Control and regulation of flow having been established, the surplus waters of the Sacramento Valley in the north will be taken to the south end of the San Joaquin Valley, where the water is sorely needed today, and where, if water is not produced in the near future. a great land area, consisting of some 450,000 acres, will, because an increasing scarcity of waters formerly plentiful, gradually retur to the conditions of the desert; that is, to conditions under which s will no longer be possible for man to profitably till the soil.

Now, I want to emphasize one thing about this project. It is to longer necessary to defend it in respect to its engineering feasibily because it has been investigated, time and time again, by enginee of the greatest ability, representing various public and private agen cies, and there has not been one of them who has rendered an ai verse report.

There has not been a single report rendered by a financial exper who is willing to say, over his signature, that the project is my financially feasible. All are in agreement, lavish in their praise.

The approval of this project by this committee, its early constru tion, is of untold importance insofar as the development of the Star of California is concerned.

Without it, the steady march of civilization in this great wester commonwealth will be halted; the further development of this Paci coastal State will fall into retrogression. It means that the tho sands upon thousands of Americans for whom we had hoped to pr vide homes, will have to seek homesteads elsewhere.

It is natural that you, if your consideration of our great proble is superficial, will jump to the conclusion that this is merely a Ca fornia development; that we are asking for something for ourselve alone. In this connection, let me point out that the estimates of the Bureau of the Census demonstrate convincingly that this great valle will, in but a short time provide homes for millions and millions of people who do not live there today. When we ask for governmenta assistance in the development of this valley we are asking not s much for the improvement of California for Californians alone, & for its development for the benefit of all of the people of the Unite States, for the tens of thousands of people, yes, the hundreds thousands of people from all over the Union that are coming California to establish their homes in its Great Central Valley.

So when the Government offers in this instance its helping har to California, it is in fact furthering a plan which will eventually provide homes not only for Californians, but for an untold numbe of people who are destined to come to California to settle upon the lands which this inspiring project will make available.

It is a great enterprise. Today, it contemplates merely the saving of land which is already in a high state of productivity. In the future, when the demands of that day require it, 10 or 15, 20 or years from now, the plan may be extended to include lands whi are unused today, but that is only remotely within the contempla tion of those who are appearing before you today. Since no ne lands are to be immediately brought into use the fears that have be expressed by some that increased agricultural production will b add to the embarrassing surpluses which already burden the Nation are quite unfounded. Even if new acres were to be brought int production, this result which is giving our people such concern, could not develop for the reason that very few of our California crops

re in competition with the products of other States which are sufering in value because of overproduction. The crops raised in the Great Central Valley are specialized crops in the production of which we have practically no competition from without our borders. We are producing crops which we sell to the entire world.

We would have to multiply many times over the acreage now levoted to our specialized crops produced as they are on irrigable ands before we will approach the production of a surplus in any one of them.

Certainly, if the construction of the Central Valley project would appreciably embarrass the agriculture situation in the Nation, the opposition of the Department of Agriculture would have been long ago manifested. On the contrary, the Honorable Henry A. Wallace, the Secretary of Agriculture, has frequently stated that neither he nor the Department over which he presides has any objection to the immediate development of the plan. In support of this contention I quote a paragraph from a letter I received from Mr. Wallace less than a week ago:

DEAR MR. GEARHART: A couple of years ago I indicated to persons interested in the Central Valley water project that I thought it unobjectionable and in general in line with the desirable policy of taking care of people already on irrigated lands. It is therefore our purpose not in any way to object to the project.

A careful reading of this pronouncement ought to dispel all doubts and fears that anyone may have heretofore entertained that the construction of this great project would adversely affect the general agricultural situation.

This is one of the greatest projects which has ever been devised by man for the improvement of conditions of mankind. When it is carried into fulfillment, it will indeed make the valley of the San Joaquin blossom as the rose, make of it all that man has dreamed of, man's paradise on earth.

Mr. JOHNSON. Will the gentleman yield to me for just a question? Mr. GEARHART. Yes; gladly.

Mr. JOHNSON. The gentleman has made a very convincing statement, but I want to ask him a similar question that I have the other members of his delegation: In the first place, there has been appropriated by this committee $6,900,000. There has also been allocated from the emergency relief funds $8,000,000. Does the gentleman know how much has been expended as to date of the moneys already appropriated and allocated?

Mr. GEARHART. The Presidential allocation that you have referred to has been cut to about $4,500,000, I think. I am told that of the moneys now available about $800,000 has been expended to date.

Mr. JOHNSON. We have before us the latest allocation, and if there is a mistake, I think the committee ought to have it. It shows an allocation of $8,000,000. If any of that has been recalled, I think the committee ought to have that information.

Mr. GEARHART. The sum originally set aside by the President was $20,000,000, but as a consequence of delays in the beginning of actual construction work this sum has been from time to time reduced because of the inability of the Bureau to expend the larger sum within the shortened time. So it was cut first from $20,000,000 to $15,000,000, then from $15,000,000 to $8,100,000, and, finally, so I

am informed, from $8,100,000 to $4,500,000, the amount preser available.

Mr. JOHNSON. Then I assume $4,500,000 is incorrect. Now, tiother question is, How much of this money has actually been epended, if any?

Mr. GEARHART. Mr. Page can answer that question definitely,
Mr. PAGE. Less than $1,000,000.

Mr. JOHNSON. The actual construction has not been started!
Mr. PAGE. Except on some of the minor operations.
Mr. O'NEAL. How much has been obligated?

Mr. PAGE. Not over $1,000,000 so far. Some of the preliminar features are under contract, but the actual large disbursement w has not been contracted.

Mr. O'NEAL. There is just one question in my mind, and that Whether or not it is absolutely necessary to appropriate the entir $15,000,000 as recommended by the Budget; whether or not y could actually use the entire $15,000,000 within a year's time! wonder if the engineer will be able to tell me?

Mr. GEARHART. That is really an engineering question, one t should be addressed to one trained in that great profession. M Hyatt

Mr. HYATT. We feel that the $15,000,000, plus the unexpended haance from last year's fund, can be used in the prosecution of general program. In other words, by the awarding of the coutra on the Friant Dam, the balance of the conduit construction, the moval of the railroad and the highway from the Kennett Reserve and Canal system, the starting of canal systems from the Fri Dam, will require all of this money in actual cash, in payments the contractors before the end of the fiscal year 1938.

Mr. O'NEAL. Does the gentleman believe that this can be exper for the fiscal year of 1938?

Mr. HYATT. Yes; as I stated, I think, in actual cash, this amo will be required for payments to the contractors for the purchase water rights and rights-of-way, before the end of the fiscal year 19: Mr. O'NEAL. I believe that is all.

Mr. LEA. The next is Mr. Welch.

STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD J. WELCH, REPRESENTATIVE CONGRESS FROM CALIFORNIA

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Chairman, I will take advantage of your offer to revise and extend any remarks.

May I, at this time, express a few words and say that San Fr cisco is vitally interested in the matter that has been presented to subcommittee this afternoon?

San Francisco is one of the principal seaport cities of this country No city lives by itself. Cities depend upon their hinterland. Thes fertile valleys which have been described to you, partly consist San Francisco's back country, the conservation of which is imports and vital to the City of San Francisco.

The Central Valley project is not a reclamation scheme; it is a conservation matter entirely.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I stated, I will be glad to exte my remarks in the record.

Mr. SCRUGHAM. We thank you, Mr. Welch.

Mr. Buck. Mr. Chairman, Representative Lea has been called from the hearing and asked me to introduce the remaining speakers or members of our California delegation.

Before doing so, I wish to make this statement: That Representatives Colden, Ford, Kramer, and Costello were here earlier in the afternoon and have been obliged to attend to other matters and have asked me to express their interest in that project as being in support of it.

Representative Tolan is next.

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN H. TOLAN, REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM CALIFORNIA

Mr. TOLAN. Mr. Chairman, I do not want to transgress on the kindness and patience of this subcommittee. I feel very grateful to you.

These projects are of immediate concern to my district.

I simply want to endorse what has been said by the speakers here today in favor of this appropriation of $15,000,000.

Mr. Chairman, there is not a State in the Union which has not a minimum of 5,000 former citizens now residing in California; 2.577,000 persons, or 57 percent of the population of our State is made up of citizens from other States.

Most of our agricultural products which are peculiar to our outstanding development, and upon which the fine reputation of our products depend, are shipped to other States. But we are daily becoming more dependent on our development to support the tremendous influx of people from other States.

I do not believe that there is a member of this committee who would seek to minimize the significance of agricultural development in the State of California to the rest of the Nation. But we cannot maintain the Nation-wide importance of our agricultural development without water, and without water our soil cannot support the new families being added to our agricultural industry every day. Drought and erosion in the central part of the country has caused citizens of other States to move from the arid lands of the Nation west, and principally to California. Above all, it is evident that they are not moving east. In my congressional district, which is just a sector of the San Francisco Bay area, it is estimated that we have a drift of 100 transients temporarily or permanently taking up residence every day.

It is a tragedy that the lowering of the water table in the San Joaquin Valley is causing this land to revert to an arid state and that the beautiful river bottom all along the lower Sacramento River is being converted into a condition far worse than that of a desert by the encroachment of salt water.

The influx of people into California has been principally from the agricultural areas and we have found many of these citizens most valuable to the development of our State. They are valuable because they understand agriculture, and we feel a heavy responsibility to provide them with land which can be irrigated and avoid a repitition of the conditions that have forced them to migrate. Without water our rich lands are useless. I state these facts to show

that the Central Valley Project will not only benefit the State of California, but the entire Nation.

I think that the Bureau of Reclamation of the Department of the Interior, and the program of the administration in developing oz national resources through irrigation, should receive the commen tion of the Nation.

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Last year we had a conference with President Roosevelt on the Central Valley water project and he showed the members of o delegation that he had a thorough understanding of the Centra Valley and had given it a great deal of personal study. He stated that he had investigated the merits of this project from a nationa standpoint and he deemed it one of the most necessary and usef projects in the United States.

STATEMENT OF HON. HARRY R. SHEPPARD, REPRESENTATIVE I

CONGRESS FROM CALIFORNIA

Mr. SHEPPARD. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of this committee. I am not fortunate enough to be living at the present time in the di tricts these gentlemen have been referring to, although I have ser some 12 years of my life in the San Joaquin Valley, and I was for tunate enough to have had a part in that serious situation that helpe to make water history in California, namely, the Herminghous riparian rights water case.

So I feel I have at least a reasonable knowledge of what the ge tlemen from the central and northern part of the State are ambitions to accomplish.

But in appearing at this time I want to say that I was on the other side of the mountain when this most outstanding and worthy proje was first under discussion, and I want to add my endorsement to it. I will not go into the technical angles here, because they have bee explained by the gentlemen who are a great deal more conversant with them than myself.

I want you to know that our part of California is behind it 10 percent. I thank you.

STATEMENT OF HON. FRANCK ROBERTS HAVENNER, REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM CALIFORNIA

Mr. HAVENNER. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the subcommittee. while San Francisco, in which my district lies, would not participa directly in the benefits of the project so far as the use of water concerned, as my colleague Mr. Welch has told you, the city is de pendent for a large part of its commerce and for, I think, the greater part of its food supply upon the products of these two centra. valleys.

The gradual drying up of a large part of this productive area is a serious problem to San Francisco, and the people of San Francisc indicated their very great interest in the project when there was a state-wide referendum vote taken by voting very strongly in favor of the project. I thank you.

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