Mr. HULL. And have you any connection with the sanitary district?

Mr. SACKETT. None whatever.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you have any supervisory powers at all over it?

Mr. SACKETT. Over the sanitary district?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. SACKETT. No, sir. The sanitary district is a municipality created by act of the Illinois Legislature, with certain specific delegated powers, independent of any State administration.

Mr. NEWTON. Is it a part of the State government?

Mr. SACKETT. No, sir. It is a separate municipality, to which has been delegated certain specific powers and organized for the purpose of providing sanitation for Chicago, and given the power of obtaining revenue under a stated limitation of tax levy, whereas the city of Chicago is restricted in this regard.

Mr. MANSFIELD. And its boundaries are different from the city boundaries?

Mr. SACKETT. Absolutely; yes, sir. It includes the city and extends far beyond the city limits.

The CHAIRMAN. How much territory, and how much population outside of the city?

Mr. SACKETT. I think that the Sanitary District of Chicago at the present time is practically Cook County.

Mr. ADCOCK. Four hundred and thirty-eight square miles.
The CHAIRMAN. Is that total, or is that all outside the city?

Mr. RAINEY. That is total.

The CHAIRMAN. And how much outside of the city?

Mr. RAINEY. I believe the city is 192 square miles.

The CHAIRMAN. In other words, about 200 square miles in the city and 200 outside?

Mr. RAINEY. About. There are 49 incorporated municipalities in the district outside of the city of Chicago.

Mr. BARRETT. The population outside of the city is somewhere between 300,000 and 400,000-probably nearer 300,000 than 400,000. Mr. HULL. There is one more question I want to get in the record. How long have you been connected with this waterways proposition? I do not mean your present position, but I mean from the time you started in the canal superintendency and on?

Mr. SACKETT. Since 1898.

Mr. HULL. About 26 years?

Mr. SACKETT. Yes, sir; as a preface to my remarks, I want to say that I am not an attorney. An attorney, I understand, will take a set of facts and appear with equal facility on either side, presenting convincing arguments, always find precedents for his position. and decisions of the court to confirm them. Neither am I an engineer. The theories of the engineers of 20 years ago have apparently been considerably upset by actual developments. I appear before this committee as an administrator, hoping to give you some practical knowledge of a condition which exists, and give you facts as I know them.

There is a saying that a plausible lie travels so fast as a rule that the truth never catches up with it. I take it in this situation there has been so much of misunderstanding and misrepresentation that

there is a general misconception of the facts with reference to this situation in Illinois. The State of Illinois is charged with the commission of various offenses in connection with its development of a Lakes to the Gulf waterway, and during recent years specifically with diverting water from Lake Michigan to the detriment of other States for the purpose of commercializing water-power development. This charge is unfounded, without basis; and I believe I can show you the State of Illinois has violated no moral obligation or statutory law in this particular.

The CHAIRMAN. You are speaking, I suppose, Mr. Sackett, in specifying the State of Illinois, in the sense that the Sanitary District is a creation of the State of Illinois. Of course, the testimony here is all as to the Sanitary District, and I suppose that is the sense in which you are speaking of the State of Illinois.

Mr. SACKETT. The Sanitary District will be able to defend itself from these charges, but the State of Illinois is a part of this proposition and I desire to discuss that angle.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. SACKETT. I am going to first discuss the relation of the State of Illinois to the development of a waterway in connection with the Federal Government, and later I am going to discuss the proposition of sanitation as it affects not only the people in Chicago and Cook County but of the people of the State of Illinois.

The CHAIRMAN. Where is your home, Mr. Sackett?

Mr. SACKETT. Officially my address is Springfield. My home is about 62 miles southwest of Chicago. I am not a resident of Chicago. I do live along the Illinois River, and I will tell you something about conditions from personal observation and knowledge, as well as officially.

On the development of the waterway, the State of Illinois has proceeded by orderly processes, as directed by Federal authority, and not only with the approval of Congress, but in partnership with Congress and the Federal Government. Early history in this connection has been so fully covered by both Congressman Rainey and Congressman Hull that I will not go into that feature except as necessary to convince you of the assertion I have made.

The need, the advantage, and the importance of a waterway from the Lakes to the Gulf was first pointed out by the early explorers. La Salle and Joliet, as early as 1774. They indicated even in that early day that this was not a trade route of local advantage only. but a development of national importance, a connecting link with navigation over the Lakes from the East to the Central West, and from that point to the Gulf, opening some 15,000 miles of continuing navigation over inland waters.

By the act of Congress of 1882 Federal officers were directed to make a survey and a report on the cost and the advisability and the possibilities of this development; and by an act of Congress of 1827 a land grant was made to the State of Illinois in aid of the construction of the Illinois & Michigan Canal-a grant of 325,000 acres, later sold by the State at $1.25 an acre, obtaining $406,250, to help finance the project, but directing that the State of Illinois do the actual work of construction.

With this financial aid the State of Illinois constructed the Illinois & Michigan Canal, the cost being six and a half million dollars,

which was a connecting link for water navigation and transportation from a junction with the Chicago River, or Lake Michigan, to La Salle, a distance of 96 miles. That canal was opened in 1848. The congressional act required that it be toll free so far as the United States Government was concerned.

The CHAIRMAN. By "toll free" do you mean to the Government? Mr. SACKETT. It was toll free to the Government.

The CHAIRMAN. But not to other users?

Mr. SACKETT. Toll was charged over the canal to everyone but the Government.

Mr. SEGER. Where is La Salle on that Illinois map?

Mr. SACKETT. Just below Utica.

Mr. HULL. About 10 miles below that star [indicating].

Mr. SACKETT. A considerable commerce went over that canal for a period of years up to 1887. Agricultural products of the West were taken to Chicago and over the Lakes to Buffalo and points east. There were large grain shipments during that period; shipments from the East were taken both to Chicago and then down through this canal to the Illinois River, to Peoria, St. Louis, and to the Gulf. The shipments from the Gulf likewise traversed the route to the north.

The CHAIRMAN. Can you tell us the largest tonnage you ever had in a year up to 1887?

Mr. SACKETT. Mr. Cornish advises me that it was something over a million tons. But I can say this to you, that the cost of that canal was something like six and a half million dollars. The earnings of the canal more than paid the cost, for many years paid the maintenance and operation of the canal, and placed a surplus in the treasury of the State as a result of its earnings, and that condition continued until about 1887.

You have already been advised by Congressman Rainey of the restrictions placed in the State's constitution in 1871, generally accredited to railroad activity, because the canal had been a very active competitor of railroad shipments.

The CHAIRMAN. Did the United States ever test out the rightwhether the State has the right to amend its constitution in view of the fact that the canal had been constructed as the result of land grants by the Federal Government?

Mr. SACKETT. I do not know that the Government ever raised that question. Some other questions have been raised, however, which I may say in passing led to a decision that the land grant was made in the nature of a contract with the State of Illinois, and that the State of Illinois had fulfilled its obligation and its contract by constructing and opening the canal.

The CHAIRMAN. And they did not need to operate it?

Mr. SACKETT. They did not need to continue that particular canal. The CHAIRMAN. It seems to me it was a most extraordinary decision, that the land grant would only provide for the construction and opening, and not for the operation of the canal.

Mr. BARRETT. The grant itself, Mr. Dempsey, goes further than Mr. Sackett says. It does not specifically provide for operation, but it does require the State of Illinois to keep it open continuously, and our Supreme Court has said that this new canal provided by the

Chicago Sanitary District is the old canal so far as the Federal Government is concerned.

Mr. SACKETT. I was going to get to that. Mr. Dempsey is asking about details I expect to explain later.

The CHAIRMAN. I will try not to anticipate.

Mr. SACKETT. I will try to get it all before you as a practical proposition, eliminating theories.

To go a step further, in view of the fact of a constitutional restriction imposed upon the State of Illinois, and the development of the railroads at that period, it was impossible for the State of Illinois, of course, to enlarge the channel of the canal or its structures— its locks because with the increased capacities of the railroads, the shorter time that they took for transportation, the fact that the railroads could and did construct terminal tracks to the factory or the industry, many of which then began to expand and to locate away from the water, the railroads did not have all the business they could handle and the canal, of course, lost considerable business and much of its revenue, and could not keep pace with the demands of great modern commerce in view of the restrictions on appropriations by the State placed in the constitution of 1871, which prevented its reconstruction.

Mr. NEWTON. I do not know whether I got just what that restriction was clearly in my mind.

Mr. SACKETT. The credit of the State should not be expended in aid of canals or railroads.

Mr. NEWTON. I have here what purports to be a record of the operations of the canal beginning in 1860.

The CHAIRMAN. What are you quoting from?

Mr. NEWTON. The Chicago Historial Society's collection, which seems to be authentic.

The CHAIRMAN. And issued when?

Mr. NEWTON. University of Chicago, 1918. In 1860, which seems to be the first record they have of the tonnage, the tons transported were 367,000; 1861 they were 547,000; in 1862 they were 673,000; in 1863 they were 619,000; in 1864 they were 510,000; in 1865 they were 616,000; in 1866 they were 746,000; in 1867 they were 746,000; in 1868 they were 737,000; in 1869 they were 817,000; in 1870 they were 585,000; in 1871 they were 628,000. It runs along between 600,000 and 800,000 until 1882, when they carried 1,011,000, and then it dropped to 900,000 and runs between 700,000 and 900,000 until 1892. Then it begins to drop a little.

The CHAIRMAN. But that was in excess of the tonnage previous to 1871. The tonnage between the two dates last specified was in excess of the tonnage in 1871, when the constitution was amended.

Mr. NEWTON. This began in 1860. In 1871 the constitution was amended. It held up until 1900. In 1900 it dropped down to 121,000. In 1901 it dropped to 81,000, and in 1902 it dropped to 35,000 tons, and 1903 to 63,000, in 1904 to 47,000, in 1905 to 38,000, in 1906 to 35,000, and in 1907 to 80,000. How do you account for that sudden drop there?

The CHAIRMAN. That is beginning in 1901?

Mr. NEWTON. From 1901 to 1907 it dropped; that is, beginning with 1900 it was 469,000 tons, after 1901 it averages around 50,000 tons.

Mr. SACKETT. That is partly accounted for because of the construction of the larger and more adequate channel paralleling it from Chicago to Lockport, which was toll free, and the commerce, of course, went to the larger channel which was constructed by the Sanitary District of Chicago.

Mr. NEWTON. And they took the traffic?

Mr. SACKETT. They took the traffic.

Mr. NEWTON. On the other canal?

Mr. SACKETT. That is toll free. The old canal was charging toll. Mr. NEWTON. When was the $20,000,000 appropriated for canal purposes over there?

Mr. SACKETT. It was approved by a vote of the people in 1908.

Mr. NEWTON. Well, in 1908 the traffic on this canal jumped from an average of about 50,000 up to 312,000, and then from 1908 down to 1915, it averaged from 300,000 to 400,000.

Mr. HULL. That is during the war.

Mr. NEWTON. We were not in the war until 1917.

Mr. HULL. The war began on the other side in August, 1914.

Mr. NEWTON. You have an average of around 50,000 tons, and then in 1908 it jumped up again to 312,000 tons and 352,000 in 1909. There must be some cause for that.

Mr. SACKETT. I think, perhaps, I can clear your mind on that. Part of this canal is still in operation. The drop in the tonnage there that you speak of was partially because of the transfer of the traffic of the portion between Chicago and Lockport paralleling the larger channel, which went to that channel, partly because railroad rates were cut to canal points because there was no regulation. There is still 65 miles of this canal in use now, and it maintains itself by its earnings.

The CHAIRMAN. The old canal?

Mr. SACKETT. Yes, sir.

Mr. NEWTON. There must have been some reason for such an increase which went steadily up to a higher level and continued there.

Mr. SACKETT. I would have to look at our records to ascertain the facts, but my surmise is that what that represents is the total both of the canal and the two State locks in the river.

Mr. NEWTON. Here is what it says. This may give you some information. I should have read this first: "The Illinois & Michigan Canal"-that is the one you have in mind?

Mr. SACKETT. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. That is the old canal?

Mr. NEWTON. I see an interesting fact is that during this whole period the total revenue collected was $6.631,007, and the total gross expense was $5.391.107. That is a pretty good showing, I think. Mr. SACKETT. The maximum capacity of that canal was only a million tons. You see there were periods when it reached its ca

pacity.

Mr. NEWTON. Yes. One year it reached a million tons--in the year 1882.

Mr. SACKETT. Going back, now, to the point of the interruption, as the result of the small capacity of the old canal and the interruption of navigation and transportation we come to the sanitary district's activities in designing, constructing, and opening the chan