canal, and a very large canal, only takes from 1,200 to the utmost of 1,600 or 1,700 cubic feet.

Mr. VOIGT. Suppose this canal for navigation purposes took 2,000 feet; I don't want to be understood as being here to protest against that, but we think it would establish a very dangerous and bad national policy to permit any city in this country for a private municipal purpose to abstract this huge quantity of water for the purpose of sewage purification, or for the purpose of running power plant. I do not think that should be permitted as a matter of principle, because if you permit it in this case you will establish a precedent for other cases.

I want to say also that I do not see how this committee could recommend a bill authorizing this 10,000 feet or more without violating the treaty between this country and Canada. I have been looking that treaty over, and I find a clause in it that I think prevents that.

The CHAIRMAN. Call our attention, if you please, to the section which you read.

Mr. VOIGT. There is article 2 of the treaty, and part of that reads as follows:

But it is agreed that any interference with or diversion from their natural channel of such waters on either side of the boundary resulting in any injury on the other side of the boundary shall give rise to the same rights and entitle the injured parties to the same legal remedies as if such injury took place in the country where such diversion or interference occurs.

That clause does not apply only to the so-called boundary waters but it applies to waters which are tributary to boundary waters, and of course Lake Michigan is tributary to the other lakes which constitute the boundary between the two countries.

There has been a claim made here, I understand, that when this treaty was drawn the diversion of 10,000 feet at Chicago was in the minds of those who drew the treaty. I do not see how that is possible, in view of this fact. This treaty was made in 1910 and, according to the report of the engineers of the sanitary district, it appears that in the year 1910, 3,458 feet per second were taken from Lake Michigan.

The CHAIRMAN. What are you reading that statement from?

Mr. VOIGT. I am reading now from the bill of complaint of the State of Wisconsin against the State of Illinois, pending in the Supreme Court, but I take it that these figures are correct. I have no doubt about that. It appears here that in 1909, according to the report of the district engineer at Chicago, 2,766 cubic feet per second were taken; in 1910, 3,458; in 1911, 6,445.

If they were taking 3,500 cubic feet, approximately, when this figure was made, how could the contracting parties to that treaty have had this in mind that 10,000 feet were going to be taken? At any rate, this treaty does not permit the abstraction of this water. I doubt very much whether, in view of the law, the Secretary of War had the legal power to authorize the abstraction of the 4,167 feet. I do not think that the Secretary of War had power to authorize the diversion of water except for the purposes of navigation, so I do not believe that that would stand up in court.

But that is not the question before the committee now. The question before this committee is whether the abstraction of 10,000 feet or more

Mr. HULL (interposing). It does not say "more." It says not to exceed 10,000 feet.

Mr. VOIGT. I think you have got something in the bill which will authorize the abstraction of more than 10.000 cubic feet.

Mr. HULL. No.

Mr. VOIGT. I beg to differ with you.

Mr. HULL. It was not the intention.

Mr. VOIGT. You have it in the bill, and if that bill passes the drainage district can abstract 25,000 feet.

Mr. HULL. Show me where.

Mr. VOIGT. I have not time to read it now.

Mr. HULL. You are wrong about that.

The CHAIRMAN. We won't make any progress by discussing the meaning of the provisions of the bill.

Mr. ĤULL. I would like him to confine his statements to the bill. Mr. VOIGT. I am saying that, as I understand the bill, it would authorize the abstraction of more than 10,000 feet; but I am here to protest against the abstraction of 10,000 cubic feet.

The CHAIRMAN. My own judgment, while I am opposed to the diversion, is that Mr. Hull is correct and that it does not authorize the diversion of more than 10,000 cubic feet. I may be wrong about that.

Mr. VOIGT, All right.

The CHAIRMAN. I admit that you can read it both ways. I think, however, it only means what he says.

Mr. VOIGT. There is some ambiguous language in the bill, if it means 10,000 feet, it could have been made considerably plainer. The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. VOIGT. But, anyway, I am here to protest the diversion of any water except that which is legitimately necessary for the purposes of navigation. It seems to me that what the committee ought to do is to give the sanitary district a reasonable opportunity to set its house in order. This claim that the city of Chicago and adjoining territory are too poor to build all necessary works for the disposition. of their sewage is entirely untenable. If you have not been informed on that subject, you will be. The amount of money that can be used for that purpose, that they can raise, is ample for that purpose. I think they should be given a reasonable length of time, say five or six years, during which to build their proper plants.

The CHAIRMAN. With a continually decreasing volume of water? Mr. VOIGT. Speaking for myself alone, I should say they ought to be permitted to abstract 8,000 or 10,000 feet, say, for five during which time they could build the sewage-disposal works. I shall not say anything about these compensating works further than this: If they should be permitted to enter upon that scheme, then the bill should provide that these compensating works are built at the risk of the sanitary district: that if those works accomplish what it is claimed they will do, that thereafter they must maintain them. They must guarantee the maintenance of them, and there must be no guaranty made on the part of the United States which will relieve. the drainage district from any responsibility in the premises.

The CHAIRMAN. The two provisions would be utterly inconsistent. wouldn't they? The provision of requiring them to substitute other means of sanitation and the provision permitting them to provide these works to maintain lake levels? Those two measures would be utterly inconsistent. You could not have them both.

Mr. VOIGT. No. That is, they could not undertake them both at the same time. I say this, that if they were to go to work and build the compensating works within a couple of years they would have to do so at their own risk. Then if they fell down on the compensating work, then they should be compelled, within a few years, to build plants for sewage disposal; and if they were held down to that, I do not believe the sanitary district or the State of Illinois would want to invest the money in the experiment.

I thank the committee for its attention.

The CHAIRMAN. We will call upon Mr. Hopkins, of Cleveland.

STATEMENT OF MR. W. R. HOPKINS, CITY MANAGER OF CLEVELAND, OHIO

Mr. HOPKINS. My name is W. R. Hopkins, and I am city manager of Cleveland, Ohio. I feel that I am trespassing both upon your time and your patience to address you this afternoon, and so I shall try to be brief.

First of all, I am here pursuant to a direction by the council of the city of Cleveland to express to you as strongly as I can our profound conviction that neither this bill nor any bill like it, neither this bill nor any substitute for it, ought to be passed, and for that I will give three reasons.

First of all, the city of Cleveland in any proposition involving the lowering of the lake level has to put a direct tax upon our people, as we have the burden of maintaining proper channels within our 5 or 6 miles of inner harbor in the Cuyahoga River, so that these great vessels can come up to our steel plants which are located in the Cuyahoga Valley. That interest is immediate and calculable, and on that point if any sort of work in the Niagara River will raise the level of Lake Erie, I submit to you first of all that the Government could do no better thing on its own account than to spend this $3,000,000 for that purpose, because it would save annually a great deal more than the interest on $3,000,000 on dredging, which would thereby be made unnecessary.

But if the Government feels unequal to bearing that whole load, the city of Cleveland and every other city that has a harbor on the Great Lakes can well afford to contribute toward it, and I am here to say to you that the city of Cleveland can and will contribute very substantially, on the simple, plain business proposition, that we had better pay interest on some bonds in a given amount than pay twice as much annually for dredging.

Our second proposition is that we have a very great and constantly increasing interest in the preservation and development of every possible electric horsepower at Niagara Falls and on the St. Lawrence. Within the last five years the progress of the art of transmitting electricity in large amount over great distances has been so great that Cleveland to-day is within the Niagara Falls radius on the basis of electric transmission with a loss of less than 10 per cent. The cost of developing power at Niagara is so small that Niagara power in

Cleveland will represent not only the most desirable, the most absolutely dependable power that we can get, but by far the cheapest. Not only Cleveland but every city within a radius of 300 miles of Niagara Falls and the St. Lawrence has a similar interest.

Perhaps before these works could be constructed the same thing would be true of Chicago, if the progress in long-distance transmission continues. We can easily reach a time when the city of Chicago is interested in preserving electricity at the Falls and the St. Lawrence. The whole course of development in the electric field is such that we are to-day linking up all of these territories so that the interest of one State becomes the interest of another. Only recently the great plants in Ohio and Pennsylvania have combined for the interchange of power. So it is entirely possible at any time for us in Cleveland to be getting Niagara power through existing connections.

No matter how you figure this thing, there is a limit to the amount of water you can divert above Niagara Falls without ruining the Falls. There is a very definite limit to that. First of all, there is the existing treaty limit of 56,000 cubic feet per second.

The CHAIRMAN. Which is binding until we have a new treaty? Mr. HOPKINS. Surely. Second, there is the further limit in the attitude of the American people, which will never tolerate the destruction of Niagara Falls from the standpoint of scenic wonder. In the opinion of the Government's own engineers, with the proper compensating works constructed in the Niagara River, the amount of water which can be devoted to power purposes above the Falls without injuring the beauty and grandeur of them, represents a very large amount over and above what we are now paying. But no matter what that amount is, it is limited, because the whole amount of water going over the Falls is limited. Somewhere short of 200,000 cubic feet per second is the limit beyond which we can not take water for power purposes without destroying the beauty of the Falls. Every cubic foot of water that goes down this drainage canal is diverted forever from any power purposes at Niagara and in the St. Lawrence. Every cubic foot of water so diverted represents the permanent economic loss of at least 45 horsepower. In other words, I am assuming that in addition to the 300 to 310 feet of possible head at Niagara from the upper river to the lower there is also 140 or 150 feet capable of development in the St. Lawrence; and I am assuming also that every cubic foot we take at Chicago will be charged against that in future adjustment with Canada. Why not? In other words, by what right can we take water for a drainage canal on this side and require the Canadians to lose their half of the power which could otherwise be developed from it. Whatever other shortcoming the Canadian may have, the inability to protect his own rights and get everything he is entitled to is not one of them. Mr. DEAL. That seems so.

Mr. HOPKINS. Doubtless every American, although we get 20,000 cubic feet per second of the 56,000 authorized, and the Canadians get 36,000, and although the fact that that was originally due to a situation which no longer exists, namely, that at that time we were getting on the American side the great bulk of all the power that was generated on the Canadian side, and they argue with force that they were entitled to a larger amount of water over there commensurate

with the enormous exportation of electricity from their side to ours, for otherwise our actual enjoyment of electric power would not be equal. That condition no longer exists. The Canadians more and more use their own power, and they are within sight of a time when they will forbid the exportation of any power to this side.

The CHAIRMAN. As they did during the war?

Mr. HOPKINS. Yes. That being true, in spite of that Sir Adam Beck, the head of their power commission, has insisted that whenever the allotment is increased, that whenever the amount to be diverted is increased, it shall be divided 50-50. What they have they keep. That being true, do you think that when we get down to divide the next amount of power at Niagara and the St. Lawrence that they are not going to charge us with the 10,000 cubic feet at Chicago? Do you think they are such fools, and can you imagine a legitimate argument against it?

Now, gentlemen, this matter of electric power is, to my mind, the great outstanding and immediate fact in this country. In the whole North certainly and, I think in the South, of the development of great blocks of electric power, the most perfect power man knows. promises to have more effect industrially, economically, and socially than any one thing that is to happen in the next 20 years in this country, and here is a source of wealth, the development of which robs us of nothing. Unlike coal which you burn and it is gone. Unlike iron ore, which you mine and it is gone. But the power that you take from water represents no substraction whatever from the economic wealth of the country, and when generated it is perfect power. If you have a steam plant, when you have called upon it for the capacity of that single unit, you get no more, but when you have an electric machine of any sort, the electricity responds to the demand, no matter where it must come from. It is a perfect power.

As soon as the railroads of this country are put on a substantial, permanent financial basis, the economic argument for electrification of the railroads will be unanswerable, and we shall have that demand for electric power.

We in the city of Cleveland have a profound interest in preserving every possible horsepower that can be developed, either at Niagara Falls or the St. Lawrence, because even the most remote of it interests us directly. If they can provide power, even in Maine and Massachusetts, it protects just that much Niagara power which might otherwise have to answer that demand.

As I figure it 10,000 cubic feet per second means 450,000 horsepower, assuming heads aggregating 450 feet. Take your pencil and on any assumption you like in dollars and cents as to the difference between the cost of generating electric power at Niagara or on the St. Lawrence, and the cost of developing it from steam within that territory, and you can not get less than $20 a horsepower. In other words, by any sort of calculation you have a sum running anywhere from nine to twelve or fourteen millions a year, representing the economic saving of hydroelectric power developed at those places as against electricity developed from steam, and that gap must widen, for the cost of producing coal steadily increases and will continue to increase. So our second objection to this thing is that it involves robbing not merely our locality but the whole eastern section of this country and the Nation of economic wealth so great in amount upon any