Mr. FERGUSON. I think there would be quite a number that could be selected without opposition, without forcing a reservoir site on some other community.

Mr. MARTIN. Yes, sir.

Mr. FERGUSON. You recommend the prosecution of the work in the Atchafalaya Basin as recommended?

Mr. MARTIN. Yes, sir; and all the rest of the projects.

The CHAIRMAN. The St. Francis?

Mr. MARTIN. Yes, sir; in the St. Francis and Yazoo Basins, in the Atchafalaya and at Morganza, and that all of this work be undertaken at once, or as soon as possible, and that the Eudora Floodway be left alone for the time being, pending further cut-offs in the river and the possible construction of a couple of reservoirs.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any further questions?

Mr. WHITTINGTON. I did not want to ask any other questions but I will have to.

The improvements in the Eudora Floodway are intended, as the district engineer and the Chief of Engineers and the president of the Mississippi River Commission have testified, to correlate with the improvements recommended in the Atchafalaya, are they not? Mr. MARTIN. Yes, sir.

Mr. WHITTINGTON. And, among other things, the improvements in the Atchafalaya Basin were recommended so as to accommodate the improvements recommended in the Eudora Floodway.

Mr. MARTIN. Yes, sir.

Mr. WHITTINGTON. So that it is really contemplated by this report that I am talking about-not your report-that both of those projects should be constructed.

Mr. MARTIN. Yes, sir; it is; but, you see, we have all changed our views about these things in the last few years; and the engineers themselves have changed their views some; and, although I am not an engineer, I do not know but what the fact that the waters went down the river without breaks in 1929, coupled with a study of the result of the cut-offs and other river improvements with respect to the present flood, the flood that has gone down the river since General Markham's report was prepared, will probably bring on a new angle to the whole situation. The little work that has been done in the cut-offs so far has brought about results which, according to the engineers, no one expected; and, in the light of this very recent study, it seems like it would be, perhaps, proper to wait a little while longer before deciding to construct the proposed destructive Eudora Floodway.

Mr. WHITTINGTON. That is all.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will meet at 10:30 tomorrow morning, and the first witnesses will be Generals Markham and Ferguson. General Markham has to leave for Texas.

Mr. FERGUSON. May I ask one more question, just to clarify this statement?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. FERGUSON. This bill that the committee is considering calls for the expenditure of $265,000,000 for a comprehensive plan of flood control on the Mississippi. They have the remaining sum of some $57,000,000, I think, of the original $325,000,000 in the 1928

appropriation. If the amount of money to be expended for flood control on the Mississippi was limited to this $265,000,000 appropriation, I take it that your recommendation would be the acceptance of the plan as submitted, with the Eudora floodway left out, and the same amount of money to be expended on the White River and the Arkansas River, or tributaries to the Mississippi River, for the construction of reservoirs?

Mr. MARTIN. No, sir.

Mr. FERGUSON. That would not be your recommendation?
Mr. MARTIN. No, sir.

No. Many things have happened in the recent past. For instance, New Orleans, being satisfied, is not here. In the past we have had a number of States, the Dakotas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, and other States which were not particularly interested in our flood-control problems. They were interested in drainage, reclamation, navigation, and other matters.

They overdrained their country. I do not blame them for doing this, but the result was to impound flood waters on the lower Mississippi Valley.

The fact that they have overdrained their land has resulted, as I have said, in great drought areas and mud-rains, and dust storms, so that today, unfortunately-and I am sorry for them-they cannot grow crops any more, because the soil moisture has gone too far down in the soil to allow the roots of the plants to reach the moisture. They can hardly find wells down there to supply water for themselves and their stock. There is only one way to save that area and to bring back its former prosperity, and that is to build reservoirs to restore the water in the swamps and the marshes that have been overdrained, and thus restore proper soil moisture and fertility. With this thought in mind, I expect that within the next few days we are going to have very large delegations from several States, asking for money to restore soil moisture and put a stop to dust storms, and so forth. Reservoirs is the answer to their problems as well as ours.

If they can get the reservoirs up there, it will help us, and will be of great benefit to them. Necessarily it will take more money than the amount contemplated in this bill, but we will have a lot of people helping us to get the little additional money needed to solve the whole problem in a manner becoming to this great Nation.

Mr. FERGUSON. We have got a limited amount of money. If $265,000,000 was to be expended and you were to eliminate the Eudora Floodway, would you recommend that the money that the Eudora Floodway would cost be expended on other projects? Mr. MARTIN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. I wish to state that our committee has been holdings hearings to establish feasible projects in practically every State in the Union for flood control; and we have requested $600,000,000 of emergency projects that would coordinate with the work.

While, of course, we realize that everyone knows that this 30,000 square miles down here that must carry the drainage of 41 percent of the Union is the most emergent project now; we have gone into this emergency work for smaller areas in every State in the Union. Mr. FERGUSON. Since the White River, in Arkansas, comes in at the head of the Eudora Floodway, and probably contributes a great

deal of water, you think the Eudora Floodway is necessary. If it is to be eliminated it seems that that amount of money should be expended on construction of reservoirs on that river.

Mr. MARTIN. Yes; that, and many more dollars.

Mr. MCCLELLAN. Mr. Martin, if I understand you correctly, you do recommend that, in the event that the Eudora Floodway is abandoned, then the fuseplug levee be built up to the 1928 section, so as to abandon the now existing Boeuf Floodway?

Mr. MARTIN. Yes.

Mr. MCCLELLAN. However, if the Eudora Floodway is to be constructed, if it is found to be imperatively necessary and it is decided that it is to be constructed, then, to that extent, along with the improvement on the Atchafalaya River and the Tensas, you and the people you represent, as was set forth in your opening statement, do endorse the engineering features of that plan?

Mr. MARTIN. Yes, sir; but we believe the floodway should be bought and the people moved out.

Mr. MCCLELLAN. But you do disagree with the economic recommendations made by General Markham, to the effect that the first paragraph of section 4 of the Flood Control Act be repealed and that that part of section 1

Mr. MARTIN (interposing). The first sentence in section 4.

Mr. MCCLELLAN. And then there is another provision, in section 2, that says no local contribution should be required.

Mr. MARTIN. The repeal clause should be stricken out of the Markham recommendation.

Mr. MCCLELLAN. Your people do not endorse that?

Mr. MARTIN. No. And for another reason: Flood control is in its infancy. Under this plan, General Markham recommends the payment of 12 times the assessed value in the Morganza Floodway, in the Eudora Floodway and in the Atchafalaya Floodway, down to about the latitude of Krotz Springs. He offers no payment for the rest of the territory in the Atchafalaya Basin below Krotz Springs. We do not know the future. It may be necessary after a while to construct other floodways.

I think the engineers at one time considered a floodway above New Orleans on the west bank of the river, near White Castle. That was considered for a time. They may decide to design and build more floodways. We have no way of knowing what they may want to do; and if they, in the future, decide to construct additional floodways, we expect them to pay for the flowage rights. But if they repeal the first sentence of section 4, payment for any future floodways is not going to be provided for under any law, except possibly section 5 of the Constitution. Because of the uncertainties, we do not think that section 4 of the act of May 15, 1928, should be repealed. The present law and method used in acquiring rights-ofway in Louisiana has proven perfectly satisfactory.

I went out personally and organized the people in the Atchafalaya Basin, with Mr. Jacobs. We held meetings all over the Basin and told the people we could save 4 or 5 or 7 years' time if we would allow our levee boards to acquire these rights-of-way, under the Louisiana laws, and turn them over to the Government; and they are fully in accord. We have the consent of the people in Louisiana to do these things. We have had no trouble in Louisiana and we are not going to have any if the law remains as it is at present.

However, when rights-of-way cannot be obtained by agreement, the Government should acquire same by condemnation, as was done in the Bonnet Carre and New Madrid floodways.

But, under this set-up, if they met one stumbling block, any place, according to General Markham's testimony, the whole program would be held up just as the Boeuf floodway of the Jadwin Plan has been held up for 6 years.

Mr. MCCLELLAN. Therefore, it is a protection to the execution of the project?

Mr. MARTIN. It is.

Mr. MCCLELLAN. And it is necessary in order to insure its execution?

Mr. MARTIN. Yes, sir.

Mr. MCCLELLAN. You made one statement when you read, which I did not quite catch, that I am interested in. I will quote:

In the meantime great emergencies, jeopardizing the lives and properties of the people, have resulted from the execution, in part, of the adopted floodcontrol plan.

Mr. MARTIN. What I mean

Mr. MCCLELLAN (interposing). You say "from the execution in part of the adopted flood-control plan." Do you mean the Jadwin Plan of 1928?

Mr. MARTIN. Yes.

Mr. MCCLELLAN. Now, what are those conditions that have resulted? What do you refer to in that statement?

Mr. MARTIN. I mean this: in carrying out the Jadwin Plan, the Engineers have practically completed all of the main-line levees on the Mississippi River and on the Arkansas River.

Now, in the past, when we had floods, the levees would break in a number of places on the Arkansas and usually on both sides of the Mississippi River, spreading the water over large areas. On Congressman Whittington's side, in the State of Mississippi, the water would scatter around, here and yonder and everywhere. Today we know that if we have a flood these main river levees are not going to break, so our competent engineers tell us, except in one place. In many sections of the United States the people use lightning rods. Maybe you have heard of lightning rods?

Mr. MCCLELLAN. I have had them.

Mr. MARTIN. They build a fine house, which they do not want destroyed, and so they put lightning rods on top of it, to protect it. Well, that is just what the Government has done in executing the Jadwin plan, and leaving the fuseplug levee not even up to the 1914 grade and section. It has been brought out here that some parts of that levee are so close to the edge of the river that you can stand on it and spit in the river. It is in very bad shape. In other words, the Government has constructed lightning rods for floods at the fuseplug section at the head of the Boeuf Basin to make sure that any future flood will go down the said basin and not damage any other section of the Mississippi Valley.

Mr. Zimmerman has asked a good many questions. I do not know what his object is. He wants information, I suppose, as to whether the Boeuf Basin has been damaged because of the fuseplugs. All right. I will answer that by illustrating the point in this manner.

If the Congressman would go just outside of Washington and buy a hundred acres of land, to develop a suburb, to sell lots to the people and to build homes and one thing and another; and then if the Government would come along and say: "We are going on a spree of generosity. A lot of the people are suffering from bubonic plague, diphtheria, leprosy, and other dreadful diseases, and so we are going to condemn 50 acres out of the Congressman's 100 acres; and we are going to bring all the lepers here and bring the cases of bubonic plague and diphtheria; and so, through our generosity, we are going to place them on this 50 acres here and we are going to take care of them." If that happened to the Congressman, he would not be asking whether the Boeuf Basin has been damaged by the flood "lightning rod", the fuseplug levees at the head of the basin. When we say that the Government has diminished the value of that property, practically ruined it, we do not mean that the engineers were not doing the best they could. I am not quarreling with them at all. But I believe that the thing to do is to do the work in the Atchafalaya Basin, to do the work in Arkansas, and to do the work on the Tensas, and to bring that fuseplug levee up; and then to continue the digging in the Mississippi River and straightening it out and increasing the flood-control works and reservoirs; and after that is done everybody will be protected and happy.

Mr. MCCLELLAN. But that damage does exist?

Mr. MARTIN. That damage does exist; there can be no question at all about that.

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. I would like to ask the gentleman about the bubonic plague. Did you hear the testimony given here in regard to the conditions on the St. Francis River in Arkansas?

Mr. MARTIN. Yes, sir. It was so much like the conditions in my own country that I was lonesome.

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. Do you think that if you lived in that part of Missouri or in Arkansas, where you had one or two floods every year on this property, and compared your lot with that of those fellows down at the fuse plug, where they have not had a flood in 7 years that would seem like heaven, would it not?

Mr. MARTIN. Yes, sir.

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. This is not quite as bad as it might be, as com-pared with what we have got in Arkansas and Missouri?

Mr. MARTIN. No, sir; you had floods there more frequently.
Mr. ZIMMERMAN. We get a flood damage every year.

Mr. MARTIN. And that flood damage also was brought about largely by the construction in part of the Jadwin plan.

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. No. That is purely the water that comes down from the Ozark Mountains and hills.

Mr. WHITTINGTON. Mr. Martin, if you would just leave the situation there north of the Atchafalaya Basin and you were to have another flood the size of the 1927 flood, everybody would be under water again, would they not?

Mr. MARTIN. Well, you would anyhow, Mr. Congressman, because it would be 6, and maybe 8, years before this work was constructed, even though we had that, and if we had a flood in that time we would go under. I really believe that within 6 years there will be a better solution of the problem than the one we are now considering..