These people, Mr. Chairman, as you know, are good bond buyers, the Pan American Life Insurance Co. They are in the same class with a good many other insurance companies and investment banking houses. They are buying these bonds. If these people are thinking already about getting out of the bonds that they have in that floodway, I think that we can look for all the balance of them to do it. And, Mr. Chairman, if you couple all these things together and you think about it from the human standpoint and the viewpoint of a man that lives there on that land, I think you are bound to be sympathetic with them.

We know this is a great plan. We know that it is a project to save a great area. But we just do not want to be the people that will have the water running over us. We are objecting to it. We are opposed to it, and we are going to continue to be opposed to it.

We are going to do everything in our power, Mr. Chairman, to keep it from coming down there. I am not making that as a threat or anything of that kind, but I think we just ought to state the situation in the minds of the people that live in that community.

If I were going to be in favor of the floodway by any chance, which I do not think I ever would, I would think that this one and one-half times the assessment certainly does not represent a value that should be paid to these people in that floodway, because I think in measuring the value of the land or the damage to the land, or however you want to put it, it should be looked at from the viewpoint that the land in the floodway will, immediately upon the passage of an act of this kind, begin to disintegrate in value. I believe that if the flood levees are ever built down through that country, with the big drainage canal on the outside of them, and levees on the west, with people gradually moving out, when you bring anybody in there and try to sell them any property and try to interest them in the community, you are going to be confronted immediately with this thing: "What in the world is all this?" You have to tell them that it is a floodway. "Well, what is it put there for? "It is put there to run water out of the Mississippi River." "When is that going to come?" "Well, my friend, I do not know. It might come next year, it might come 5 years from now, it might come 25 years from now."

You know it is hard enough to sell anything to anybody now, and it is natural for anybody that comes into a country to buy to be afraid of a thing of that kind, and they are not going to come. We have a good development started. We had almost for some 5 or 6 years an influx of people into that area. And they are good people, as I have stated. They own their own homes, they bought their own land, they cleared it, and they are happy and they are contented and they want to stay there. We do not want to run the people out. We have some big farms, Mr. Chairman, up there in the middle part of the parish and up in the larger area. We want those people to stay there. We want them to cultivate their property and to live there and be good neighbors and good citizens, just as they have been in the past.

We want to ask you, gentlemen of the committee, to please bear in mind the human element and the local conditions that exist in those communities.

I want to say that the same situation exists in probably as much measure in the parishes of Madison and Tensas as it does in ours. Of course, they are not affected by this. This floodway would not take off a large part of all the area of their parishes as it does with

ours.

I might just digress a little from the Mississippi River levee down here this is the Arkansas line to the high lands in West Carroll Parish. It is less than four miles, that is, only four miles that that water can come from out of that floodway right down through here. To my mind it is a very foolish statement to say that if you turn water for 62 miles through this fuseplug levee and run it through a little gap of 4 miles between the hills of the Mississippi River in East Carroll Parish, it would not destroy everything in its way for miles and miles. That is the way I feel about it, and I believe I am

correct.

We

We have no quarrel with anybody else. We want everybody to be satisfied. We want to see the Atchafalaya floodway built, because we do not think there is any local opposition to it. We believe those people want it. And it is perfectly satisfactory to us. are for it. We are for all these other things. We would like to see reservoirs built. We have been hearing about reservoirs for a long time, and we think that they are going to help. We do know that the cut-offs in the Mississippi River, not only from a statement that General Ferguson has made, but from talking with other men, some of our own engineers who know things have helped the river a whole lot and are going to continue to help it.

Just the week before last I made a trip from Arkansas City to Vicksburg with Major Oliver and some of his party on one of the boats. We came through all the floodways. Those floodways, with the exception of one that is not finished, the upper one, are functioning perfectly. The spoil bank on all of them has already caved off, and the water is going through some of those cut-offs so fast that I am told that some of the barge line boats cannot navigate it on account of the swiftness of the current.

We believe with all of these things we are going to get some relief. We do not want to be left up there with that fuseplug levee, 62 miles of levee. Simply from a personal knowledge of it, it is not what it ought to be. We want to be protected, and we think we have the same right to protection that anybody else has. We want to appeal to your committee to leave the Eudora Floodway out of this project, and to build up those fuseplug levees. We are willing, Mr. Chairman, to take the same chances that we have been taking in the past.

The CHAIRMAN. In this report of the engineers they say directly that there is no work on this floodway going to be undertaken by the Government unless they have the cooperation of the local interests and the people. You are sure that can never be obtained?

Mr. HAMLEY. I am so encouraged by that report—I have read it time and again to be sure I did not make any mistake-that I do not think it will be built, if that is the reason why it is not going to be built.

The CHAIRMAN. They have their views just as we have ours.

Mr. HAMLEY. I want to say this: We appreciate that. We know that they are trying to do something. But we just do not want them to do it to us.

The CHAIRMAN. I know, but I say they have their views, but they are based upon recognizing your rights and your privileges, and they say that this will not be undertaken unless they have the cooperation of the local interests, and you are sure that that cannot be obtained?

Mr. HAMLEY. Mr. Chairman, I know it; not where I live. The CHAIRMAN. Suppose we should work out and adopt this kind of a program, would it have your support:

First. Definitely abandon the Boeuf Floodway.

Second. Build the fuseplug levee at Arkansas City to 1928 grade and section.

Third. Eliminate the proposed Eudora Floodway.

Fourth. Continue the channel enlargement to lower flood heights. Fifth. Approve project from Old River south through the Atchafalaya to the Gulf of Mexico, with modifications.

Sixth. Approve St. Francis and Yazoo Basin projects.

Seventh. To extend the reservoir work to the White and Arkansas Rivers.

Mr. HAMLEY. Yes, sir; that is fine, Mr. Chairman. I think that is all right.

The CHAIRMAN. That program is satisfactory?

Mr. HAMLEY. That would suit me fine. They need help up in Arkansas. We have some interests up in Craighead County near Lake City-these gentlemen in Arkansas know where that is. They sure do need some help up there. We are pulling hard for them to get out of the water, because they are wet and we are dry.

Mr. WHITTINGTON. I think you made a very helpful statement. You are opposed to the Eudora Floodway?

Mr. HAMLEY. Yes, sir. We do not want the Eudora Floodway. Mr. WHITTINGTON. That is what I understand. You would just as soon the whole bill would not be passed, so far as you are concerned, if they are going to have the Eudora Floodway in it?

Mr. HAMLEY. I would rather not have the whole bill.

Mr. WHITTINGTON. I say, if we are going to have the Eudora floodway in there, even if you put the St. Francis and the Yazoo and the Atchafalaya in, you would still be opposed to the bill, wouldn't you?

Mr. HAMLEY. I would have to be; yes.

Mr. WHITTINGTON. That is what I say, you are opposed to the bill. Mr. HAMLEY. Yes.

Mr. WHITTINGTON. If that guide levee had been built up there under the act of 1928, and your fuseplug had been constructed to the guide levee, your area would have been protected, would it not? Mr. HAMLEY. Yes.

Mr. WHITTINGTON. You live at Lake Providence?

Mr. HAMLEY. Yes, sir.

Mr. WHITTINGTON. You are opposed to this bill as it stands, you say, but if it should happen to be enacted or reported, you favor especially this excess profits income-tax elimination?

Mr. HAMLEY. Oh, if it just had to come, sure. I would hate to have to pay income taxes. I would hate to see anybody else have to pay it, because we all object to paying taxes.

Mr. WHITTINGTON. Even in Louisiana?

The CHAIRMAN. An assessor finds that out, doesn't he?

Mr. WHITTINGTON. You understand the main plank in the "sharethe-wealth" program is to raise the excess-profits taxes? Mr. HAMLEY. Yes.

Mr. WHITTINGTON. You want that excepted from that plank in the platform, down there in the Eudora floodway in Louisiana, don't you?

Mr. HAMLEY. Yes, sir.

Mr. WHITTINGTON. All right; I agree with you.

Mr. HAMLEY. Even with the "share the wealth."

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Hamley.

We will adjourn until 2:30.

(Whereupon at 1:10 p. m., the committee adjourned until 2:30 p. m. of the same day, Friday, Mar. 12, 1935.)

AFTERNOON SESSION

STATEMENT OF F. H. SCHNEIDER, OF LAKE PROVIDENCE, LA.

Mr. SCHNEIDER. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee: The two witnesses ahead of me discussed the economics of our district. I want to depart a little bit and talk about the set-back levees, and so forth, what we have stood for.

General Markham states in his report, "Because of local opposition the construction of the Boeuf floodway levees has not been undertaken." The next report we want the general to make is, "Because of local opposition the construction of the Eudora floodway has been abandoned." If local opposition prevents the building of the Boeuf floodway, local opposition will also prevent the building of the Eudora floodway.

The fifth Louisiana levee district does not want the floodway, and the property owners in the proposed floodway are opposed to and propose to fight it to the bitter end.

We have meekly submitted to the conditions imposed upon us by the Flood Control Act of 1928. Our lands have been taken in carrying out the plan, without compensation to the owners; we have stood for this for the reason an old Spanish law handed down to us says alluvial lands adjacent to the Mississippi River owe a servitude for levee construction purposes without due process of law and without compensation to the owners of the land.

Now we have stood for being slapped in the face by this law which deprives us of our constitutional rights as American citizens, but we are not going to stand for being kicked in the seat of our breeches by the floodway without a strenuous fight. We propose to fight for the restoration of our rights as American citizens. As it is now, we are not American citizens as far as our property is concerned. We are governed by an old Spanish law which supersedes and takes away from us our rights under the Constitution of the United States. In fact, we are not American citizens, we are Spanish-American citizens. We are American citizens when it comes to conscripting

our boys for war, when it comes to paying income and other taxes to the Government, and if we violate any laws of the United States they will put us in Sing Sing or up in an island in the Mississippi just as quickly as if we were American citizens. But when they come down and take our property away from us we are not American citizens, we are Spanish-American citizens, and not entitled to our rights under the Constitution of the United States.

The Constitution says that private property cannot be taken for the public good without due process of law and just compensation. We are denied these rights. Louisiana is the only State in the Union, all of whose citizens are not protected by the Constitution of the United States when their property rights are at stake.

I would just like to illustrate that a little bit to you, to show that we have stood for so much and refuse now to be the goat in this transaction.

At Wilson Point they developed the plan of this district, this levee here. The levee runs around this point. But in developing the project they found out it would take a million and a half dollars to go around the point. It took them a half a million dollars to go acrcoss the point. But in going across the point they threw out 12,000 acres of land. They built this levee across the point, and the people in that area there were forced to contribute those 12,000 acres to the public without compensation.

Down in Tensas Parish, what we call the "Bayou Vidal-Elk Ridge levee ", to build this levee along the front would have cost 2 million dollars. But in building this levee they would have had to build 8 miles of levee, which would have cost 211⁄2 million dollars. But they can go back for 2 miles and build a levee around and throw out 25,000 acres of land for $1,300,000. In the construction of that levee they saved $3,200,000, but they required the property owners there to contribute 20,000 acres of land, which they could have bought for $750,000. It saves $3,200,000. A fourth of that would be paid for the land they took away from us without compensation. In that area there are four plantations, representing the life savings of those people. Their old age and the education of their children depends upon the income from this property. Now it is taken away without compensation and they are required to contribute that much to the public good without compensation. The Constitution says you cannot take private property for public good without due process of law and just compensation. In the entire district so far there have been close to 70,000 acres taken just that way by set-back levees, and the people have not been paid for it. That is the reason why I say those of us who live in the alluvial lands of the Mississippi River adjacent to the Mississippi River are Spanish-American citizens.

I call your attention to the above conditions to show you how meekly we have submitted in the past to the mandates of the present law. There is a bill before this committee rectifying this, and I hope you gentlemen report it out favorably, because we have been so good now and have so meekly accepted the plan, gone in and contributed our property without compensation. They are asking us now on account of opposition in the Boeuf to submit meekly to have this floodway put down on us. On account of local opposition in our district, we refuse to submit. If this floodway is forced on us, we propose to fight it to the bitter end.