RIVER AND HARBOR APPROPRIATION BILL. COMMITTEE ON RIVERS AND HARBORS, The committee met at 10 o'clock a. m., Hon. John H. Small (chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. Gentlemen, we have with us this morning Col. Newcomer, from the office of the Chief of Engineers, and, unless the committee directs otherwise, we will take up these recommendations, made by the Secretary of War, in the order as they appear in the recommendations which have been printed. Col. Newcomer, the Secretary of War has submitted certain recommendations to be included in a river and harbor bill at this session for maintenance and improvement. Will you kindly state upon what basis or conditions these recommendations were made? STATEMENT OF COL. HENRY C. NEWCOMER, OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF ENGINEERS. Col. NEWCOMER. Mr. Chairman, I will state that these recommendations originated from a recommendation made by the Chief of Engineers to the Secretary of War at a time when it appeared very doubtful whether any river and harbor legislation would be enacted this year. He felt that the situation of the general transportation service of the country was such as to require some work, not only for the more urgent commercial needs but also for certain military purposes as a matter of defense. For that reason he prepared a brief memorandum, which he took up to the Secretary of War, accompanied by a copy of the bill. He took this Senate bill as the basis for his action, and in arranging the program for the more urgent military and commercial needs we struck out the items which we felt might be omitted at this time. We do not mean, of course, that we consider those items that were stricken out unimportant or not useful, but they were simply considered as ones that might be eliminated in the process of pruning in order to get down to what might be considered as the essentials most necessary at this time. That memorandum and the proposed schedule of items were taken by the Secretary to the President, and it was understood that they received his assent. In fact, we were convinced from what took place later that the administration was quite willing to have a bill substantially the same as the bill as it passed the House and was amended by the Senate Committee on Commerce. Mr. FREAR. At the last session? 3 Col. NEWCOMER. Yes, sir; at the last session. But further consideration led to a modification of that attitude, and a reversion to the first one of taking care of only the more urgent cases. Mr. TREADWAY. As I understand it, this started with the Chief of Engineers having a brief memorandum, as you stated, and then you supplemented that with the list contained in this bill? Col. NEWCOMER. It was a brief memorandum, or simply a statement calling attention to the necessity of making some provision for these matters. Mr. TREADWAY. Was that an itemized statement? Col. NEWCOMER. No, sir; it was simply a brief memorandum referring to the general situation, and it was accompanied by this itemized list just as you have it here. That list contains all the items that were in the bill as it was reported to the Senate by the Senate Committee on Commerce at the last session. We have simply stricken out some of them. We have simply crossed out with a pencil the ones that we felt might be omitted in the present emergency. That list, as I said, accompanied the memorandum, and it was the one that went to the President. Mr. TREADWAY. The reason I asked that question was that I saw in the press about the time of this conference-but that, of course, does not make it in any sense official-a list which was approved, as I understood it, by the Secretary of War. It was a very brief list of some important harbors of the country which were approved by the Secretary of War for appropriation at this time. Now, was that the memorandum that you have referred to? Col. NEWCOMER. I hardly think so. That was one submitted by the Secretary of War with reference to channels required by the fleet of defense, was it not? Mr. TREADWAY. I think so. Col. NEWCOMER. There was in last year's naval appropriation act a provision requiring the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy to report to Congress as soon as possible the additional work required for harbor and channel improvements required for the operations of the fleet of defense. In response to that provision of law the matter was taken up, first by the joint board of the Army and Navy, which approved, as the basis for further action, the report which had already been made by the General Board of the Navy, in which they discussed that situation and took up certain localities which they said should receive additional improvement for the operation of the fleet of defense. That was simply submitted as an ordinary congressional document and is not especially involved in this. Some of the items that were in that program are not in this bill, although there are some others that are included. As a matter of fact, there is only one of those items that is really included in this bill, and that was in the bill as introduced last session in the Senate. The question as to who should take up those items for the purely naval defense was a question that we did not think should come before the department. In other words, I mean by that that the information has been sent to Congress, and whether they will appropriate for it in the naval bill or in some other bill, we do not know, because it is not strictly speaking river and harbor improvement. For instance, for the East River, New York, the Navy Department asked for a depth of 40 |