load. Connected with that should be the import traffic that is now coming through the Gulf of Mexico by water up to St. Louis, and then fans out from St. Louis by the rail lines. The CHAIRMAN. Well, we can find that out. Mr. O'CONNOR of Louisiana. I will be glad for you to supplement the problem that I have put on the table by getting the figures on the imports. Mr. SWEET. Before we adjourn, Mr. Chairman, I think we ought to have the appearances of those present for the record, so that we may have them printed to-morrow morning. The CHAIRMAN. Yes. All those who desire to have their appearances noted will kindly give them to the stenographer during the recess. We will now recess until 2.15. (Thereupon, at 1.20 o'clock p. m., a recess was taken until 2.15 o'clock p. m.) AFTER RECESS. The CHAIRMAN. Gentlemen, we will resume the hearing. We will first hear from Mr. Ralph Fields. STATEMENT OF MR. RALPH FIELDS, REPRESENTING THE PEORIA ASSOCIATION OF COMMERCE, PEORIA, ILL. Mr. FIELDS. Mr. Chairman, with your permission, I will first point out a few things on this map to the committee. I am representing directly the Peoria Association of Commerce. I am a member of the traffic committee of the Mississippi Valley Association, of which Mr. Rippin is chairman. The testimony that was introduced for the Illinois Valley was prepared by Mr. Haynes and myself, and we agreed to divide up the presentation of the testimony before your committee so that there would be no duplication. This is a map which has been prepared by the Mississippi Valley Association, and I will read the heading for your information: Map exhibit prepared by Mississippi Valley Association, showing tonnage moving via Mississippi River through St. Louis, Mo., and Cairo, Ill., in connection with railroads to and from each congressional district in Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, during the first 11 months of 1923. Approximately 20 per cent in freight cost is saved to shippers by the use of this water-and-rail route under the all-rail service. This is an explanation of what has been done by the barge line operating under adverse conditions. The barge line, as you know, operates only as far north as St. Louis, and not all the time to St. Louis. During quite a portion of the year the barge line stops at Cairo. Therefore from and to the South it comes up to Cairo and then the tonnage spreads out like a fan over this district. Referring to these congressional districts, as shown on the map, the heavy black figures show the number of tons that moved in and out of that district over the barge line in connection with the rail lines to and from St. Louis and Cairo during these 11 months. Taking Mr. Hull's district in Illinois, the sixteenth district, we have 4,337 tons. I want to call your attention to the extent of this territory. Here is the ninth congressional district of Iowa, taking in Council Bluffs, with 4,672 tons. Mr. SWEET. Let me interrupt you for a moment. What does that tonnage principally consist of? Mr. FIELDS. It is pretty hard to say. I can get for this committee a record of each bit of tonnage that is covered by these figures. They are taken from the records of the barge line, from their accounting department. It would be quite a job, but they can be gotten, and will show the committee just exactly what the tonnage is. Mr. SWEET. I mean the principal tonnage. I do not care about going into detail. Mr. FIELDS. The principal tonnage would depend upon the district to which the tonnage goes, and I can not say offhand just what that would be. Possibly Mr. Rippin is more familiar with the general tonnage of the barge line, being at St. Louis. Mr. RIPPIN. Mr. Chairman, that is published complete in the report of the barge line for last year, the tonnage being classified. We will be glad to furnish you a copy of it and you can look it over. It is quite a diversified tonnage. Mr. FIELDS. I want to call the committee's attention to the extent of this service. Here is Omaha with 7,738 tons, South Omaha, 1,052 tons; Sioux Falls, 651. Here is northern Wisconsin, the AshlandRhinelander district, 3,956 tons. Passing over into the Northern Peninsula of Michigan, we have 931 tons; eastern Ohio., Warren, Niles, and Youngstown, 2,174 tons, 569 tons and 1,091 tons. In the Chicago district we have 27,318 tons; the Milwaukee district, 6,990 tons; Fond du Lac, 1,030 tons, and so on, all through that territory. The towns that are shown on the map are the towns that received or shipped the freight from that particular district via the barge line. Now, that indicates what can be done for the central middle western territory, and that is a big territory, because it runs from Buffalo and Pittsburgh on the east to beyond the Missouri River on the west, and with the water line extending farther, with the Illinois. River open through to Chicago, with the Missouri River opened up. and the Ohio River, all connecting with the Mississippi River, there is no limit to the amount of benefit that would accure to the shippers of that district. And when I say "shippers "I do not mean merely manufacturers or industrial plants, but the farmer and everybody connected with the shipping in that territory. I have before me a copy of the hearings on the McCormick bill, S. 4428, and I would like to make that, Mr. Chairman, a part of the record. There was a good deal of testimony introduced in those hearings regarding the various matters that have come up and that have been touched on to-day, and I would like to leave this with your committee to save duplicating this testimony. The CHAIRMAN. It will be filed as an exhibit. (The hearings referred to were thereupon filed.) Mr. FIELDS. I would like to call your attention to one particular thing on page 409; Mr. Joseph Leiter, president of the Zeigler Coal Co. testifying. His company produces 3,000,000 tons of coal a year. He says: The Ruhr Valley, which is the bone of contention to-day, is a pigmy alongside of the coal deposits which would be tributary to this canal in southern Illinois. I understand the Chicago district takes every year 30,000,000 tons of coal from southern Illinois. Mr. BOYCE. Will the gentleman indicate, Mr. Chairman, when those hearings were had? Mr. FIELDS. In October. Mr. BOYCE. Of last year? Mr. FIELDS. October, 1923; yes, sir-October 15 to 27 inclusive. Mr. RIPPIN. It contains the tonnage record, does it, Mr. Fields? Mr. FIELDS. It contains the tonnage record and the prospective tonnage record, and a great deal of information which I think would be of interest to your committee. As I was saying, Chicago takes 30,000,000 tons of coal a year on the average from southern Illinois. Pittsburgh moves in about 20,000,000 tons over the Monongahela River every year, and they claim that they do that at a saving of $1 per ton, which means a saving to the shippers and the people of Pittsburgh of $20,000,000 annually. If Chicago could move half of its southern Illinois coal at a saving of $1 per ton, or even 50 cents per ton, you can see what that one item would amount to. The CHAIRMAN. I will call your attention in that connection to the Erie Barge Canal. That is situated in the eastern part of the United States, and carries, I think, about 2,000,000 tons; does it not, Mr. Sweet? Mr. SWEET. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. It is only fair to say that it has been in operation since the war, but that is over five years, and it has grown gradually up to that. Now, that is a toll-free canal, in a very prosperous and very thickly settled country. I simply say that to give you some measure of what you may expect; and to illustrate it further I will say that the Standard Oil Co. is placing oil plants all along the canal; and with all the help that comes from large shippers of that nature we have only grown to that size in that time. Mr. HULL. Mr. Chairman, you are speaking of the Erie Canal? The CHAIRMAN. Yes, sir. Mr. HULL. How old is the Erie Canal? The CHAIRMAN. It was built in 1825 in its original form. It has been gradually growing from time to time until it is now a 12-foot canal. Mr. HULL. Well, the Erie Canal, as I have always observed it, has never been used extensively for the transportation of heavy freight, because it always seemed to me that the Erie Canal was only about half large enough in width to do any good; and I hardly believe that it is fair to this committee to keep holding the Erie Canal up from a transportation standpoint against what we are trying to do in a navigable stream. The inference is being drawn continually that we can not do anything down 'there because the Erie Canal does not do it. The CHAIRMAN. No; I do not say that. Mr. HULL. That is what the inference has been all the way through. The CHAIRMAN. No; I do not intimate that you can not do anything. I think you can do something. I was only pointing to some measure of what you might get. In the second place, the Erie Canal is a series of navigable streams all the way, and much larger streams than the Illinois River from 91739-24-PT 1--4 Syracuse east. So there is not the distinction there to which you point. Now, I do not want to be misunderstood. I am not saying this at all to intimate that the Illinois River could not carry freight. It will carry freight. But I simply want to give you some idea of the amount of freight which you may expect to carry. Mr. HULL. I will admit that; but I object to trying to infer, because this old, obsolete Erie Canal does not do business, that there is no opportunity of doing business down the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers; and that is what the inferences are, whether you intend them that way or not. I think it is not fair to the committee to keep that before them continually. The CHAIRMAN. I take exception to the characterization of the Erie Canal as old and obsolete.ˆ The Erie Canal is the most modern of all the canals in the world. It has been recently, within a very few years-just as the war broke out-improved to a depth of 12 feet at a cost of $160,000,000. It is the best and most up-to-date of all the canals of any considerable length in the world. Mr. SWEET. Mr. Chairman, on the question of the Erie Canal I will say to Mr. Hull that the Erie Canal before 1880 did very considerably more business than it did after that. The Erie Canal was alive with transportation, but it has been growing less and less, and then, as the chairman states, with the improvement, becoming a barge canal, the tonnage has somewhat increased. And yet the Erie Canal when it was a 7-foot channel with a 6-foot draft did a tremendous amount of business, but that water transportation on the old Erie Canal receded instead of increasing. Mr. HULL. Here is the point on that. I think whenever you people in New York increase the size of the Erie Canal and the Hudson River then you will see an increase in freight. The CHAIRMAN. The standard of canals to-day, the world over, is 12 feet in depth, and the Erie Canal is standardized to meet these standards, from the engineering standpoint, of canals the world over. Mr. HULL. What is the width of the Erie Canal? Mr. SWEET. Two hundred feet. Mr. HULL. Where? Mr. SWEET. Through the rivers, excepting the approach to the locks. Mr. Macy, what is the bottom of the prism of the general canal? Mr. MACY. One hundred and twenty-five feet. Mr. SWEET. One hundred. and twenty-five feet at the bottom of the prism. The CHAIRMAN, Two hundred feet at the top. This comparison of mine was not intended as anything but a suggestion as to the measure of what might be expected. Mr. HULL. It semed to me, Mr. Chairman, that you had brought that out about six or eight times to-day The CHAIRMAN. No: I don't think so. Mr. HULL. As trying to infer that this would not be a practical canal. That is why I am objecting to it. We are here to hear evidence as to what this canal is worth to this particular territory, and I think it is only fair to all of us that this one project be given good service. Mr. SWEET. Mr. Chairman, while we are discussing that subject, let me say that I have a plant myself right on the bank of the canal, right at the dock, but we do not ship by that water route-which is of a most improved kind-one out of a thousand tons. We pay the difference in rate by rail a nd haul it to the depot in order to get rail transportation and expedition in delivery. Mr. HULL. I realize that. Mr. DEAL. But you have water competitive rates by rail? Mr. HULL. Do they not give you any better rate on that canal? Mr. SWEET. Yes; it gives us a better water rate; but we choose to pay the higher rate in order to get delivery. Mr. HULL. That is all right; but what we are trying to produce here is a water route to take care of the farmers and all of the people in that section of the country; and that is the reason I am putting up the argument that I am for a water route down into the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers from the Great Lakes. Mr. SWEET. We used to buy our coal from Chicago and get it by the Great Lakes and the canal; but we now have it shipped by rail, and haul it 4 miles by motor truck, as against the Erie Canal. Mr. HULL. Why do you do that? Mr. SWEET. Because it has proven to be to our advantage. Mr. SWEET. It is to our advantage to get it as we want it by rail, rather than to handle a large cargo of coal by water. The CHAIRMAN. I do not want the gentleman from Illinois to misunderstand me Mr. HULL (interposing). No; that is all right, Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. But I think the gentleman was trying to give the point of view of our own community, as to what has been or may be hereafter. Mr. HULL. What do you chiefly transport on your canal, Mr. Sweet? Mr. SWEET. Heavy water moving commodities. Mr. FIELDS. If I may, I should like to ask Mr. Sweet a question: Is it not true, Mr. Sweet, that the Erie Canal flourished in years gone by, until the railroads practically put it out of business-until the railroads did the same thing to the Erie Canal that they did to the packets carrying freight on the Great Lakes, which we spoke about before lunch? And now that that is no longer possible, is not the Erie Canal getting to the point where it will be of more use as time goes on? Mr. SWEET. The railroads did not put it out of commission by a reduction of rates; in fact, the rates advanced. But they put it out of business in superior service in delivering over rails as against water. Mr. FIELDS. Yes; the old water service was not adequate and you have got to get a new brand of water service that will be adequate. Mr. HULL. Did the railroads buy the canal? Mr. SWEET. No; it was built by the State, at an expense of $161,000,000; and is operated by the State. |
