formation you refuse to recommend the continuation of the project because nature has diminished the amount of tonnage? The CHAIRMAN. Let me suggest, Congressman, that we won't get anywhere on just simply a theoretical case. If you have a particular case and bring it in and inquire as to that, the general will be in a better situation to give you an answer. General TAYLOR. I can answer the question. General TAYLOR. We take into consideration not only the existing commere but the reasonably prospective commerce. We try to make an estimate of our own of what would happen if the work was done. It is a little difficult sometimes to do that, but we always try to make that estimate. So that the fact that there is no commerce now, due to the fact that the conditions are such that commerce can not exist, would not work against the project being done if it was reasonably sure that the commerce would develop if the work was done. That is all. Mr. SCOTT. May I ask the chairman this question? I discussed with your clerk the other day a proviso relating to a contemplated general survey of the Great Lakes. The CHAIRMAN. What do you mean-with regard to getting a deeper channel? Mr. SCOTT. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. We have adopted a provision with respect to that already. Mr. Scort. Of course, in my territory I have over a thousand miles of water front and that involves a great many reports, and I do not want to burden this committee with a lot of detailed applications, because if that survey comes in that will undoubtedly accomplish the purpose. The CHAIRMAN. That is going in, and then we will have one right down to the Atlantic Ocean so that you can deliver your freight all the way to the seaboard. Mr. MOONEY. There seems to be some difference of opinion about the increase of water depth down the Mississippi by the diversion in Chicago. I was going to ask General Taylor how much increase in the height of this water there will be. The CHAIRMAN. You have not asked your question. General TAYLOR. I assume that what you mean is how much increase in depth there will be? Mr. NEWTON. At low-water mark. Mr. MOONEY. Yes. General TAYLOR. I am not prepared to answer that at the present time. It would not be very much, because as the Mississippi River falls, the bars scour out, so that it would require quite a long study to determine how much increase in depth would be given by the abstraction of 10,000 feet from the present flow. I think possibly the Mississippi River Commission did have some data on that subject, but I have not at the present time. Below Cairo the effect would be unappreciable, I think. Above Cairo it will probably amount to something, but not very much, on account of the peculiar condition that the bars of the river rise as the river rises and they cut out as the river falls. So it would not be anything like as great an increase of depth as would be the fact if the river had a hard bottom that did not change. Mr. MOONEY. I thank you. Mr. McDUFFIE. For my own satisfaction and information, and to get it as simply as I can, under this report the work you are going to do, if adopted The CHAIRMAN (interposing). In the Illinois River report? Mr. McDUFFIE. Yes; the Illinois River report. The work will result in a 9-foot channel, regardless of whether there are 2,000 feet coming out of the lake or whether there are 10,000 feet coming out of the lake? General TAYLOR. That is correct; yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. But do not lose sight of this fact, that as the quantity of water diminishes below 8,250 feet, which is the amount coming down now, you will have to dredge. Mr. McDUFFIE. It will increase the cost? The CHAIRMAN. You will have to dredge in proportion as the water decreases. Mr. McDUFFIE. Then we do not say what amount shall be diverted at all? The CHAIRMAN. Not at all. Mr. McDUFFIE. But the point I am getting at, regardless of the amount of water that is going out, it is to provide a 9-foot channel, whether it is 2,000 or 10,000? . The CHAIRMAN. Absolutely. We are not appropriating enough money when the water diminishes to do the additional dredging. Mr. McDUFFIE. You take the position that if the commerce justified it, the Congress would do that in the future? The CHAIRMAN. Yes; absolutely. (Whereupon, at 11.50 a. m., an adjournment was taken until tomorrow, Thursday, April 1, 1926, at 10.30 a. m.) HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON RIVERS AND HARBORS, Thursday, April 1, 1926. The committee met at 10.30 o'clock a. m., Hon. S. Wallace Dempsey chairman, presiding. The CHAIRMAN. We will first hear from Congressman Madden. First, I will say this to the committee. There is a feeling, as I understand it, that some members want to get over to the House to vote, and so we are going to try as far as we can this morning, to let Mr. Madden and Mr. Barnes finish their statements without any questions until each of them has finished, and then we are going to go around the table and see if anybody wants to ask any questions. I suggest this in order to expedite matters. STATEMENT OF HON. MARTIN B. MADDEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS Mr. MADDEN. Mr. Chairman, and gentlemen, the question of waterways, I suppose, is one of the uppermost issues just now. The sentiment throughout the country seems to be growing in favor of the development of a system of water transportation in the interior of the country by means of which the interior can get into communication with the outside; that is, with the seacoast. A large sum has been spent on the development of water transportation facilities and large sums, I presume, will continue to be expended for that purpose. I do not recall the exact amount that has been spent on the Mississippi River, but it is somewhere over $140,000,000. On the Ohio it has been about $131,000,000. Neither of these channels of commerce have been completed. There are the Warrior River, the Tennessee River, and many other rivers I could name as well as many rivers in other sections of the country which have merit and ought to be developed as the intracoastal system, which is in process of completion, and on all of these very large sums of money have been expended. The time is coming, I don't know how far it is off, when the increased population of the country will be greater than the transportation facilities will accoramodate by rail. It is quite proper, then, that there should be facilities developed to supplement the rail facilities so that they may be ready to meet the issue when the hour arrives. The people of the South and the Southwest are peculiarly advantaged for the development of water transportation, because it is through these sections that the water channels flow to a greater extent than in other sections of the country. The people of the Central West and of the Mississippi Valley feel that farm products of the country could be moved to the seaboard much more economically if all the arteries of commerce by which water transportation could be had were fully developed, and these people, of course, are entitled to the consideration which Congress can give by the development of these facilities. On the extreme West, of course, we have other great interior waterways that can be developed for the transportation of the commerce of those sections of the country. And on the extreme East-if I may call New York and other places adjacent thereto, the extreme East-there are conditions which attract the attention of the Nation, and I think it may be said fairly that everywhere throughout the country there is a feeling that to a reasonable extent this Congress should apply itself to the development of the facilities which will afford cheaper transportation, especially cheaper transportation of the products of the farms. It is said-with what degree of accuracy, of course, I do not assume to say-that if these waterway facilities were so developed as to be now at the disposal of the greatest agricultural regions of the Central West and the Mississippi Valley that they would be able to transport their products from anywhere from 10 cents to 12 cents a bushel less than they are now paying for such transportation. That is a problem, it seems to me, that should be given the greatest consideration, and at the earliest possible date facilities to enable that saving to the men who till the soil should be supplied. The Great Lakes-I suppose the greatest interior water system in the world-carrying the greatest amount of commerce of any water system in the world, and greater, I think, so far as this Nation is concerned, than the commerce between this country and the other countries across the seas-have been clamoring for a long while to get connection with the sea, get connections with the sea, I had better put it, because that is what they have been seeking. I happen to come from a section of the country that is very close to one of the greatest interior systems of water transportation, living as I do on the borders of Lake Michigan, and our community, State, city, and county have all expended toward the development of a water communication between the Great Lakes and the sea out of their own pockets, in direct excavation, to say nothing of subsidiary expenditures in connection with these excavations, something like about $70,000,000, and are in process of expending a very large additional sum. Chicago, as such, built what was intended to be a nucleus of a ship canal connecting Lake Michigan with the Des Plaines River at Lockport, running down as far as Joliet, with an open river cut, 37 miles. It is true that that cut was used not only for navigation but also for sanitation; but the primary purpose for which it was constructed as large as it is when it was constructed was to make it the entrance from the Lakes of a great ship canal, that it was hoped would be constructed at some time in the future, between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River, and on down to the sea. I was a member of this committee in 1908 and 1909. In the course of my membership we had under consideration the problem of making the ship canal over the territory which embraces the Chicago ship canal, the drainage canal, or whatever you want to call it, or both, and a cut was made from Lockport to Utica connecting the Illinois River, down the Illinois River to Grafton, with the Mississippi River, connecting the Mississippi. The purpose, then, seemed to be to make a ship canal 14 feet wide, with permanent works, 21 feet depth over the miter sills of the locks. The Rivers and Harbors Committee at that time said they would make a unanimous report recommending the adoption of a plan suggested by Captain Marshall, then the local engineer in Chicago, later Chief of Engineers of the United States, for a 9-foot channel down through the Illinois River from Lockport to Utica and through the Illinois River down to the Mississippi. Personally, I would have accepted that recommendation as a member of this committee at that time, but it did not seem to meet the approval of those who were interested in the greater development. Since then our State has authorized the issue of $20,000,000 of bonds, placed those bonds at the disposal of the Government, with authority to expend money derived from their sale in the construction of a canal with a 9-foot draft, with locks 600 feet long and 110 feet wide, having a capacity to carry through the locks at one time a tow of barges if I understand it, and if I am not correct I will try to correct it later-of 9,000-ton capacity in the tow. There has been a recent investigation or survey made of the proposal to extend what the State is doing down through the Illinois to the Mississippi River, and that question was referred to the engineers. They have made a report. The report is rather indefinite, I should say. It recommends that two locks or dams, one at Henry and one at Copperas Creek, in the Illinois River be removed. It is suggested that two locks owned by the Government farther down at Kampsville and La Grange might be partially removed. The recommendation reminds me of a speech I once heard in the House made by Francis W. Cushman, a Member of the House, and a very eloquent fellow. Bourke Cockran was a Member at that time. Cushman was making a speech on the tariff. Cockran was rather vain and Cushman knew it, and in the course of his talk, Cushman said, "Is the gentleman from New York present?" Cockran rose in his place, and Cushman said, "I am glad to see the gentleman from New York is here. If he was making this speech he would be on both sides of the question. Oh, did I say both sides? Oh, no! I mean all four sides." That is the way the report impressed me, that the engineers did not want to offend anybody, so they made a milk and water report. Now, if transportation facilities are going to be supplied at the cost of the people of the United States irrespective of whether it is within the State or within the Nation-because after all the people of the United States pay the bills, whether the State levies the tax or whether the United States levies the tax-then these facilities ought to be adequate. What I mean by adequate is that the facilities. granted in one place should be such as to enable the transportation in another place to be interchangeable; that is, the facilities employed in the transportation ought to be able to pass from one waterway to another. If the two locks owned by the Government in the Illinois River are to be allowed to remain, the waterway that is proposed to be created, if it is created, the one which is now under consideration by this committee, and the one about which I am talking, would be only 31 per cent of the capacity of the waterway that has been created at the expense of Chicago, and that which is being created at the expense of the State, and it would not permit the ships to go through the Ohio, the boats to pass up through this waterway at all, and to that extent it would be money wasted; for I take it for granted that if you are going to have a system of waterways you want these waterways because you want them, you do not want them as an ornament; you are not going to vote for this thing to please me, you ought not to vote for it to please anybody else, you ought to vote for it, if you vote for it at all, because it ought to be voted for. If it has no place in the framework of the system that is being created for the transportation of commodities, then it ought not to be created; but if the Great Lakes system and the people who live in the territory adjacent to it and the people who live in the Mississippi Valley have any rights and these rights are involved in the transportation facilities that are to be created by the Government, then there ought not to be any question merely because an engineer says this or that or the other thing about the adequacy of the thing that we are going to supply. It would be absurd, it seems to me, to waste the money of the American people in making a toy waterway to compete with the system of waterways on which the Government has already expended hundreds of millions of dollars. If it won't compete and it can not cooperate and it is not a part of the system, it has no place in the |