The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed, Mr. Fields.

Mr. FIELDS. The fact does remain that, in spite of the experience of those on the Erie Canal, the experience of the shippers along the Monongahela River has been that it has been very profitable to use the water transportation; and the experience of the shippers adjacent to the Mississippi River has been that it has been very profitable, as this map [indicating] which I have explained to you

will show.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the total tonnage shown by that map? Mr. FIELDS. It is 170,000 tons, as I recall it.

The CHAIRMAN. That is a year's tonnage!

Mr. FIELDS. Not quite a year: 11 months. But that is just for this particular district; that does not take into consideration the tonnage on the lower river-the tonnage between New Orleans and Memphis, and a great deal of other tonnage down there that is not included in this report. This report relates to the territory that is particularly shown on this map adjacent to the upper river, and we prepared it to show you what the Mississippi River line did.

Now, I will also state for the benefit of the committee that in the year 1923, 54.1 per cent of the Mississippi barge line's business was rail and water-was business interchanged with the rail lines--and the remaining 45.9 per cent was water point to water point-New Orleans to Memphis; New Orleans to St. Louis, etc., without any

rail haul.

When the barge line started, it was the general idea that it would simply serve the points along the river. Everybody said, "That will be very good for Memphis, St. Louis, and New Orleans, but nobody else will get the benefit of it." But gradually the line spread and gave service to all of this vast territory that you see on this map [indicating], and everybody in that territory that has had freight moving and has taken advantage of the barge-line service has shared in the saving.

And the barge-line service is good enough service, so that people are patronizing it readily, so that not only those along the river are patronizing it-we at Peoria, who are 150 miles from St. Louis, are patronizing it, Chicago and all of this other territory [indicating on map].

Now, Mr. Haynes and Mr. Rippin have given you, I think, the major part of our testimony, outside of what I have said to you. We in Peoria and along the velley are very anxious to have the water opened up and the barge-line service extended through to Chicago and the Great Lakes. We feel that we will benefit from it. and Peoria is a typical middle-western city. We have manufactories that have been hit pretty hard in the last few years, some of them in the agricultural-implement line. Some of those have in past years done quite an export business; some of them could do it again if they had a little more favorable rate. The opening of a barge line would give us an all-water service through to South American and the European ports. We would benefit from it.

It would enable the grain of Illinois to go by water for export. You all realize the farmer's condition to-day, and you know that the export demand is about the only logical thing that is going to

do him any good, and the more you can help him to export and get relief, the more he is going to be benefited.

Mr. Chairman, I offer this testimony before the Senate committee as an exhibit.

The CHAIRMAN. You may file that with the clerk.

Mr. SWEET. Mr. Chairman, I said to Mr. Hull off the record, on the question of the Erie Canal. and I will now repeat for the record this-speaking of the business of the Erie Canal of the past and the business of the barge canal of to-day:

The Erie Canal in its original state was constructed at a depth of 4 feet. Later, it being found to be inadequate, it was deepened to 7 feet; and as the business over that canal began to drop off, it was seen to be necessary, in order to hold the business over the water route, to deepen it to a 12-foot channel.

We find now that the traffic on the barge canal has not come up to our expectations; and the answer, in our judgment, is that it is the depth of the Erie channel. Canada has the Cornwall Canal of 14 feet. They are now in the process of abandoning it for a 24-foot canal. It is the channel and the possibility of handling the large cargo that seems to be demanded for handling water transportation to-day: that seems to have gone step by step right up so that what is needed now, from the West through to the seaboard, is a 24 to 30 foot channel. And I think that would bring business.

Mr. RIPPIN. Mr. Chairman, answering your question as to tonnage, the barge line report that I will file with you will give you the complete report of tonnage both north and south bound.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

The next witness will be Mr. R. I. Randolph, vice president of the Association of Commerce, Chicago, Ill.

STATEMENT OF MR. R. I. RANDOLPH, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE ASSOCIATION OF COMMERCE, CHICAGO, ILL.

Mr. RANDOLPH. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I appear here at Mr. Hull's invitation, representing the Chicago Association of Commerce, composed of some 7,000 individuals and business firms. We are vitally interested in the subject of this bill and the other bills before this committee.

We are interested in the navigation features of the bill and in the sanitation features of the bill.

The interest is not confined to Chicago in either of those particulars. The interest in both the navigation and the sanitary features of the bill extends far beyond Chicago.

The Association of Commerce, through its executive committee, has considered the several bills which are before the Rivers and Harbors Committee. They all cover the same ground; in the main, they all attempt to do the same thing. There is a difference in phraseology; there is a difference in method in some of them.

And the Association of Commerce, through its executive committee, has passed a resolution recommending all of the bills, and stating in substance that we favor four essential features in all of these bills:

First, the diversion of 10.000 second-feet of water through the Chicago River;

Second, compensation thereof, in the shape of compensation work, or regulating work, in the interlake channels;

Third, arbitration and settlement of the claims for overflow damages in the Illinois River; and

Fourth, the waterway features of the bill:

The creation of a 9-foot waterway from Chicago to the Gulf of Mexico, or, more particularly, that section of the lower Illinois River from Utica, the terminal of the State project, to Grafton, at the mouth of the Illinois River.

Now, the chairman in his opening remarks put forth several fundamental propositions that would affect the consideration of this bill and the others.

In the first place, the chairman referred to the fact that you had before your committee the report of Chief of Engineers recommending an 8-foot waterway.

That report has been referred to by document number; and it contains a report of estimated cost of a 7-foot waterway; an 8-foot waterway, and a 9-foot waterway, based upon an increment flow of 4,167 cubic feet per second, 7,500 cubic feet per second, and 10,000 cubic feet per second.

That report also refers, by House document number to other reports of the Chief of Engineers, on a 14-foot waterway, from Chicago to the mouth of the Illinois River, and another report on a 14-foot waterway from St. Louis to the Gulf of Mexico.

Those reports are complete and in detail, and give the detailed. estimates of costs and plans and profiles.

There is no section of these United States that has been surveved and resurveyed, and considered and reported on, to the extent that this section of the country has.

The CHAIRMAN (interposing). I am sorry to say that that does not do away with the rule, that has been inflexible and has prevailed for 20 years at least, if not a quarter of a century, that we have to have, first, a survey, and then a favorable report; and the favorable report is the only question to which we can refer.

Now it might be that the members of this committee would be unanimously in favor of a 9-foot channel, if it were before them. Mr. RANDOLPH. Well, Mr. Chairman, here is this report; that is a favorable report.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. RANDOLPH. And I would like to quote from that report, if you please?

The CHAIRMAN. All right.

Mr. RANDOLPH. And to one paragraph in particular; and while it recommends an 8-foot waterway, that is not what this committee asked the Chief of Engineers for; this committee asked the Chief of Engineers for a report of estimates of costs. It did not ask him for a conclusion. And the report itself says that it is his conclusion that the traffic does not warrant anything greater than an 8-foot waterway. But he does go into the estimates of costs on a 9-foot waterway.

The CHAIRMAN. The Chief of Engineers is reporting absolutely in accordance with instructions; he is bound by statute to do what he has done; and he is not only within the statute, but he is within the universal practice.

Mr. RANDOLPH. Well, I will not quarrel with the statutes, nor will I quarrel with the universal practice; but I would like to quote what he has said.

The CHAIRMAN. Very well.

Mr. RANDOLPH. Referring in the alternative to the projects which he recommends, I find that on page 17 he says:

For a 9-foot channel, with an increment of 4,167 second-feet, the cost either with dams retained or removed appears almost prohibitive, and the probability that Congress will limit the increment to 4,167 second-feet is, in my opinion, so remote that this hypothesis may be left out of consideration.

The CHAIRMAN. What are you reading from?

Mr. RANDOLPH. Page 17 of Document No. 2; and then it goes on as follows:

With increments of 7,500 or 10,000 second-feet, the figures show conclusively the advisability of removing all dams. Inasmuch as the Sanitary District of. Chicago and the State of Illinois receive practically all of the benefits that accrue from maintaining the flow of 7,500 second-feet from Lake Michigan, the propriety of the dams being removed at the expense of those interests may well be considered.

That is Colonel Judson's report.

The CHAIRMAN. I will call your attention to the fact that that is the report of the district engineer; and while, of course, it is one of the things that occur in reporting before a survey, the only thing that comes up for our consideration is the report of the Chief of Engineers.

Mr. RANDOLPH. All right, sir; we will take the report of the Chief of Engineers recommending an 8-foot waterway.

Mr. Sweet has brought out that the Erie Canal was originally constructed at a depth of 4 feet; they found that that was not enough, and it was enlarged to 7 feet; that was not enough and it had to be enlarged to 12 feet; and now they find again that it is not large enough.

Talking now of the waterway proposition, the waterway consists, as we have it to-day, first of the Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal, through the Continental Divide, which is the first link in any Lakesto-the-Gulf waterway. That has been constructed by the people of the city of Chicago at a cost of $60,000,000, going through the rock of the Continental Divide. It is 160 feet wide in its narrowest part and 24 feet deep. It extends for 40 miles, from the mouth of the river to Lockport. That is the first link.

The State is engaged in constructing the second link between the end of the Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal, through the Des Plaines and Illinois Rivers, and the present head of 6-foot navigation on the Illinois River at La Salle. That is being done by the State under a bond issue of $20,000,000, which was voted by the people of the State of Illinois in 1908.

In that project one lock at Marseilles has been completed, another lock at the end of the drainage canal is under contract and under construction. There is a fall of 140 feet in the 63 miles between the end of the Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal and the present head of navigation on the Illinois River.

To take care of that slope, there will be five locks constructed: One at the end of the drainage canal; another lock and dam just below Joliet; another lock and dam below the confluence of the

Des Plaines and Kankakee Rivers, where they come together and form the Illinois River; the lock and dam at Marseilles, which is being constructed; and another lock and dam at Starved Rock, just above Utica, the present head of navigation on the Illinois River. Now, the State is paying for that.

The simple expedient has been adopted of constructing the locks and dams to provide slack-water pools, with a depth of 8 feet in the pools, with very little expenditure at the upper end of the canal; and that can be enlarged and deepened to 14 feet, with the expenditure of a comparatively small amount of money. All of the locks are built with 14 feet of water over the miter sills. The locks are 110 feet wide and 1,000 feet long. They are designed to take a type of tows that are operated by the Mississippi-Warrior Barge Service. They are the same size as the locks in the Ohio River improvement which Congress has appropriated for and which is being constructed. The development of the waterways in conformity with the Ohio project, with a 9-foot depth throughout, will ultimately give us a connected waterways system that will handle that type of barge; and that type of barge can and does compete with the railroads. Anything smaller than tows or barges carrying 9.000 tons does not compete economically with the railroads.

That is one reason why the New York State Barge Canal is having difficulty in developing its traffic. Another difficulty with the New York State Barge Canal traffic is that you have no common carriers on the New York State Barge Canal; you have contract carriers; but you have not any carriers that interchange with railroad carriers and make you through rates, such as we hope will be extended to the Illinois waterway when it is completed.

Now, as to the question that you were speaking about, Mr. Chairman, of an 8-foot waterway, we will begin with an 8-foot waterway, because when we get the Illinois waterway completed we will have that, practically, with the exception of the lower river an 8-foot depth in the lower river will give is that much better service; we will be able to have some kind of service and a through route from Chicago to the Gulf as soon as the Illinois waterway is completed. And one of the fundamental designs in the improvement of the Illinois waterway, the improvement of the lower Illinois River, and the improvement of the Mississippi River from Chicago on down to Cairo, the junction with the Ohio River improvement, is the volume of water that you are going to permit to go through that channel.

With a flow of 1,000 second-feet, as has been suggested by the chairman here this morning

The CHAIRMAN (interposing). No; I simply read from the report of the Chief of Engineers.

Mr. RANDOLPH. Well, the report of the Chief of Engineers, as I understand it, did not advocate the improvement with a 1.000 secondfoot flow. He said that a 1,000 second-foot flow-1,000 cubic feet per second-would be adequate to provide all the water necessary for lockage. And it probably will be, for some time to come. But it will not be sufficient to provide the water for the channel without improvement of the lower Illinois River by locks and dams at the site of the four small locks that are now constructed and exist in the canal, two belonging to the State and two belonging to the Federal