As published in the

Pasadena Star-News - September 7, 2005

San Gabriel Valley Tribune - September 7, 2005

Whittier Daily News - September 7, 2005

Why New Orleans Matters

by

Gerald Plessner

Americans and their leaders must do everything possible to help the victims of Katrina survive and get back to their previous lives.

There will be time for blame over whatever failures multiplied the destruction, pain and anguish of Katrina. But no matter where blame rests, Americans must understand why New Orleans matters and why it must survive.

Dr. George Friedman has written in a recent commentary published by Strategic Forecasting, Inc. that, "The American political system was founded in Philadelphia, but the American nation was built on the vast farmlands that stretch from the Alleghenies to the Rockies. That farmland produced the wealth that funded American industrialization: It permitted the formation of a class of small landholders who, amazingly, could produce more than they could consume. They could sell their excess crops in the east and in Europe and save that money, which eventually became the founding capital of American industry."

New Orleans is the most important American port. It is the gateway through which most of America's bulk exports are sent out to the world.

President Thomas Jefferson sent Robert R. Livingston and James Monroe to Paris in 1801 and 1803 to negotiate for the purchase of the city of New Orleans from the French. Jefferson wanted to conserve America's right to use New Orleans for the shipment of American goods to Europe and to limit European colonization at the nation's back door.

But little did Jefferson imagine that, instead of agreeing to sell New Orleans for the $2 million he had authorized, the French offered their entire Louisiana holdings from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and from the Gulf of Mexico to what is now Canada for $15 million.

When Monroe and Livingston returned and told Jefferson that they had accepted the larger offer on his behalf, Jefferson fretted about the idea of buying so much land and the president's authority to spend such funds. But the result was to remove France as a colonizing force in North America, an important achievement.

The Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the United States, creating a momentum which would ultimately create the country we have today, "from sea to shining sea".

The impact of the Louisiana Purchase on our nation and our lives is immeasurable. It made America the juggernaut that it is today. It gave us the resources needed for national self-sufficiency. It put oceans between us and potential enemies, and it enabled us to fight and win two terrible world wars.

It also gave the millions of immigrants who came to America, the space, challenge and opportunity that made the United States a miraculous success story.

Recently, Carole and I visited our hometown, St. Louis, to visit family and to show our grandson Zachary where we met, fell in love and were married. We took Zachary to the top of the riverfront Gateway Arch, which commemorates the role of St. Louis as the jumping-off point for the millions who settled America from the Mississippi to the Pacific.

The Gateway Arch is spectacular and Zachary loved it, but what always impresses me when I visit it is the huge, silent, always flowing, never slowing Mississippi River. It must be a mile wide at St. Louis. Even in its man-made boundaries of levees, it is magnificent!

The Mississippi is the biggest highway in the world. It delivers the heavy industrial products from Pittsburgh and the Ohio River Valley. It carries the bulk agricultural products from the entire upper Midwest brought to it on the Missouri River.

It carries industrial products from Chicago and the Great Lakes through the Illinois River and canals built by the Corps of Engineers, turning the river around and widening it so barges could go to the Gulf of Mexico from Chicago and the Great Lakes.

And all that bounty is transferred to oceangoing vessels at New Orleans.

The Port of Southern Louisiana, as it is officially named, exports more than 52 millions tons of products like, corn, soy beans and steel each year, bringing wealth into the United States. It also imports 17 million tons of products such as crude oil, chemicals, fertilizers, coal and concrete, which enable our industrial capacity and build our national wealth.

As we have learned from power outages, America is held together by massive yet fragile infrastructure. So it is with the Mississippi River. When barge traffic on the Mississippi stops, our economy slows. If sea-going ships cannot unload cargo at New Orleans, our industrial productivity slumps.

We can talk and debate, hold hearings and assess blame. We can think that Mardi Gras is an important cultural event and that the French Quarter is a safe place to drink too much. We can also believe those entertainment and distraction are what make New Orleans so important.

But they are trivial when compared to the port of New Orleans as our commercial gateway to the world. America needs a city at the mouth of the Mississippi River to manage that port. It is vital to our national interest.

That is why we must demand that the politicians and civic leaders of New Orleans and Louisiana do their best with our dollars that will flow to them. They must also fulfill their responsibilities to all their citizens and especially the poor and elderly who are the left-overs of the commerce and labor of New Orleans.

Managing a river in interstate commerce is a Constitutional mandate. That is why we must also hold our national political leaders accountable for their past failures and their future actions to solve the river's problems.

Hurricane Katrina teaches us once again that when one part of America is hurt, its entire body suffers. Our hearts go out to the people of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama as they did to the victims of the atrocities of September 11, 2001.

America needs the port at New Orleans like no other, and America needs a vibrant, viable, safe and secure city to manage and staff that port.

That is why New Orleans matters.

About the author: Gerald Plessner is a Southern California businessman who writes regularly on issues of politics and culture. He would be pleased to hear from you and may be contacted at gerald@geraldplessner.com.