STATEMENT OF MR. W. T. BLAND, CHAIRMAN RIVER IMPROVEMENT COMMITTEE, KANSAS CITY, MO. Mr. BLAND. Mr. Chairman, it is rather difficult to speak to any question that has been covered by the Speaker of the House of Representatives and our Senator and Congressman, but I will endeavor to avoid traveling over any of the same ground. I do want to say, however, that in 1910, when I think the chairman of the committee was a member of the River and Harbor Committee, we appeared here and the query was put to us, I think, by Mr. Cassidy, a then member of the committee, or by Mr. Davidson: "Suppose we appropriate this $1,000,000 for which you are asking, what assurance would we have that you would make use of the river?" We explained that we were then undertaking to raise by public subscription a minimum sum of $1,000,000 and with that we intended to purchase boats and barges or whatever sort of fleet of vessels might be necessary after a full and thorough investigation. We made it as a promise to the committee, and we returned to Kansas City after the hearing here in February, 1910, I think about the middle of February, and on the 1st day of March we commenced that campaign, and at the end of March, on the 31st day, we had succeeded in raising $1,238,000 by public subscriptions, and I can assure you it was no small task, and that the business men engaged in the work left their business places for the period of 31 days. Since that time we have been endeavoring to expend the money wisely and conservatively. In a large measure we had to undertake certain experimental things. We wanted to minimize our loss and we wanted to follow the development of the river-that is, the improvement by the work undertaken by the Government. We wanted to do that in order to show our good faith and to establish beyond question that we did not mean at any time to abandon using the river, although we did it at an expense and at a loss to our navigation company. You gentlemen are thoroughly familiar with the fact that the depth of the channel is the depth of the shallowest places, and if you can not cross that place it affects and stops the navigation throughout the entire length of the stream, and at certain places we found obstacles and difficulties which caused expense and loss of time. The Government has appropriated $6,250,000 since 1910, and of that sum $3,800,000 has been expended upon channel improvement and the balance in establishing plants, placing shore lights, snagging, The CHAIRMAN (interposing). Will you kindly state those amounts again? Mr. BLAND. Six million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in the aggregate has been appropriated since 1910, when $1,000,000 was appropriated. $3,800,000-and that is shown in detail, if you please, Mr. Chairman, by the report of the district officer-has been expended in channel improvements and the balance in snagging, shore lights, and establishing factories. The CHAIRMAN. When you say "channel improvements," what do you mean? Mr. BLAND. Building out the dikes and revetments. It is estimated by the district officer that about 9 or 10 per cent of the work on the channel has been completed; but about 30 per cent of the river is inclosed in high banks where this work does not have to go on, so that substantially 40 per cent of the channel is completed. $600,000 is in the plant that the Government has established. Mr. HUMPHREYS of Mississippi. I would like to have an explanation of the statement that 10 per cent of the channel work has been completed. You mean 10 per cent of the work that will have to be done on the channel only has been completed or that 10 per cent of the length of the channel? Mr. BLAND. Ten per cent of the work that has to be done, as I understand it. The CHAIRMAN. You refer to revetment as well as channel work? Mr. BLAND. Yes, sir. Substantially 40 per cent of the river is a completed channel. You understand that we have some bad crossings still remaining, and, by the way, the chart showing those things is on file with the Army board and I suppose will be included in the report that will be made to you gentlemen. We have expended our money with the exception of substantially $500,000, which we are holding for the purpose of purchasing additional barges and power boats. The reason we do not expend that money now and the reason we do not increase our carrying capacity now is because we want to expend that money for work upon an improved channel and not work upon an unimproved channel, and Mr. Borland in his statement to you has explained some of the reasons why, namely, because there would be a different size barge needed, and we want higher power in our boats, and we think we know now upon what basis to proceed. The committee can have that explained to it more thoroughly by Mr. Mackie or Mr. Dickey, both of whom are here, and I shall not attempt to deal with that feature now. As Senator Reed has said, we have undertaken to operate upon an uncompleted, unimproved channel presenting these difficulties, some of them sometimes seeming almost insurmountable. I am not going to speak of the engineering problem, because that has been eliminated by every survey that has ever been made. There was a review board of Army engineers that passed over the river to review the report made by Maj. Schulz and approved by Gen. Bixby. A later board went over the river. The Rivers and Harbors Committee went down and sounded a reach of the river 45 miles long, discovered a minimum depth of 10 feet with a maximum of over 30 feet in the places where the improvements had been done, commencing in 1891 and extending to 1900, an average of time of something like 18 years, and yet the work remained substantially intact during all those years without any repairs having been made. Some of you gentlemen may have been along on that trip. We have operated upon this channel under those difficulties and we have attempted to hold in reserve a sufficient sum of money so that when the river is improved we can have a carrying capacity running from 800,000 to 1,000,000 tons, and we can satisfy the committee, and I think we satisfied the Army Board of Engineers that we can develop that carrying capacity. Now, very pertinently, the chairman has asked what is your prospective tonnage in Kansas City. The total tonnage through Kansas City, gentlemen, as shown by statistics. which are carefully compiled, and which you gentlemen can examine to your satisfaction, is substantially 10,000,000 tons. In the testimony that was adduced before the Army board by the witnesses who were called there, and they called a halt or else we could have multiplied that testimony and added to it, the testimony there from the executives of the different business, commercial, and manufacturing institutions of Kansas City showed that we could supply a tonnage to the boat line, when ready to carry it, of 400,000 tons. That is from the testimony of the gentlemen who were there. But estimating 20 per cent of the total tonnage through Kansas City, we would have 2,000,000 tons; in fact, it is conserva tively estimated that in six years from this period we would have à total tonnage available for river transportation of 2,474,000 tons. Mr. HUMPHREYS of Mississippi. May I add, in connection with that statement, that the estimate upon which we proceeded when we dug the Panama Canal at an expenditure of $375,000,000 was that 3,500,000 tons of American commerce would pass through the canal? Mr. BLAND. And I suppose it will very greatly exceed that because as soon as the bottoms are released from carrying tonnage over the oceans at the present high charges and come back for domestic use in this country, and as soon as the canal is prepared to be used, you will find the tonnage will very largely exceed that. Mr. BORLAND. I think our East and West tonnage will amount to 3,500,000 tons in a very few years-in your lifetime and in mine. Mr. HUMPHREYS of Mississippi. I was simply showing that your estimate of the Missouri River tonnage was more than half of the estimated American tonnage going through the Panama Canal. Mr. BLAND. We have under a seven-year written contract with the shippers of Kansas City a tonnage of 375,000 tons. The CHAIRMAN. When is that contract operative? Mr. BLAND. It is operative now, but we have not the carrying capacity. The CHAIRMAN. Why do you not put on sufficient carrying capacity? Mr. BLAND. The reason, as I attempted to explain, Mr. Chairman, is that we can not afford to expend our money for operating boats upon a channel that will not carry the maximum. If we can have 2,000-ton barges with high-power boats operating up and down that river, there is no question but what we can make a profit, and we can carry downstream at 50 per cent of the rail rate, and we are now carrying at a profit upstream at 80 per cent of the rail rate. We have demonstrated that beyond question. I believe I am safe in saying that our community has gone further than any other single community in the United States to build and operate boats and barges. The CHAIRMAN. When I asked you when that contract was to be operative, you said immediately. Will it hold indefinately? Mr. BLAND. It will hold for seven years, but there is no question but what it can be renewed. I am a shipper in Kansas City and I gave the boat-line company last year, I think, 200 tons, and I can give them 1,000 tons if we have daily sailings from St. Louis with a 72-hour service upstream and a 28-hour service downstream, and we can accomplish that beyond question. The CHAIRMAN. You would then give them 1,000 tons? Mr. BLAND. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. Your estimate of 2,800,000 tons is at the end of how many years? Mr. BLAND. By 1922. I was just answering your question prospectively. The CHAIRMAN. Your figures have not gone beyond that? The CHAIRMAN. Of course, it is difficult to foretell future tonnage. Mr. BLAND. Yes. We will have a much larger carrying capacity when we will have expended our money for additional barges and boats. By the purchase of one more bcat we will double our carrying capacity, but I have not the time to go into that now. I thing it is covered by the explanation that has been made by some of the witnesses in this record of 500 pages in the testimony adduced before the Rivers and Harbors Committee. They said, "We will not take any more testimony along that line." We offered to add to this testimony by calling other manufacturers and shippers. Mr. HUMPHREYS of Mississippi. You mean before the Board of Engineers? Mr. BLAND. Yes, sir; and I think that will be printed under your rules and given to each member of the committee. Mr. BORLAND. You mean the Board of Engineers instead of the Rivers and Harbor Committee? Mr. BLAND. Yes; the Board of Engineers. Now, speaking of prospective tonnage, and I am speaking in a somewhat rambling way for the moment, we have in Kansas City an industry just developed, alfalfa mill products. There are two alfalfa mills. Last year one mill gave to the boat-line company 1,800 tons. He testifies that upon the production in Kansas City now, if the boat-line company can accept and haul it, the alfalfa mills alone in Kansas City can supply 100,000 tons. We have offered to us for export flour way beyond our capacity to carry. We have not the boats and the barges to carry it. It is offered to us and we turn it down and they are anxious to give it to us. The CHAIRMAN. How many boats have you now? Mr. BLAND. Two power boats and we have another boat that we have converted, the Chester. The CHAIRMAN. If you can operate two power boats and the converted boat, why can't you operate four boats or six boats? Mr. BLAND. We are now purchasing another boat of 1,000 horsepower. We have just been experimenting and we have not gone any faster for the reasons I have just attempted to explain. Mr. SWITZER. Is this operation profitable as yet? Mr. BLAND. We are operating at a loss while we have to operate upon sand bars and have to experience delays on account of low water. We have not the barges as large as we want them because we can use the small barges for way freight. When we have an improved channel with sufficient depth, and that does not really mean a 6-foot channel as characterized in the report of the engineer, but according to the statement of Gen. Bixby and all of the other engineers it means a minimum depth of 10 feet by confining it to a width of 1,200 feet- Mr. SWITZER (interposing). What I want to know is whether it has ever been profitable on this unimproved channel? Mr. BLAND. Yes, sir; this was a wet summer and we operated this summer, carrying freight up and down the river, at a profit. I want to suggest another thought in that connection. We operated at a profit in the carrying of the freight. We have our freight east and west absolutely balanced, and a railroad company would pay an expert an enormous salary if he could accomplish that. Our tonnage west is about 16,500 tons and our tonnage east is about 16,500 tons. In other words, we are offered as much tonnage west as we are offered east. The CHAIRMAN. Your upstream and downstream tonnage is about the same? Mr. BLAND. Yes, sir; it balanced this year, which is a most happy condition as a traffic proposition. The CHAIRMAN. Of course, everyone knows that that is a great country out there, that it is developing quite rapidly, and that its commercial possibilities are great. The railroads are carrying the freight in the main at present, of course. Now, what guarantee could you give the committee that that freight would be diverted or a great part of it diverted to this river when the improvement is completed? Mr. BLAND. The best and the only evidence in the world, Mr. Chairman, that we can offer to you is the statement of honorable, highminded men of integrity who came before the Army board and came before their fellow citizens and stated, "We will give you this much freight if you will carry it with daily sailings from St. Louis." There is also the evidence that they are doing that now; that the alfalfa mill people say that since the completion of the Panama Canal, unless they can get that outlet, they will be compelled to move; also the testimony of a manufacturer like Mr. Peet, of Peet Bros., one of the largest soap manufacturers in the word, to the effect that unless he can get an outlet he will be compelled to move to the seaboard or the Gulf coast. In other words, Mr. Chairman, there is the assurance that the very necessity that confronts them will compel them to give us that freight. Mr. HUMPHREYS of Mississippi. Do you happen to recall the difference in the freight from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific coast and from Kansas City to the Pacific coast? Mr. BLAND. On soap, it is 80 cents from Kansas City and from seaboard to seaboard it is 40 cents. Mr. HUMPHREYS of Mississippi. A difference of 40 cents a box? Mr. C. D. PARKER. Mr. Peet is a very close friend of mine and has already gone to Oakland and is going to put up a $250,000 plant in Oakland, Cal., to offset that proposition. Mr. BLAND. I am not going into the details of that, may it please the committee, because if you will just read that record you will see that the testimony of as high grade men as walk upon the face of this earth will establish in your minds, to your satisfaction, the fact that the river will be patronized and that we will be offered freight to carry to our maximum capacity. We Gentlemen, we would not be here if we did not believe that. would not be investing our money in this proposition if we did not believe that. It is not an idle thing to raise $1,250,000 by public sub |