General TYLER. Somewhat similar.

Mr. ALLEN. That is all.

The CHAIRMAN. We are glad to have had your statement, General Tyler. If you have an additional statement that you would like to insert in the record, you may do so.

Mayor Chandler, you may proceed.

STATEMENT OF HON. WALTER CHANDLER, MAYOR OF

MEMPHIS, TENN.

Mayor CHANDLER. In a message to Congress on January 24, 1935, transmitting a report of the Mississippi Valley Commission, the late President Franklin D. Roosevelt said in part:

We think of our land and water and human resources not as static and sterile possessions but as life-giving assets to be directed by wise provision for future days. We seek to use our natural resources not as a thing apart but as something that is interwoven with industry, labor, finance, taxation, agriculture, homes, recreation, good citizenship. The results of this interweaving will have greater influence on the future American standards of living than all the rest of our economics put together.

The Mississippi River is a natural resource of untold value to the American people as an artery of commerce and an adjunct of industry, and the more we use this navigable stream, the higher will be the value of this great river.

No more convincing proof of this fact could be presented than the record of service performed by the river during World War II. Ships so urgently needed for the all-world war were built on the Great Lakes and in other inland ports, including Memphis, and were floated and towed down the Mississippi to the Gulf. Submarines, destroyers, escorts, tankers, invasion craft, drydocks, cargo vessels, and other war craft passed Memphis in numbers exceeding 2,000 on their way to join our fighting forces in all parts of the world.

Gasoline, oil, coal, ore, steel, sulphur, grain, and other materials essential to the prosecution of the war were carried in vast tonnages on the Mississippi River, up- and downstream. The river thereby helped to utilize the manpower, plants, and facilities in the Mississippi Valley, and also assisted in meeting the unprecedented demands on all forms of transportation.

Indeed, the accomplishments of the United States Corps of Engineers, under the direction of Congress, in stabilizing the banks, developing and protecting harbors, and in maintaining and improving navigation on the Mississippi River, were fully realized in World War II, and more than justified the expenditure of public funds for those purposes.

As is well and favorably known, Congress, over the years, has made appropriations aggregating billions of dollars for the deepening, maintenance, and improvement of harbors and channels for our great cities on the seacoast and on the Great Lakes, and these expenditures have added to the commerce, the productivity, and income of the Nation and its people.

In the lower Mississippi Valley, within a radius of 200 miles of Memphis, live approximately 3,000,000 people, about half of whom are protected by the levees built along the river and its tributaries.

87116--46- -37

These people depend in substantial part on Memphis and the Mississippi River. The fact that "the run-off from 41 percent of the area of the United States must find its way to the sea down the alluvial valley of the Mississippi" has created a Nation-wide responsibility for the welfare of the people of the States touched by the Mississippi and tributary rivers. Memphis has been the haven and refuge for sufferers from the flood waters that have overrun thousands of square miles of land and destroyed millions of dollars worth of property and hundreds of lives. Even after Congress recognized the national obligation to protect the Mississippi Valley from the ravages of overflows, and passed the Flood Control Act of 1928 following the biggest flood in the country's history in 1927, Memphis responded to another call and cared for more than 50,000 refugees in the flood of 1937.

Since 1928, protective acts have been passed for other sections of the country, and Congress has reaffirmed the importance of further public works on rivers and harbors by passage of Public Law 534, Seventy-eighth Congress, which was approved on December 22, 1944. This statute, which authorizes the appropriation of $200,000,000 for improvement of the lower Mississippi River, was passed in the light of a project study made by the Mississippi River Commission pursuant to resolutions adopted in 1943 by the House Committee on Flood Control and by Senate Committee on Commerce. That study is contained in House Document 509 and was adopted as part of Public Law 534,

supra.

Now that the Committee on Commerce of the United States Senate has requested the Chief of Engineers to review the provisions of the project for the improvement of the Mississippi River with a view to determining whether any changes are now advisable in the adopted project in order to provide a safe and adequate harbor development in the vicinity of Memphis, and the Chief of Engineers has submitted a comprehensive report pursuant to that request, the city of Memphis, Shelby County, and the Memphis Harbor Commission respectfully ask the favorable consideration and action of this committee on Flood Control on the project approved in said report.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you for your statement, Mayor Chandler. Are there any other representatives, Mr. Davis, you desire to appear for the record at this time?

Mr. DAVIS. I would like the record to show the presence of the city engineer of Memphis, W. B. Fowler, and Mr. Frank Pidgeon, representing the Memphis Chamber of Commerce, and Mr. Jack Carley, the associate editor of the Memphis Commercial Appeal, a very large paper which covers the mid-South and which represents really the feeling of a great number of States and a great area in the lower Mississippi Valley. I want to express the appreciation of all of us to you, Mr. Chairman, for your generous accommodation in this matter, and your thoughtful and helpful assistance. If any man in the country knows rivers and flood conditions, it is you, and I want the record to show that Memphis and all the mid-South appreciate your long and distinguished service.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee knows of these men's efforts through the years, and more particularly through the past few years on behalf of this project. If any of you wish to make a statement, you may

do so.

STATEMENT OF JACK CARLEY, ASSOCIATE EDITOR OF THE MEMPHIS COMMERCIAL APPEAL, MEMPHIS, TENN.

Mr. CARLEY. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, the Memphis Harbor project, now before this committee for consideration, has been so fully and ably presented by Maj. Gen. Robert Crawford, president of the Mississippi River Commission, and by his predecessor, Maj. Gen. Max C. Tyler, that there is little for me to add.

The project has been approved by the Mississippi River Commission and by the Chief of Engineers. It would be presumptious for me to remind the committee that when the Corps of Engineers stamps a project its approval that project has been given a hallmark which has no equal.

It would be equally presumptious for me to attempt to "sell" this particular congressional committee on any one flood control project such as this Memphis Harbor plan. Your chairman is recognized as an expert on flood-control matters. He knows the histories of the world's rivers and their flooding proclivities and the methods used to control them.

This committee, individually and collectively, has been dealing with flood control problems for a long, long time and doing it intelligently and with the best interests of the Nation always the primary consideration on which decision is based. It knows of its own judgment when a project is good or bad. It is fully conscious of Corps of Engineer integrity.

I feel that I speak for the people of the entire alluvial valley in expressing their everlasting gratitude to the Corps of Engineers and to this Flood Control Committee for the great work both have done in behalf of their physical and economic security. I think that applies to the entire midcontinent area.

The future of the Mississippi Valley is in the hands of the Congress and the Army engineers. It can be an almost limitless future and this Memphis project is designed with that in mind. It is not a purely local project as both General Tyler and Mayor Chandler have emphasized.

We are interested in the whole Mississippi Valley. The floods of the Mississippi River are not local and no project related to its control or to its stabilization or its navigation facilities can be purely local. When control strength is added at one Mississippi point the integrity of the entre control system is improved.

Aside from economic and physical safety factors there is, to my mind, the all-important factor of national security involved in this particular project. The Mississippi River always has been, always will be, a main artery for the defense of this country. More than ever before was that proved during the last war when the river carried the implements and supplies of war from inland centers to the seas over which they then were moved to the theaters.

The location of vitally important installations and war industries in the Mississippi Valley-beyond the coastal mountain ranges-during the recently ended wars is further support for my security point. Permanent peace is still an illusion. The Nation must be kept strong. A chain of harbors from New Orleans north seems to me to be as essential as any security element and certainly as important as military highways. This is certainty, that even after traces of exist

ing highways have disappeared, the Mississippi River will still be pouring through the valley. Even uncontrolled it would be a prodigious national security asset. Controlled and utilized practically, it becomes a far greater asset.

The people of Memphis are quite content to leave the decision on their harbor project with this committee and the Congress. I am not one of those in my profession who thinks that the Congress does not work. It works hard. Certainly this Flood Control Committee has worked long and hard in behalf of the people's safety and betterment and we are grateful.

It is especially pleasing to those of us from Memphis that our distinguished neighbor from Louisiana, Senator Overton, is present as this matter is being presented. Like your chairman, Mr. Whittington, Senator Overton is expert on flood-control matters and rivers and harbors. He works hard and well for the people, not only of his State, but for the whole valley, and to him, too, are we grateful. The valley of the Mississippi prospers and develops because of the unselfish work men like Senator Overton, Chairman Whittington, and the Congress are doing for it.

I wish to add my personal thanks for your patience and courtesy in hearing me.

STATEMENT OF FRANK PIDGEON, CHAIRMAN, SPECIAL HARBOR

COMMITTEE, MEMPHIS CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

Mr. PIDGEON. Mr. Chairman and members of the Flood Control Committee, I am appearing on behalf of a large group of citizens of Memphis who are keenly interested in the development of the lower Mississippi River, not only as a means of harbor development, but as a means of stabilizing the channel of the river, lowering the flood heights, and promoting river commerce which is so essential to the entire Nation.

This project is of the greatest importance to millions of people in the lower valley and the report filed by the Mississippi River Commission is so comprehensive and complete that I do not wish to take the time of this committee to go further than to express the interest above stated.

We, therefore, ask the favorable consideration of this committee of the Mississippi River Commission's report and request the aid of the committee in obtaining favorable congressional action.

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM B. FOWLER, CITY ENGINEER OF

MEMPHIS, TENN.

Mr. FOWLER. My name is William B. Fowler. I am city engineer of Memphis and have held that position for 28 years. My work has brought me in frequent contact with the Mississippi River and its flood, navigation, channel, levee, and harbor problems.

When the necessity for further harbor facilities at Memphis arose, I was given the responsibilty of preparing data, exhibits, maps, and the other material which was put together and presented at the public hearing held in the United States customhouse at Memphis on February 15, 1946. That material is referred to in paragraph 14 of the review report of the Mississippi River Commission.

For a number of years, with the great increase of commerce on the Mississippi, particularly during the war years, it has become apparent that additional harbor and flood-control projects at and in the vicinity of Memphis would be necessary, and the Senate Committee on Commerce, in adopting the resolution calling for the review of the provisions for the improvement of the Mississippi River adopted by the act of May 15, 1928, for the purpose of ascertaining whether any changes in the adopted project should be made in order to provide a safe and adequate harbor development in the vicinity of Memphis, undoubtedly recognized that such a project requires prompt action by Congress.

The so-called Tennessee chute project has been given long and careful study. It is sound and workable. When carried out, it will stabilize the vascillating channel of the Mississippi River at Memphis by closing Tennessee chute which at many different times within the last hundred years was the main channel of the river. The project, without taking away Tennessee chute as part of the harbor in Memphis, will fix the present main channel as the permanent channel, increasing the flow of water through the permanent channel and thereby promoting navigation on the river, as well as accelerating the run-off and consequently reducing the flood heights on the river to that extent.

The project will reclaim from floods valuable land which overflows in high water, and will make safe for industrial development an extensive area in which no development has been possible because of the existing difficulties.

Within my own recollection, the Mississippi River has been looked upon by many as a liability to the Nation. Through the constructive efforts of the Mississippi River Commission and the Corps of Engineers of the United States Army, and through the far-sighted vision of Congress, the Mississippi River has become one of the Nation's greatest assets, not only in carrying off floodwaters, but in increasing navigation and commerce which add to the national income and prosperity. Furthermore, in building the levee system in the alluvial valley, Congress has reclaimed vast areas of rich and productive soil and has made it possible for millions of people to live and work in safety and comfort in those portions of the Mississippi Valley formerly inundated once or twice each year by devastating floods.

The project which your committee is now considering will further increase the value of the Mississippi River to all the people of the United States, and has within its scope almost every phase of the work of this Flood Control Committee insofar as the Mississippi River is concerned-flood control, navigation, bank protection, and harbor development.

There are millions of taxpayers who will approve the action of this committee and that of Congress in adopting this project so well presented by the Mississippi River Commission.

The CHAIRMAN. We are glad to have had your statement.
Any opponent of this project who desires to be heard?

Representative McKenzie appeared yesterday in behalf of the Bayou Lafourche project, and, Mr. McKenzie, if you desire to make a supplementary statement at this time, we will be delighted to have you do so.

I might say that the president of the Mississippi River Commission has already referred to the report and given us the facts and there is no occasion to repeat them.