Mr. DUFOUR. In the Jackson case the Chief Justice held that damages resulting in such a case were damnum abseque injuria, resulting from the performance of an actual duty, and there has never been any damage claimed in Louisiana for the break of a levee. Senator RANSDELL. And we do not contemplate any. Mr. DUFOUR. The right of action does not exist. Senator WILLIS. If that is true, and I quite agree with that view now expressed by the Senator and by Mr. Dufour, the amount of money involved in these claims is not so great, as I understand it. General Jadwin says in this report as follows: Exclusive of rights of way, incidental drainage works, and damages, if any, recommended to be borne by local authorities, the estimated cost of floodcontrol works is $185,400,000. Now, the question is, I understand, Senator Hawes, whether onefifth of that-20 per cent shall be borne by local authorities. That is the question? Senator HAWES. That is the fundamental question. Senator WILLIS. That does not involve such a large amount as we have been talking about. That will be only one-fifth of the total cost, and that will make only $37,000,000. Senator HAWES. I think it does. I think you will find that the Jadwin plan total estimate is $296,000,000. Senator WILLIS. Permit me to interrupt you. It says, however, that the cost of channel stabilization and mapping is $185,400,000, and that that shall be borne by the Federal Government, so the Jadwin plan contemplates that. The only thing the Jadwin plan says is that the cost of flood control shall be borne, one-fifth of it, by the local authorities, and that would amount to only one-fifth of $185,000.000 which is only $37,000,000. Senator HAWES. Senator, I should much prefer that the engineers be brought here, and they will give you figures very much more accurately than I can. I would like for a moment to have these gentlemen, the Senators from South Carolina and Florida, and our new Senator from New Mexico, to understand that we can not put a boat on the river without the permission of the United States Government. We can not build a dock without that permission, or a dam, or a bridge, or a wharf; that the United States Government has taken complete charge, control, and direction over everything appertaining to the Mississippi River and its navigable tributaries. I can not run a boat with five men in it and a motor back of it, without the permission of the United States Government to-day. You can not put a pipe-line underneath the water or a transmission line above the water without the consent of the Government. The CHAIRMAN. Is not that true of all navigable waters? The CHAIRMAN. Yes. Senator HAWES. But they have control and direction, and they want to put part of the responsibility on the States, and want the States to pay for it. Senator SIMMONS. Senator, I want to say that in the rather sweeping statement that I made a little while ago with reference to the Government paying all the costs, I did not include in that all of the incidental costs and results. I was thinking about the right of way. The question whether that should be furnished by the States through which it runs is another question. Then the question of damages is another question. I was speaking simply of the cost of construction, and insisting that it should be full and complete. I want to ask you this question now: If the Government should confine its operations to what I think would be practically the canalization of the Mississippi River, and should stop right there without undertaking to prepare the tributaries so as to protect them also, would that be of any help in case of a great flood, to the tributaries, like the Arkansas River? Would it not be an impediment? Would it not fill up the main stream, the Mississippi River, to a point that it would throw the water back more than under present conditions, into the tributaries, and probably be more disastrous in its effect. upon the tributaries than under present conditions? Senator HAWES. Senator, I have an opinion on that subject. Engineers will be brought here, on whose testimony you can rely with much more confidence than on an expression of opinion of mine. Senator FLETCHER. The spillways would tend to relieve that? Senator HAWES. Oh, yes; sure. You see, Senator Simmons, you were out of the room when this hearing started. I was called upon unexpectedly this morning. I did not expect to testify at all. This bill fixes a standard height of 19 feet at New Orleans. Senator SIMMONS. Yes. Senator HAWES. That would fix a standard height all the way up the river, to an extent. Whether it should be worked out by spillways in part, or by levees in part, or reservoirs, is a question that we could not decide here; but a commission could decide it. You suggested a moment ago that this is a great national project, and that it should be done permanently and paid for by bonds. We all want some form of tax reduction. We are interested in farm relief. I felt, in preparing what was originally called the Missouri River plan, and which was approved by my State, that the enormous cost of this project would stagger Congress. Senator SIMMONS. I think so. Senator HAWES. I think it will; but we might as well do it now; so that I suggested in that bill, that there be an annual appropriation from money in the Treasury unappropriated, in a billion-dollar program, of $100,000,000 a year; that where the surplus in the Treasury was not sufficient to pay this $100,000,000 a year, the Secre tary of the Treasury would be authorized to issue bonds and sell bonds to keep this program going. I submitted that question to some experts, and I think it would be interesting, to have that study put in the record. I found that the issuance of a billion dollars of bonds, payable in 50 years, would entail the first year an annual expenditure of but $5,000,000; that at the high peak of expenditure it would be only $50,000,000. I left it out of this bill, but it is an interesting matter. I agree with you, Senator, that those who come after us should pay some of the burden of this enormous cost. I think those that follow should pay some of the burden of the war. We will go through 10 years of engineering work and 10 years of the expenditure of money. When it is done, it will benefit all the valley, will enable them to pay a higher tax, Mr. Chairman, just as those people who are riding on the highways of the United States can thank those men who put through the Federal road act. I will put that study in the record for your examination and criticism. The CHAIRMAN. We will be glad to have that done. Senator SIMMONS. I want to call the attention of the Senator to the fact that the people of the United States to-day are not only paying excessive Federal taxes, more than seems to be necessary, but in every State in this Union, to meet modern conditions, the people are burdened to the highest rate of taxation ever known, in many instances almost reaching the point of confiscation. That is not the result of extravagance in the expenditure of funds that have been raised for that purpose in the States. They have been generally spent very wisely and very economically, and to accomplish the general purpose. It is because modern conditions have forced upon us the necessity of making these improvements in order that we may take advantage of modern inventions, modern facilities, and modern conditions. When the Federal Government is paying all the expenses of the war that have not already been paid, when these States are laboring under this staggering burden of taxation to meet modern conditions, to undertake a great work of this sort that is to be permanent for generations, I think it would be very unwise to require this generation to bear the cost of the work as it progresses, and that is the reason I made the suggestion which I did make a little while ago. Of course we can pay it out of the Federal Treasury. If we do, of course, we will have to curtail the amount that we appropriate for rivers and harbors and similar improvements elsewhere in the United States. I do not want to stop that work. I believe we have reached the point now in our development where we are beginning to take advantage of the money we have spent in improving these rivers and harbors. We have not done it heretofore to any considerable extent. The chairman of the committee very wisely said that property would be benefited by this work. I do not know of many appropriations that this committee has been making for years that have not resulted in benefits to private property. The improvement of little streams and creeks, and things of that sort, running up into sections of the country, has resulted in benefit from our appropriations in the way of cheaper water transportation. That has affected the value of property very materially, and that is the purpose of our administration. It is to benefit the property of the people who live along these little streams. I want us to continue our appropriations for rivers and harbors, and I want them increased. I do not think we have been appropriating anything like we ought to have appropriated for that purpose. But if we undertake this great scheme, if we undertake to pay for the work as it goes on, we will naturally have to curtail our appropriations to rivers and harbors in other sections of the country; and for that reason, if 85907-28-PT 1—5 we undertake this work, and we do not feel that the Government is able to appropriate that amount of money and then provide for the improvement of rivers and harbors in other sections of the country, we will find that when the people of other sections begin to contemplate that possibility or contingency, there will develop an opposition to your project. So far as this particular scheme is concerned, it is exceptional. There is not another case like it in the country, and there never will be. The same conditions do not exist anywhere else. While we are going to have floods in my State and in New England and in other sections of the country, in proportion to the damage done by this flood, the little floods are merely bagatelles. (Thereupon, at 12 o'clock m., the committee adjourned until to-morrow, Tuesday, January 24, 1928, at 10 o'clock a. m.) FLOOD CONTROL TUESDAY, JANUARY 24, 1928 UNITED STATES SENATE, The committee met, at 10 o'clock a. m., pursuant to adjournment, in the committee room in the Capitol, Senator Wesley L. Jones presiding. Present: Senators Jones (chairman), Willis, Johnson, Gould, La Follette, Nye, Fletcher, Ransdell, Simmons, Stephens, Harris, and Tyson. The CHAIRMAN. Senator Ransdell, are your people ready to proceed? Senator RANSDELL. Yes, Senator. I will ask Mr. Generes Dufour, of New Orleans, to take the place at the foot of the table. STATEMENT OF H. GENERES DUFOUR, OF NEW ORLEANS, LA. Senator RANSDELL. Please give your name and occupation and in what capacity you appear here. Mr. DUFOUR. My name is H. Generes Dufour. I live at New Orleans, and am an attorney at law and a member of the mayor's flood policy committee in the city of New Orleans. Senator RANSDELL. Please state your views in this important matter of controlling the floods of the Mississippi in your own way. Mr. DUFOUR. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, the calamity of 1927 has passed into history, but I do hope that you will hold with you the memory of those scenes and the recollection of those events in order that we may better understand the problem to which we are addressing ourselves. That calamity has been referred to as the greatest peace-time calamity in history. We have had a noble response from the American people that the control of the flood waters of the Mississippi River is a national problem. It has been said in high authority that such a calamity should never be permitted to occur again. We in the lower valley hope that that promise will not be kept to the ear and broken to the hope, and I propose to address myself to the fundamentals, as the chairman has called them, of the problem that confronts us. The city of New Orleans was founded in 1715. The settlements along the lower Mississippi Valley are among the most ancient in the civilization of that valley. Most of the grants along the Mississippi and in the alluvial districts of Louisiana come from the French and Spanish Crowns. I state that in order to show the antiquity of |