be protected and our sewage disposed of in the best way known at that time. This drainage and water supply commission consisted of three men-Rudolph Herring, Samuel J. Artingstall, and Benezette Williams. These men had nation-wide reputations as sanitary engineers, and they made an exhaustive study of Chicago's situation and needs, and in their report made at that time they recommended the construction of our sanitary canal as the proper method of caring for our sewage and protecting our water supply. This report will be found in the reports of the International Waterways Commission, and it was also furnished to the Chief of Engineers and to the Congress of the United States, as we will demonstrate here by the records when we get to these exhibits. They discussed three plans as among those possible: One plan was to empty the sewage of Chicago into one end of the lake and to attempt to take water from a point a long ways off in the hope that we would be able to get good drinking water in that way. Another was to establish a very large sewage farm-I think they talked about 15,000 acres; and the third was the dilution method, by which they suggested the reversal of the Chicago River and the construction of this sanitary channel to connect with the Illinois and the Mississippi Rivers for a twofold purpose-one to take care of the sanitary needs and the water supply of Chicago, and the other to provide a deep waterway from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. This Great Lakes-Gulf waterway had been under discussion for many years and this was suggested as Chicago's contribution to it. There is sure to be a waterway of substantial size from Lake Michigan to the Gulf to take care of the commerce of the Great Lakes, so that it may go through this canal down the Illinois River into the Mississippi, past St. Louis, and down into New Orleans and the Gulf, and that is one of the things that I am going to draw your attention to a little bit later when you are discussing the advisability of limiting at any time or under any circumstances this flow out of Lake Michigan to less than 10,000 second-feet. There is no good reason, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, why we can not have for the benefit of all of the people of the United States a waterway of substantial size and usable character connecting the Great Lakes with the Gulf of Mexico, so that we and our commerce may pass from the northern portions of our country into the Gulf of Mexico as well as we may go from the Lakes through the boundary waters between Canada and the United States into the ocean, and you gentlemen in your wisdom are going to be very cautious before you give up the 10,000 cubic second-feet of water so necessary for this Lakes-to-the-Gulf waterway after it has been conceded to the United States by the British and Canadian Governments. The CHAIRMAN. We will adjourn now until 9 o'clock to-morrow morning. (Whereupon, at 4.35 p. m., an adjournment was taken until tomorrow, Saturday, May 10, 1924, at 9 o'clock a. m.) COMMITTEE ON RIVERS AND HARBORS, The committee met at 9 o'clock a. m., Hon. S. Wallace Dempsey (chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. Judge, we are prepared to hear you now. STATEMENT OF MR. GEORGE F. BARRETT-Continued Mr. BARRETT. Now, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I went along in my discussion yesterday more or less generally, but for the purpose of this record and so that you gentlemen may have before you the data which we have collected, not only historically but actually pertaining to our position, I will now call your attention to some of the things which I referred to yesterday and some to which Congressman Rainey and Congressman Hull referred to in their talks. We have said that the original outlet of Lake Michigan was into the Gulf of Mexico. A number of historical works demonstrate the truth of this assertion, which has been conceded by the Board of Engineers of the United States Army as well as by Mr. O'Hanley, the civil and hydraulic engineer who investigated the sanitary district for the Canadian Government in 1895. In the report of the Chief of Engineers for 1875, at page 396, volume 2, No. 2, the following appears: An exactly similar case to that of the Minnesota Valley and ancient Lake Winnipeg is presented by the valley of the Illinois River and Lake Michigan. The Illinois Valley is throughout broad and deep, far beyond that of rivers generally of the same volume. At its upper end its width is great even where there is no stream, and it widens out suddenly into what was, undoubtedly, the ancient shore of Lake Michigan, whose waters must then have flowed down the valley of the Illinois. So little have the waters receded from this ancient outlet that the city of Chicago has cut down the barrier sufficiently to serve as a canal for navigation, and a drain for its sewerage, by a direct flow of the water. Then, Mr. O'Hanley was designated and delegated by the Canadian Government in 1895 to investigate the Sanitary District of Chicago for the purpose of advising the Canadian Government as to what was going on there and what would be the probable effect of our diversion of 10,000 second-feet upon the Great Lakes. He reported on this subject, as well as the general situation. I now read from his report only as to the question of the ancient outlet. We have printed this report of Mr. O'Hanley and a number of the reports of the International Waterways Commission, and we have set out important parts of them in black-faced type. We have printed the treaty for the use of this committee and will be prepared to furnish each member of the committee with copies of our reprint. The CHAIRMAN. I would file, Judge, if you will, with the stenographer as well a copy, so that he may have it as one of the exhibits. Mr. BARRETT. We will be very gald to do that. This particular thing that I now refer to is in the report of Mr. O'Hanley and reads as follows: EXTINCT OUTLET OF LAKE MICHIGAN The evidence in support of the theory that Lake Michigan at some remote period of its history discharged a part, at least, of its waters into the Gulf of Mexico by way of the Des Plaines, Illinois, and Mississippi Rivers is not only convincing and conclusive, but overwhelming. You will find as we go along here that some of our engineers have reported that what was known in the old days as Chicago Creek, which is now called our main river, our North Branch, and our South Branch, was actually a part of Lake Michigan, and what we now in Chicago designate as Mud Lake was in the early days called Lake of the Prairie and was a part of the connecting channel between the Chicago and Des Plaines Rivers. Mr. GOULDER. May I ask if in any of these reports they indicate how long ago that became extinct? Mr. BARRETT. I don't believe the reports are specific on that point, but all of them show that there was a flow of water throughout that valley through the rainy reasons of the year for many, many years, and that it was used for navigation by the traders in the early days from 1600 until just a short time before we started the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal. Mr. GOULDER. I do not want to annoy you. Mr. BARRETT. You are not annoying me at all. Mr. GOULDER. But I am thinking in my mind just at the present moment if that is historic or prehistoric. Is there any record in these reports which you have studied that within the memory of man or within known history there has been any such waterway? Mr. BARRETT. All of the reports concede that. Mr. ADCOCK. It is well established that it was used as a waterway down to about 1830 by the fur traders and others. Mr. GOULDER. Didn't they have to portage? Mr. BARRETT. Some times in the year they had to. Mr. GOULDER. They had to at Green Bay. Mr. BARRETT. I think they had to portage during the summer months, but during the rainy seasons of the year it was possible to navigate, and they did navigate without any portage. Mr. GOULDER. I have always understood that, so long as memory goes back, there was a portage from one distinct watershed to another. Of course, it might be that during the rainy seasons they might be able to go through with a canoe. Mr. BARRETT. I stated here yesterday that the attitude of Great Britain regarding the navigation, by citizens of the United States, of the St. Lawrence waterway had a great deal to do with and was probably actually responsible for the construction of a waterway from the southern end of Lake Michigan through the Illinois Valley and down the Mississippi. I will read from the State Executive Papers, first sesion, Twentieth Congress. It has on it a No. 2 and then a No. 307, 1827-28, and is from the Senate Library. This is correspondence from Mr. Rush, who was the minister plenipotentiary from the United States to Great Britain, and is addressed to Mr. Adams. It begins on page 8 of Document 43, and I read from page 11 of Document 43: On the principal question of our equal right with the British to the entire and unobstructed navigation of this river, I dwelt with all the emphasis de manded by its magnitude. I spoke of it as a question intimately connected with the present interests of the United States, and which assumed an aspect yet more commanding in its bearing upon their future population and destinies. Already the immense region which bordered upon the Lakes and northern rivers of the United States were rapidly filling up with inhabitants, and soon the dense millions who would cover them would point to the paramount and irresistible necessity for the use of this great stream as their only natural highway to the ocean. Mr. MANSFIELD. Is that the St. Lawrence? Mr. BARRETT. That is the St. Lawrence. Nor was the question one of magnitude to this part of the Union alone. The whole Nation felt their stake in it; the middle and the north more immediately; but all the rest by the multiplied ties and connections which bound up their wants, their interests, and their sympathies with the middle and the north. It was under such a view of the immediate and prospective value of this navigation to us that I first presented it to the notice of the British plenipotentiaries as a question of right. I told them they must understand this to be the sense in which I had drawn up the article upon the subject, and that it was the sense in which I felt myself bound, as the plenipotentiary of the United States, to urge its adoption. I approach an interesting part of this negotiation when I come to make known in what manner the British plenipotentiaries received this disclosure. They said that on principles of accommodation they were willing to treat of this claim with the United States in a spirit of entire amity; that is, as they explained, to treat of it as a concession on the part of Great Britain for which the United States must be prepared to offer a full equivalent. This was the only light in which they could entertain the question. As to the claim of right, they hoped that it would not even be advanced; persisted in, they were willing to persuade themselves it would never be. It was equally novel and extraordinary. They could not repress their strong feeling of surprise at its bare intimation. Great Britain possessed the absolute sovereignty over this river in all parts where both its banks were of her territorial dominion. Her right, hence, to exclude a foreign hation from navigating it was not to be doubted, scarcely to be discussed. This was the manner in which it was at first received. They opposed to the claim an immediate, positive, unqualified resistance. I said that our claim was neither novel nor extraordinary. It was one that had been well considered by my Government and was believed to be maintainable on the soundest principles of public law. The question had been familiar to the past discussions of the United States, as their state papers, which were before the world, would show. It had been asserted, and successfully asserted, in relation to another great river of the American Continent flowing to the south, the Mississippi, at a time when both of its lower banks were under the dominion of a foreign power. The essential principles that had governed the one case were now applicable to the other. The CHAIRMAN. On the theory that we bordered the river for 125 miles along the northern boundary of the State of New York? Mr. BARRETT. But this is the Mississippi River. The CHAIRMAN. I know; but they applied that theory to that 125 miles? Mr. BARRETT. That is correct, and that it was a natural waterway which we had a positive legal right to navigate throughout its entire length. My reply was not satisfactory to the British plenipotentiaries. They combatted the claim with increased earnestness, declaring that it was altogether untenable and of a nature to be totally and unequivocally rejected. Instead of having the sanction of public law, the law and the practice of nations equally disclaimed it. Could I show where was to be found in either the least warrant for its assertion? Was it not a claim plainly inconsistent with the paramount authority and exclusive possession of Great Britain? Could she for any moment listen to it? I remarked that the claim had been put forward by the United States because of the great national interests involved in it; yet that this consideration, high as it was, would never be looked at but in connection with the just rights of Great Britain. For this course of proceeding both the principles and practices of my Government might well be taken as the guaranty. The claim was therefore far from being put forward in any unfriendly spirit and would be subject to a frank and full interchange of sentiments between the two Governments. I was obviously bound, I admitted, to make known on behalf of mine the grounds on which the claim was advanced-a duty which I would not fail ts perform. I stated that we considered our right to the navigation of this river as strictly a natural right. This was the firm foundation on which it would be placed. This was the light in which it was denfensible on the highest authorities, no less than on the soundest principles. If, indeed, it had ever heretofore beer supposed that the possession of both the shores of a river below had confered the right of interdicting the navigation of it to the people of other nations inhabiting its upper banks, the examination of such a principle would at once disclose the objections to it. The exclusive right of jurisdiction over a river could only originate in the social compact and be claimed as a right of sovereignty. The right of navigating the river was a right of nature, preceding it in point of time, and which the mere sovereign right of one nation could not annihilate as belonging to the people of another. It was a right essential to the condition and wants of human society and conformable to the voice of mankind in all ages and countries. The principle on which it rested challenged such universal assent that wherever it had not been allowed it might be imputed to the triumph of power or injustice over right. Its recovery and exercise had still been objects precious among nations, and it was happily acquiring fresh sanction from the highest examples of modern times. The parties to the European alliance had, in the treaties of Vienna, declared that the navigation of the Rhine, the Neckar, the Mayne, the Moselle, the Meuse, and the Scheldt should be free to all nations. The object of these stipulations was as evident as praiseworthy. It could have been no other than to render the navigation of those rivers free to all the people dwelling upon their banks, thus abolishing those unjust restrictions by which the people of the interior of Germany had been too often deprived of their natural outlet to the sea by an abuse of that right of sovereignty which claimed for a State happening to possess both the shores of a river at its mouth the exclusive property over it. There was no principle of national law upon which the stipulations of the above treaties could be founded which did not equally apply to the case of the St. Lawrence. It was thus that I opened our general doctrine. It was from such principles that I deduced our right to navigate this river independent of the mere favor or concession of Great Britain and, consequently, independent of any claim on her side to an equivalent. I have read, Mr. Chairman, from many documents, but I was very anxious to read this because I never read a better statement of what law ought to be than what has been given by Mr. Rush here. The CHAIRMAN. It is a very remarkable document; I agree with you. Mr. BARRETT. Never have I read clearer or better language. Mr. BARRETT. By Mr. Rush, who was the American plenipotentiary to Great Britain in 1822. There is more in this document, but I have read enough to set before you gentlemen the position taken by the United States and the position taken by the British Government regarding the St. Lawrence waterway. Mr. KINDRED. That was not Benjamin Rush, was it? Mr. BARRETT. It does not give his name. It just says from "Rush." It does not appear what his first name was, and I do not know. Mr. ANTHONY. It was Richard Rush. Mr. BARRETT. I am told this for the information of the committee; I do not know that it is a part of the record, but we have here a Mr. Anthony, who is the son of one of our noted judges in 91739-24-PT 249 |