the railroad, and it is a damage in the taking; it is a damage resulting from acquisition of necessary property, whether you pay for the property and take the fee or whether you pay damages in the way of flowage right, or whether you destroy a railroad or other property. It is the constitutional protection against the taking of property without just compensation which is involved, and not the consequential damage in the future resulting from the failure of the protective works.

What is the proposal? The proposal is that the States pay 20 per cent of the cost of construction and pay for all rights of way and damages. Let us try to translate that into money and see what the enormousness of the contribution is. Of course, it is very difficult to state just what that is going to cost, but engineers have tried to make a rough estimate, and the value of the property and the damage resulting from the taking will run nearly to $100,000,000. Add the 20 per cent of the $167,000,000 spoken of in one of the reports, which is $33,000,000, and you have $133,000,000, which the States are called upon to bear, as against the Government contribution of $155,000,000; for if we take the Jadwin figures and deduct $110,000,000 for bank revetment and the 20 per cent you reach those figures.

Senator WILLIS. $111,000,000.

Mr. DUFOUR. And then you will have the States paying almost as much as the Federal Government.

Senator WILLIS. I am anxious to understand your contention. I understand perfectly your attitude touching the question of damage. In the engineers' report it says "exclusive of rights of way." You feel that the State ought not to be called upon to furnish rights of

way.

Mr. DUFOUR. When you talk about rights of way you are getting into a large proposition.

Senator WILLIS. I understand that.

Mr. DUFOUR. The right of way for a levee is a strip of land 100 feet wide, and that in itself is of little consequence; but the rights of way and damages in spillways are another matter.

Senator WILLIS. Do you contend that he be paid for it by the General Government?

Mr. DUFOUR. Yes; I think that is as much a part of the construction as anything else, because it is a part of the works, and a large part of the works, and it is going to run up to $100,000,000—the cost of acquiring the rights of way and of acquiring the property, including damage involved in the acquisition of property in the rights of

way.

Šenator WILLIS. What about this other item that is exempted under the Jadwin report, "incidental drainage works"? Do you think that ought to be provided for by the Federal Government?

Mr. DUFOUR. I do not know whether I have a proper conception of what is "incidental drainage works." I would prefer that one of our engineers who will go on the stand should answer that question, because when you talk of works being "incidental" I do not know what it means. If it means incidental to the work in order to protect the work, that is one thing. If it means giving some people drainage that they never had before, that is another thing. As I do not know just what that means, I would not like to answer your question, be

cause I can not answer it. But I assure you that we will have people on the stand who will be able to give you the information and answer that question. I hope, Senator, you realize that I am not trying to dodge the question, but I do not know what it means. I do not know whether it is a ditch or what it is. I am speaking of those great elements of value that enter into the construction work, the rights of way and the value of property damaged, all construction elements. These items alone may run over $100,000,000.

In the first place, how would you apportion them, because in the last analysis we have to be practical? We are dealing with a Central Government and we are dealing with autonomous States.

These States have constitutions that are not so easily amended. The flood ways in Louisiana protect Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, the rights of way are in the State of Louisiana. How are we going to apportion that cost? Let us assume that some engineer would say and these figures are illustrative and not at all intended as being accurate that the flood ways in Louisiana would cost $75,000,000 to construct and $50,000,000 would be the cost to acquire the rights of way. Certainly Louisiana should not be asked to furnish the rights of way for flood ways to protect Mississippi and Arkansas, when they get protection and have no rights of way to contribute for this purpose. We are furnishing the means of protecting the other two States through flood ways in our State. First, you have the difficulty of apportionment, from an engineering standpoint; secondly, you have the difficulty of getting the State of Mississippi or the State of Arkansas to pay for works in the State of Louisiana. They are certainly wanting now in the constitutional power to do so. I can well see the viewpoint of you gentlemen: What is the constitution among friends? "Go down there and change the constitution if that is all you have to worry about." But, gentlemen, changing the constitution is not so easy; and that brings me to one of the questions which the chairman propounded. There is a great deal of territory in these States that is not affected by flood. People are selfish-we might as well recognize that.

The man 100 feet from the Texas border in Louisiana says, "This is a national problem and ought to be paid for by the National Government. It is either a national problem or a local problem. If it is a national problem, the National Government ought to pay for it. If it is a local problem, then let the people directly involved pay for it." This man says, “Do not tax me or do not make me pay for it." You say to him, "Your State is getting an advantage in increased taxation that is going to ultimately result from this work." I must acknowledge to you gentlemen that in the course of time there is bound to be improvement in the value of property in the flooded district if protection is afforded, but I can assure you the improvement is not going to be spontaneous or immediate. "It will come only in the course of years. These people have all suffered, and their lands have been devastated. It is going to take them a long time to come back. Ten years from now, after these works will have been completed and assurance of safety had, I take it there will be an increment in the value of these lands. I take it that the State will thereby get some additional taxation, but to use that as an immediate argument to the people in unaffected areas in these States

(such areas constitute more than 50 per cent of each of the States) to say to them that they must tax themselves to pay for this will only elicit the reply, "Well, has not everybody said that this is a national problem? Then let the National Government pay for it; and, if it is not, then let the particular communities pay for it; they have been paying for it for 150 years, so let them continue to do it."

Senator WILLIS. It is not my argument, but I am trying to follow yours which is most interesting. If you have difficulty with people that are flooded, and in States that have immediate interest you say you can not have local contribution because of the way they feel, under your argument what are you going to do with the people who live east of the Appalachian Mountains or west of the Rocky Mountains?

Mr. DUFOUR. Because it is a national duty; because this devastation is set upon us by a word of the Federal Government; because a great many of the States, certainly a substantial number of them, have contributed to our catastrophe. They have contributed largely to our burden. I will not say contributed, but they have made our present burden. That is what gives it a national aspect, the fact that the Nation needs that valley and needs that river in order to promote commerce generally so that we may buy the products of Oregon and Massachusetts and New York and sell them raw material and foodstuffs, and perform those interdependent services that make for the prosperity of one great Union. You can not approach the problem in any other way. When you segregate a particular State, and say to its people outside of the affected areas, "You happen to be in the State of Louisiana and should pay," they are likely to say, "Yes; but that is an accident, and what do we get out of it? As citizens of the Nation we are willing to bear our part, but as mere citizens of Louisiana, whose interests are not doubly affected, it is not our burden any more than the burden of New York or Oregon? No. It is either the burden of the Nation or it is the burden of the local communities."

As a practical matter I do not know what argument we would offer to these people except to say, "You are a part of the State of Louisiana. Can you not help your fellow citizens in their distress?" And the answer will be, "And we are a part of the great Union of the United States, and it is its job, because it is its river. If it be a local matter, then go ahead and do what you have been doing for 100 years. ." And so adherence to the theory of local contribution means failure because, first, of the impracticability of any plan which does not permit its execution as a whole, and secondly, of the difficulty of apportionment from an engineering standpoint as well as the difficulty from apportionment among autonomous States with constitutional restrictions. And finally I come to the question of "capacity pay."

Mr. Chairman, this great Nation has been very indulgent in recent ears on the question of capacity to pay on the part of its allies during the war. The question now arises of the capacity to pay on the part of some of your afflicted fellow citizens. In this valley, like in all other places in the United States, we have worked toward better things; we have done what Senator Simmons observed yester

day, built schools and roads and made a lot of improvements. I know they were for our own service, but, in the end that which is for us is for the welfare of the Nation. Like things have been done by other communities, I confess, but the fact is that we have incurred heavy debt in trying to accomplish those better things, to give our people a better education, to make our place a better habitation.

That is particularly true in the city of New Orleans. In the last half century we have gone through a rather trying period. We were prostrated as a result of a great internecine strife. We began to get over that when we had difficulties of floods and yellow fever. We finally overcame the menace of yellow fever, and we have spent much money to overcome the difficulties of floods. The city of New Orleans has always paid for every cent of its levees, and we expect to continue to pay for every cent of our levee protection in the city of New Orleans. We have been compelled to construct extensive drainage works because of the topography of our land. We have had aggravated sewage problems due to that topography. We have had an aggravated paving problem due to that topography and soil conditions. We have overcome them all. We have had aggravated levee problems due to the increased volume of water that has been coming down upon us. In order to keep pace with the progress of the valley, we have tried to have the necessary river terminals with which to perform the functions of a seaport, and we have had to reconstruct those terminals time and time again because of the constant rise of the waters of the Mississippi River. We have in recent years rebuilt our wharves and docks, and we have a splendid system of wharves and docks to-day costing many, many millions of dollars, serving the commerce of the United States and the people of that great valley, without which such commerce could not exist. We have those great works to-day but, unless something is done to lower these flood waters, those works are going to have to be junked in turn, and if that day should come the prosperity of all of the people in the valley will be directly and materially affected. We are laboring under a heavy burden of debt.

I failed to mention one of the things that has contributed to that burden of debt, and that is the last flood fight. We spent over $2,000,000 dollars in emergency measures around New Orleans, and to insure protection of our city, with the permission of the Federal Government, we cut the levee at Caernarvon and created spillway to the Gulf. We are subject to damages of $5,000,000, which we pledged ourselves to pay because of that willful act inflicting damage on our neighbors for our benefit. We have that to pay. We have reached in New Orleans what is practically our debt limit. I would not stand here and tell you gentlemen that you can not get something out of us. I do not pretend that we are paupers. I am not giving you a hard-luck story, but I do say that as a practical matter, we have reached the limit of our debt, and we can not make any substantial contribution. That applies to the prosperous city of New Orleans, as the chairman termed it. As to the rural communities along the river, some may pay a little something, but I do not think it would be worth while to consider that. Most of them are absolutely bankrupt. I do not know whether they will pay the interest on their levee bonds. They have not been able to pay their taxes.

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Senator SIMMONS. Are not some of those lands burdened with assessment levies?

Mr. DUFOUR. My dear sir, we are going to pay levee taxes for the next 40 years, in order to pay for the works which we have already constructed. They are already burdened with a heavy load of levee bonds.

Senator SIMMONS. Would those lands in that flooded district be of much commercial value unless there is a guaranty of added protection against floods?

Mr. DUFOUR. They would not. Those lands have gone down considerably in value. I do not want to present to you gentlemen another hard-luck story, but we have been unfortunate in our sugar crop in the last five years, which fact has further depressed the value of certain lands.

Senator SIMMONS. To stabilize the value of those lands and bring them up to what we could call normal, is it not necessary that this Government flood-control project shall be of such permanent character as to give confidence to men who want to invest their money in that district?

Mr. DUFOUR. If we do not do that, it is all going to waste. I mean by that that those lands are not going to be worth anything. Those lands have gone down in value in the last 20 years.

Senator SIMMONS. Do you think those people are able to pay 20 per cent of what will be necessary in order to establish those works, these flood-control works, to that stage of permanency that will give confidence to the people who live within this flooded area?

Mr. DUFOUR. If you mean 20 per cent of the construction and the rights of way, I say no. If you talk of 20 per cent of some lesser figure, we must see what the figure is before we answer. I say that they can not make any substantial contribution.

Senator SIMMONS. I am only speaking about a figure that would be sufficient to make those flood-control works of that strong, permanent, and enduring character that would give confidence to one who wanted to purchase lands within those flooded areas.

Mr. DUFOUR. I say we can not do it. I say that some of those communities in that area, with their load of levee bonds under which they have been struggling for years, have debts which they will have to pay in the generations to come for works that have to a certain extent been wiped out. They also have their school bonds, road bonds, and other bonds. They have reached a point where they can not sell more bonds. No investor will buy them. They may have all the good will they please, but in the investment marts their bonds will be worth nothing. I was specially addressing myself to Senator Jones, because he spoke of the prosperous city of New Orleans. I do not want to be here under any false pretense. I do not claim that we are impoverished down in New Orleans, but I am just trying to give you the facts; that we owe about $80,000,000, including our port obligations, and we have just about reached the limit of our debt and can not make any substantial contribution. I do not say that you could not get something out of the city of New Orleans, because that would be a ridiculous statement to make; but I say that you can not get anything substantial out of the city of New Orleans, that you can not get anything out of practically all of the other com