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

system. If it has only 31 per cent of the capacity that is being created by those who are expending their own money, when the Federal Government gets through with its work, then the Federal Government has created an abortion of the thing that was intended to be a utility, and I am here to appeal to you, gentlemen, not to destroy; if you can not build, don't destroy the thing that is intended for the service of the American people in the transportation of their commodities!

It might well be, and very properly, that a cargo of supplies of any kind shipped to, say, Pittsburgh or Cincinnati, or any other place on the Ohio River, to St. Louis or New Orleans, that when that cargo was delivered, the facility on which that cargo was shipped might want to reload a cargo for Chicago. Would anybody say that Congress had acted with wisdom if they made the facilities which are now being considered inadequate to meet that condition and enable the return cargo to go through to Chicago?

It is true, of course, that if we make a 31 per cent facility the people who use that 31 per cent facility could go back up to the Ohio, but that would not be interchangeable.

These facilities are being builded, if they are to be built at all, for the future. They are not to be built just to meet the idiosyncrasies of somebody who may have a faint heart or who may have a prejudice. They ought to be built to meet the Nation's needs, not for to-day but for the days that are to come. If we are not able to build them on that basis, they should not be built at all. That applies not only to the waterways the people of Illinois are particularly interested in, but it applies to all the waterways. It applies to the Warrior River, to the Tennessee River, to the Mississippi River; it applies to the Sacramento River and the Columbia River and the Missouri River, and to all the other rivers too numerous for me to undertake to mention. It is not a question of whether you are going to spend $1,000,000 or $2,000,000; it is a question that involves the problem of whether what you spend is wisely spent.

That is one of the things about which I am concerned, to which I devote a great deal of my time and thought-the wisdom of an expenditure. It is one of the things that has concerned me a great deal, as many gentlemen around this table know. Perhaps, I have been overenthusiastic sometimes about it, according to the judgment of others; but in the long run the taxpayers' interests must be conserved and in the long run they will only be conserved by the wisdom of the action, whatever it may be, that we may take.

I think that as far as the direct problem on this particular waterway is concerned, I have said all I really ought to say; but I want to urge before I close on that, that I hope that when the action of this committee is recorded, it will disclose the fact that adequacy for the future transportation of commodities will be the guiding reason for its action. And what I mean by adequacy is facilities here equal to the facilities elsewhere, interchangeable facilities, so that the people who ship may have the right as well as the facilities to move their boats first through one channel, then through another, as the importance of the business in either justifies.

I was very much interested the day before yesterday in listening to my good friend, the Secretary of War, with whom I have had the

most pleasant relations on many occasions under more difficult circumstances than these.

Mr. BAKER. I would like them to know we were in the trenches together.

Mr. MADDEN. We were. I was much interested in listening to him tell about the danger to transportation on the Lakes, about the lake levels, about the injustice that might follow a continuance of the flow through the existing channel leading from Lake Michigan at Chicago and on down through the Mississippi River through the channel that is now being proposed. And I want to say that I have looked up some of the historical facts in the case since that time in order that I might be able to place on record the statement which I think should go in the record in answer to the Secretary of War. Mr. BAKER. Ex-Secretary.

Mr. MADDEN. No. The gentleman was so efficient in his work that there never ought to be any diminution of the title. I had the greatest admiration for him, and I will say that he was one man who could always be seen, who was always courteous and always prompt, and if I asked him the day before, even in the biggest stress, if I could see him in the morning, and he said it was necessary to see him at 8 o'clock, he would be in his office at 8.

The diversion at Chicago is not limited by the language of the treaty to which the Secretary referred yesterday to a figure less than 10,000 cubic second-feet. In fact, the only limitation to be gathered by the treaty is under the language of Article II, which provides that that article shall not apply to cases already existing. It is, therefore, necessary in construing that language to have recourse to the purposes for which the treaty was negotiated, and that the findings and recommendations of the International Waterways Commission, that body having been created by the joint action of the United States and the British Government to investigate and report upon the use of certain waters, as well as to investigate and report upon the effect of diversions from the Great Lakes system.

In the preamble of the treaty it is stated that its purpose is to "settle all questions then pending between the United States and the Dominion of Canada," etc. The question naturally presents itself, what question concerning the diversion from Lake Michigan at Chicago was in dispute or in question at the time of the negotiation of the treaty in 1910?

In 1895, before the sanitary channel was completed and just before the Canadian Government requested the United States to join in the creation of this joint commission, the Dominion Government appointed J. L. P. O'Hanley, a prominent hydraulic engineer, to investigate and report upon the probable effect of the opening of the canal upon the levels of the Great Lakes.

On February 29, 1896, O'Hanley's report was completed and presented to the Canadian Government. He reported that the sanitary district channel would require a diversion of 10,000 cubic feet per second and that such diversion would have the effect of lowering the levels of the Great Lakes (except Superior) approximately 6 inches. Following the O'Hanley report, and when it was known to the Dominion Government that the canal about to be opened at the Chicago end of Lake Michigan would require the diversion of 10,000