time, gentlemen, because the ground has been well covered heretofore. I thank you for your kind attention.

Senator SIMMONS. Will you let me ask you a question, please? Mr. KING. Yes.

Senator SIMMONS. I think you gave the rate on lumber by rail from some point to some point?

Mr. KING. Yes.

Senator SIMMONS. What did you say it was?

Mr. KING. My recollection is that the San Francisco rate is about 80 cents and the New York rate is 36 cents per 100 pounds. Senator SIMMONS. That is how much a thousand-$32? Mr. KING. On oak lumber, $32 a thousand. Oak lumber, if it is thoroughly dry, will weigh 4 pounds to the foot, but somtimes, if it is not thoroughly dried, it will weigh 5 pounds, which makes it $40. Senator SIMMONS. I think after giving that you stated it could be carried through the canal for about $5?

Mr. KING. I think so. It will be moved more quickly. That is, with no tolls.

Senator SIMMONS. There would be a difference of about $22 a thousand?

Mr. KING. Yes.

Senator SIMMONS. Do you think with a differential between the water rate and the rail rate of $22 a thousand in favor of the water rate that 60 cents a ton tolls would cut much of a figure?

Mr. KING. It cuts 60 cents a ton figure. It will enable those poor men who want lumber to build their homes, or for the furniture that they want to furnish their homes, to get it in their house just that much more cheaply. We are now working for the American people and no one else, and that should be our aim.

Senator SIMMONS. After the canal is constructed, from what I understand from your testimony, even after paying the tolls of 60 cents, you could get your lumber carried for about $21.40 a thousand less than you would have to pay by rail?

Mr. KING. That is only an estimate. I am basing that on the rates to other places by water, knowing about what it costs to handle lumber by water. It might be a little more than that. That may not be a conservative estimate. But it is something around there. Senator SIMMONS. Somewhere around there?

Mr. KING. Yes.

Senator SIMMONS. That is what I understood you approximately? Mr. KING. Yes, approximately; and the time is not as enormous because the railroad transportation is the slowest transportation in the world. The old barge line, canal line, is faster. A lot of people do not know that and do not believe it. Except on special trainloads of perishable stuff which is sent through a given right of way-over all other trains, I say that a hand barge line is quicker.

Senator SIMMONS. And as a result of constructing the canal you will get freight rates on your lumber even after paying the toll of about $21.40 less than you are now paying by rail?

Mr. KING. Yes.

Senator SIMMONS. You will get that much benefit out of the canal? Mr. KING. I do not say that the manufacturer of the lumber is going to get all that benefit. The local dealer who is going to sell the consumer, the dealer in that country who is going to sell the manu

facturer and the consumer, is going to ask for a share of that for his people, owing to the fact that he knows the rates are cheaper. In other words, they will consume a great many more times than they do now. It has necessarily limited the amount now owing to the high freight rates prevailing.

Senator SIMMONS. You say the consumer will not get the benefit of that $21? Who will get it?

Mr. KING. I say the manufacturer will not. I say the original manufacturer of the lumber will not get it all, but the consumer will get a great deal of it, and the local dealer, and the manufacturer of the furniture, and the things that are made out of this lumber. They will all get a part of it. It will be divided up, and each American citizen who has anything to do with it will have better meals in his house and a more beautiful and happy home than he had before. And that is the end that we are working for to-day as American citizens, to try to make this part of the world better for its inhabitants.

STATEMENT OF MRS. SAKE MEEHAN, NEW ORLEANS, LA.

The CHAIRMAN. Mrs. Meehan, what would you like to tell us about this bill which is now pending before us?

Mrs. MEEHAN. I think it is very easily seen that we have not very much to add to what the gentlemen have said along a technical line, a line of information and a line of conditions affecting our port. In fact. Mrs. Wallis, who accompanies me in this delegation, and myself feel that our presence here perhaps is more significant than anything that we can say. We feel that we would like to give you the viewpoint of some of our women. Our being asked to accompany this delegation by the gentlemen who have always accorded us full recognition for the efforts which the women of New Orleans have always made for the progress and advancement of their civic and governmental affairs is very gratifying to us, It is a fact that the women of the South, Louisiana and New Orleans, have taken a very keen and active interest in all of these matters. We have been proud of the project of the canal, proud of its accomplishment. We believe that it means a great deal, as you all know that it does, to the development of our seaboard, our ports, and as New Orleans women, most of all to our own port.

As housekeepers we are more interested in the economic aspect, in the viewpoint of housekeeper, who is to-day to a great extent the purchasing agent for the home, we are vitally and directly interested in prices for foodstuffs and merchandise.

Patriotically, of course, we are interested in the building up of our shipping and our local merchandise, and so we have watched with a great deal of interest the development of the canal. I need not tell you that we were heartily in accord with the platform of the Democratic Party, and that we were delighted when the exemption of our coastwise shipping was made. We were dismayed at the time of the repeal of that exemption. We have asked why, and we have not had a satisfactory answer. If it is a matter of the interpretation of the clause of the treaty, an interpretation open to dispute among eminent men of authority, we ask why should we accept the interpretation of the least advantage to ourselves? Gentlemen, if it is a matter of

patriotism, and the honor of our country, do you not think the women hold that high? We were not able to see that that question was involved at all.

I believe it is true that no provision of a treaty can operate to prevent Congress enacting legislation on domestic and internal affairs. We have been accustomed to think of the canal as our own American waterway between American shores, at least the shores under American control, leased, if you like, in perpetuity, for we expeet, do we not, to hold and control and operate that canal in perpetuity? That is the way we have thought of it. That is a part of the matter in which we have taken pride. We have believed that the operation of our coastwise shipping, American ships under American flags in our own domestic trade, might operate through the canal and continue to be domestic shipping just as our old river packets which plied up and down our own rivers are domestic, and so we have considered that matter.

Of course, the matter of the tolls, speaking of the amount of money involved, may not seem so important, but women have intuition and logic, if you will believe me, and we are led to ask, for we have asked many questions about this, if we grant this concession which is asked of us, do we surrended anything of our right in the future? The thoughts of the mother are long thoughts. We are looking and thinking of our children and our children's children who are to come after. Gentlemen, whatever you do, do not recede from any position on the request or the demand of anybody which will in any way weaken the true American position, that the canal is ours, and that we shall own and control it. It is an American waterway, is it not, built by American money, brains, and energy, the only way in which it could ever have been built? And I ask you, if there is in this concession any weakening of our position of absolute control and ownership of our canal, do not take this action. Let it be our own American waterway, for the benefit of our own people, first and primarily, and not by any means infringing upon the benefit which it may do anyone else, but for our children forever.

STATEMENT OF MRS. W. W. WALLIS, NEW ORLEANS.

Mrs. WALLIS. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I think all of the points have been so well covered by our delegates, by the gentlemen who have spoken, that there is very little left for me to say. But I am glad to be present before you and add my word to theirs. We represent, I think, the thinking women of Louisiana, to whom this tax means so much. I am a member of several patriotic organizations, and I take my viewpoint from a patriotic standpoint. I think our patriotism forbids our allowing any foreign nation to dictate to us, and I know of no treaty that should interfere with our purely American domestic commerce. We claim the privilege of thought and action which was won for us in 1776 by the patriots who fought and died that we might enjoy this glorious heritage of freedom which has made our country the magnificent place it is to-day. It does not seem much that we are askingjust the free tolls for our coastwise vessels-and I can not see why any foreign nation should object, as it does not interfere with them, from our point of view. And so I ask you in the name of patriotism to allow free tolls for our coastwise vessels.

STATEMENT OF MR. F. F. MYLES, NEW ORLEANS, LA.

Mr. MYLES. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, the gentlemen who have preceded me have very well covered the ground as to the legal and the economic aspects of this question. I will only speak as it affects my line of business.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you stated what your business is?

Mr. MYLES. My business is mining salt. I am part owner of an immense deposit of rock salt in Louisiana, 3,500 acres of salt, about a mile thick. There is enough salt there to do the world for 10,000 years, and we are restricted in our output because of transportation. We can not do any business with the West now on account of the excessive freight rates. England, whom you desire to protect by the repeal of this bill, are great manufacturers of salt. In England they produce a great deal of the salt that comes to this country. Their methods of exporting this salt are this: It costs them as much to make 1,000 tons of salt to-day as it does 700 tons. They put on a few cents more, and turn out the 700 tons. The other 300 tons they unload in foreign ports. They ship it here, and probably do not get a dollar a ton out of it. The ships bring it in in ballast, and it probably costs them 5 cents a hundred or a dollar a ton to bring it here. It costs us about $1.75 a ton to produce and put on the cars, and it would probably cost them about $1.50 a ton. We do not wish to sell our salt for nothing. We have to pay our labor and ourselves. We are working for a profit, because we have to make something to keep up.

Under the Dingley bill salt was protected at $1.40 a ton. On the strength of that I invested about $500,000 in this salt mine. Salt under this administration is on the free list. That admits the English salt brought here in ballast at a very low rate or free, practically, and it is impossible to compete. Now, we are desirous of doing a western business. The larger the output is the cheaper per ton it is produced. If England has the same privilege of going through the canal that we would have, we would have no advantage. They will send their salt to be delivered in California as cheaply as we could from our location, and we would not be in any position to compete with them at all, and therefore we could not handle that business over there.

This is an industry that I think ought to be encouraged. Wo have invested this money in it under the belief that we would get protection and assistance, and it looks very blue for us to go up against tolls, with salt on the free list. And we ask the gentlemen of this committee, if they can do so, to consider all these facts, consider the home industries are entitled to their consideration, as well as the English products, and I do not think it would be asking too much to give us the benefit of the tolls for freight through the Panama Canal that will enable us to do business with the western part of our own country.

That is about the condition. I will not waste your time in telling you why you should do it, because I think you can all see it. I thank you, gentlemen, for your attention.

STATEMENT OF MR. JAMES W. PORCH—Continued.

Mr. PORCH. Mr. Chairman, I should like to add a few remarks to what I said this morning that was not covered. There were two matters which I would like to have corrected on the record.

The CHAIRMAN. You may refer to it, Mr. Porch.

Mr. PORCH. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, it has been stated this afternoon that I spoke of freights being three times more coastwise than across the ocean. I spoke of our commodity. I said that on steel products from Antwerp they are paying 9 cents per hundred pounds whereas the rate from New York to New Orleans is 27 cents. That is three times. What other commodities there are and the difference I am not posted upon, but I want it distinctly understood that I was speaking of that that I knew of. The other matter was with reference to free tolls across seas. What I said this morning was that from my point of view I would like to see free tolls, but I did not come with this delegation with the idea of urging free tolls for the across the seas business for the American flag. But that I said as time passed the wisdom of it would be apparent, and it might be. I do not differ from Mr. John Barrett on that. John Barrett took that stand, and there is not a better posted man, perhaps, extant than he, that free tolls would be beneficial throughout to the Panama Canal.

The point about it is that the 60 cents a ton, if we take it on the net of the ship, as provided for in the treaty, would mean that these ships will be charged on the full net of the ship, and therefore the people will never get the benefit of the 60 cents a ton unless it is on ships with full cargoes, and a full-cargo movement on the ships that are doing this business will be rare among the more valuable of precious cargoes. What we are endeavoring to build up, or hope to build up, on the Gulf is a regular dependable American-flag service to the west part of our country, and with that in view we started. back as long ago as 1888, and we have had convention after convention, and have passed resolution after resolution looking toward the use of this canal when it was finished. Senator Pasco called a convention in Tampa to consider ways and means of using the Panama Canal when it was finished, and a very large delegation from all over the South attended that convention, and when that convention was finished we held a reciprocal convention in New Orleans, and the same sentiment was reiterated. As time passed we got very anxious about the American-flag effort, and we went before our own State legislature. I personally took a bill and had it introduced, and we passed it, exempting this effort from taxation for a period of three years, and had it written into the constitution of our State. Time passed, the limitation expired, and we took the bill again and had it passed. And the second time it was written into the constitution of the State of Louisiana that this effort would be exempted not only from the taxation of the ships, but the money employed in cargo on their own account should they find it advisable to carry freight of their own.

Following this up, various things were said militating against this effort by the foreign flag steamship agents who said they would put on lines to frustrate any effort, and that we would be confined merely to coastwise business. We have an idea we would not only