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Mr. MACKIE. Our type of bank revetment is that of willow mats with rock on top.

At a few places our engineer officer has tried concrete blocks, and they are very satisfactory. We have an abundance of rock on the Missouri River-you need not worry about rock-just as we have an abundance of water; we thought we had an abundance of willows, but we are going to use all the willows we have if you gentlemen make appropriations for us. Then there are some places that can not be improved by the willow mat revetment system because the country is too flat; there is no bank to revet, and there the river is confined by driving pile dykes out on an angle from either side, and those are very effective.

The CHAIRMAN. I presume we can get all of that information from the engineer's report?

Mr. MACKIE. Yes. That is all I have to say.

The CHAIRMAN. I suppose all the data that we will want to consider, in addition to what you have just been saying, are in the testimony which you submitted to the River and Harbor Board?

Mr. MACKIE. I think so. However, we have complete information and data as to everything we have done in every department of the work, and as to revenue and expense. We use it for our information and a copy is filed with the board.

Mr. HUMPHREYS. Has all of this testimony been edited and indexed in some way so that we can refer to it?

Mr. BORLAND. No; the testimony was taken by the official reporter for the Board of Army Engineers, and, I think, Judge Bland has a complete transcript of that. But we have never had it for the purpose of editing it. I assume it is on file in the War Department and is available to the committee. I would like this committee to consult that because we had two days' hearing there which went into all the technicalities of the improvement of the river and the growth of traffic.

The CHAIRMAN. When the board makes its report I presume it will embody that hearing?

Mr. BORLAND. Yes; it is on file, but we have never edited it.

Mr. HUMPHREYS. I wondered whether there was any digest of that testimony so that we could readily refer to particular points instead of going all over it.

Mr. BLAND. Yes; it has been edited and indexed, and we will leave this copy with the committee.

The CHAIRMAN. We will be glad to have it.

Mr. BLAND. I think it will be printed by the Army board, but we well leave that with you. That is all indexed and a reference made. The CHAIRMAN. Is there anything else?

Mr. BORLAND. Nothing further, Mr. Chairman. We are very much obliged to you for this hearing.

The CHAIRMAN. We have been pleased to hear from you gentlemen. Mr. BORLAND. And unless there are some further questions by the committee we have nothing further.

Mr. BLAND. We want to thank you and the committee for your patience and your consideration in giving us such an extended hearing.

The committee thereupon adjourned.

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ATLANTIC INTRACOASTAL WATERWAY.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON RIVERS AND HARBORS,

Friday, December 10, 1915.

The committee met at 10.30 o'clock a. m., Hon. Stephen M. Sparkman (chairman) presiding.

STATEMENT OF HON. J. HAMPTON MOORE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA.

Mr. MOORE. Mr. Chairman, first I desire to thank the committee for its courtesy in giving us a hearing this morning. I wish to say on behalf of the Atlantic Deeper Waterways Association that what the committee did in its bill of 1913 was entirely satisfactory to the association, which is made up of representatives of every one of the coastal States. You made provision in your bill then for the taking over of the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal, which was a link in what is known as the Atlantic intracoastal chain.

The CHAIRMAN. Did we not refuse to in that bill, Mr. Moore? Mr. MOORE. Then it was in the next bill.

The CHAIRMAN. It was in the 1914 bill we adopted the project so far as the House was concerned.

Mr. MOORE. Yes; the bill of 1914, against which the filibuster was lodged. Since that time the representatives of the various coastal States have had a remarkable convention in the city of Savannah. Probably 1,000 representative business men, shipping men, men who are interested in commerce and the internal development of the country, were present, and they passed resolutions which I am going to ask the privilege of having read a little later on. The convention was remarkable for another thing in that following a trip up the Hudson River in 1914, when Secretary Daniels, of the Navy Department, was with us, we had in attendance upon the Savannah convention Mr. Secretary Redfield, of the Department of Commerce, who made a speech indicating that the department was wholly in favor of this project and that the completion of such a project was essential to the proper internal development of this country. We are worrying ourselves, all of us, about what is going on abroad, and we are making our own burdens rather heavy in anticipation of what may be necessary to defend ourselves in the event of an attack. Mr. Secretary Redfield seemed to have a grasp of the situation, and indicated that we ought to promote and foster our own business affairs in the United States, and he regarded the improvement of inland waterways as a very important adjunct to that sort of development, thus falling completely in line with the argument we have presented to this committee before. and which has been the basis of

our claims. Mr. Secretary Daniels did not appear in person at the Savannah convention, but was represented by Admiral Grant, who made a speech indicating that without this inside waterway, particularly along the coast line, we were always very much handicapped in the matter of what may be regarded as the second line of defense if we concede that the Navy is the first line of defense. Mr. Secretary Daniels wrote a letter to that convention, which was more forceful, perhaps, than any speech he could have made, because it accepted in toto the project we have laid down before you, and indicated that so far as the present Navy Department was concerned it would like most earnestly the completion of these various links in what appears to have been a God-given chain of waterways along the Atlantic coast; and this, of course, is without prejudice to what may be expected along the Pacific coast, which we would like to see improved, properly protected, and advanced, nor to what may be expected along the Gulf coast, which has a direct relation with this intracoastal chain of ours along the Atlantic.

I know what the committee might say with respect to the suggestion as to the naval importance or the military importance of our inside waterways. It might say, of course, that we should go to some other committee with that sort of suggestion, but I take it that the Rivers and Harbors Committee understands its own importance, and will not and ought not to relegate any of its power or any of its jurisdiction, and I think it ought to exercise full power over all these interior waterways, and ought to respectfully consider whatever suggestions may come from other branches of the Government, as, for instance, the Army and the Navy.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Moore, we are not in favor of relegating such matters as the improvement of a river or a harbor to the Naval Committee or any other committee, if such improvement is primarily in the interest of commerce. It is only where the commercial importance would be of a secondary nature that we might do that. I do not know that we would even then if the commercial importance was considerable. But certainly if a given project were entirely in the interest of the Navy, for instance, we would feel like turning it over to the Naval Committee. But in this case the prime object of the work is for the benefit of commerce. At least that was our view when we inserted the item in the bill of 1914. Of course, if it is also useful for naval purposes, so much the better.

Mr. MOORE. Mr. Chairman, our understanding of the attitude of the committee is entirely confirmed by the chairman, and I thank him for having made that statement. We are primarily for the improvement of these waterways for the development of commerce and for the increase of trade and for the growth of industry and of agriculture, which we believe to be the basis of all revenue to be created to maintain the Army and the Navy. We must first have these waterways opened, if we are sensible about it, before we undertake too much armament or too much naval construction, because if the Navy is the first line of defense and is ever driven in, and we are not prepared to take care of the Navy on our inside waterways, then, of course, we have put the cart before the horse and have done a very foolish thing. We have got to have the revenue to run this county and we have got to encourage the inhabitants of this country and not the inhabitants of any European country. We

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