before all the fallout from an event finally lands. The astute leader will be on the lookout for the long-term consequences of any incident.
Sources:
Democratic National Committee, Sikeston (MO) News, Feb 10, 1928 P. 15
Carpenter, Frank G, Inland Waterway for Defense of Nation Sunday (Boston) Globe Magazine, Dec 22, 1918, p7
U-Boat Attacks Barges. Statesville (NC) Landmark, p1
Naval Craft Sweeping Seas, Twin Falls (ID) Daily News July 22, 1918, p. 1
Bombs Dropped Near Orleans Off Cape Cod Failed to Explode, Boston (MA) Evening Globe July 22, 1918 p.1
Cape Cod Canal Purchase Scored, Feb 17, 1928, North Adams (MA) Transcript p. 9
The Country’s Bosses, May 6, 1928, Madison (WI) Capital Times, p. 48
Calvin Coolidge, Wikipedia
US Army Corps of Engineers, Cape Cod Canal
Photo: Tichnor Bros. Inc., Boston, Mass., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons