to be spent to the account of Illinois and Michigan Canal directly, as I will illustrate, if you will permit me. When the drainage canal was being finished, it had to flow its waters through the city of Joliet. The old Illinois and Michigan Canal crossed the Des Plaines River at Joliet, and two dams were built, old-fashioned affairs, that had slack-water navigation as the canal crossed, and then proceeded on the west bank of the Des Plaines River. Those dams produced water power, which came from the water pumped by the city of Chicago; up to the year 1900 by the city of Chicago. In order to get the flow and go through the drainage canal to Joliet, they had to make a change in the nature of the river there. The sanitary district had first to widen it considerably, and then they had to make a modification in the plans. After long negotiation a plan was agreed upon between the sanitary district. and the canal commissioners, which left them everything they had, so far as navigation and existing water powers were concerned.

After that contract was agreed to and work was about to begin, and when the canal was almost ready for opening, the canal commissioners took the matter into the open court and claimed that they had made a contract ultra vires, which they had no right to make, and had it annulled. The matter should have been taken into the upper courts, as another contract had been taken: but it was about the time of the opening of the canal, and Chicago was filled with typhoid, and the trustees of the sanitary district did not think they were justified in delaying the opening of the canal a year or two. Then they submitted to the most awful piece of sandbagging that it has been my misfortune to hear of. Having built the canal for $50,000,000 to deliver a flow of 200,000 cubic feet per minute, they were compelled to build a water-power plant, a great dam, a tailrace, a retaining wall, and an underground tunnel, at a cost of $385,000, none of which work was even necessary for the fiction of navigation, and none of which was necessary for any other purpose than the creation of a water power.

Mr. STEVENS. Where?

Mr. McCORMICK. At Joliet--Dam No. 1. The sanitary district has never received one cent out of this. To show what a valuable waterpower plant they built at their own expense, I will only say that the State received

Mr. STEVENS. I beg your pardon right there, but that is really none of our business.

Mr. MCCORMICK. Very well. Now we come to the question of how much was spent which was not for navigation. The fact is that $385,000 was spent by the sanitary district for purposes other than navigation, for the benefit of the canal commissioners. That, I think, is evident. About the time the canal was to be opened another objection was raised. It was alleged that the opening of the drainage canal would lower the level of the Illinois and Michigan Canal and would interfere with such navigation as it had. The governor of the State refused to grant the permit for the opening of the drainage canal until satisfactory arrangements were made on this score, whereby the sanitary district was compelled to spend another $100,000. After the canal was opened the matter was taken to the State supreme court and thrown out as having been done under duress. It was stated that the contract was signed under duress and could not be enforced. That makes about $500,000 up to date.

Mr. WALKER. Who pleaded ultra viras in that case?

M. MCCORMICK. I am informed that the canal commissioners did in that case.

Mr. WALKER. You will find that the drainage canal people did it. Mr. MCCORMICK. Now we will come to 1903, to the legislation for the Calumet Canal, the construction of which will render the Illinois and Michigan Canal utterly impossible.

Mr. LOVERING. The construction or the operation?

Mr. McCORMICK. The construction. It will cut the Illinois and Michigan Canal at a lower level and practically drain it dry. The Calumet Canal will come from South Chicago-the Calumet River through what they call the Calumet channel into the drainage canal, cutting the Illinois and Michigan Canal at what they call the Sag. The law recites that the sanitary district must do this; but inasmuch as doing this will prevent navigation before this canal can be cut-that is, the Illinois and Michigan Canal-the sanitary district must connect the south end of its present channel at Lockport with the Upper Basin Dam No. 1 at Joliet, with a canal not less than 10 feet deep, at the expense of the sanitary district.

I have every confidence that the Illinois and Michigan Canal to-day is not more than 23 feet deep. But, admitting that it is 4 feet deep, when the sanitary district substitutes a canal through most of its length 22 feet deep and at no point less than 10 feet deep; when it builds the locks, as it is required to do under this law; when it gives them a large strip of land on its right of way for their operations, does it not seem fair that it should be recompensed in some way, especially as this extra work, namely, connecting the drainage canal with the Illinois and Michigan Canal at Joliet, in itself cost half a million dollars at least? This matter is not one of opinion, it is not one of estimate. Part of it has been finished and the contracts are let on the rest, and the figures can be produced.

6

Mr. STEVENS. Before you go further, let me ask you this: By law" you mean a statute of the State of Illinois, do you? Mr. McCORMICK. Yes; a statute of the State of Illinois.

Mr. STEVENS. Your contention is, then, that the effect of these various statutes of the State of Illinois authorizing the construction of the sanitary district and canal and authorizing their operation, and the operations by virtue of the statute, constitute a practical abandonment by the State of Illinois of the Illinois and Michigan Canal over the territory we have just been discussing?

Mr. MCCORMICK. That is my opinion.

Mr. STEVENS. We want to get this down, so as to know just what to do.

Mr. MCCORMICK. I want to make this trebly sure. The matter came to Congress because of the opinion in Chicago that the National Government had a certain interest. We wanted this waived; then if there was any question about the interest of the State, we could go to the legislature and have that waived. We came here first because Congress will adjourn before the legislature will. That is the position exactly.

Mr. STEVENS. You contend, then, that the United States has a possible reversion of some portion of the right of way of the Illinois and Michigan Canal?

Mr. MCCORMICK. Yes, sir.

1

Mr. STEVENS. And that that possible reversion will be under the control of Congress because the State through its various acts in establishing the sanitary canal and giving it authority and the authority as exercised will constitute a practical abandonment by the State?

Mr. McCORMICK. Yes, sir.

Mr. STEVENS. Of that portion of the Illinois and Michigan Canal covered

Mr. MCCORMICK. By this bill?

Mr. STEVENS. By this bill.

Mr. McCORMICK. And if that should be a mistake

Mr. STEVENS. And that is your contention?

Mr. McCORMICK. Yes; that is my contention; if we should be wrong in that, we will then ask the State to make a formal transfer.

Mr. STEVENS. We wanted to get a perfect understanding about it. Mr. LOVERING. You do not seem to have answered Mr. Stevens' first question.

Mr. McCORMICK. What was that?

Mr. LOVERING. Who bears the expense of the operation of the Illinois and Michigan Canal?

Mr. MCCORMICK. It is paid by the revenue that the canal obtains. But the revenue is not sufficient, and the canal is not maintained. It overflowed our works within a month and cost us heavily. It did $10,000 or $15,000 worth of damage. It has not enough revenue to support itself.

Mr. STEVENS. How is it supported?

Mr. MCCORMICK. It is not supported. It is moribund. The water power derived from the plant provided for the sanitary district provides $12,000.

Mr. LOVERING. Are there salaries paid?

Mr. McCORMICK. Yes, sir.

Mr. STEVENS. Is there not a superintendent and a corps of laborers to look after it?

Mr. McCORMICK. The best way to show you what is done in that way is to tell you that it is called, locally, the "tadpole ditch." That is what they call it.

Mr. LOVERING. How much did it cost to build it?

Mr. McCORMICK. It costs $6,000,000, I believe, to build.

Mr. LOVERING. Eighty thousand dollars was the last figure you

gave.

Mr. McCORMICK. Of the annual expense?

Mr. LOVERING. Yes. That was the time when Mr. Stevens asked you a question.

Mr. McCORMICK. I would know a great deal more about it, but I sent a member of my office down to look through the public files, and he was refused access to them. I do not know where the money comes from, outside of the two water-power plants and a few leases. Mr. WILSON. Do they not sell ice?

Mr. MCCORMICK. I will give you the reason why the sanitary district wants this. In the first act there is a clause, as I remember it, that if the Illinois and Michigan Canal is needed for the purposes of the sanitary district, it can be used by any sanitary district within the county within which such district is organized. That means that such part of the Illinois and Michigan Canal as lies in another county, if

needed, can be used without cost. When the original sanitary canal was surveyed, there were a number of routes planned. One of them embraced that canal, but I do not know much about that history. It was not adopted, anyhow. However, our attention is called to the fact that the amount of water taken from Lake Michigan must be limited, and whatever the just limit is I do not know, but there is no question but some limit must be put. That makes certain that the time must come when a pure flow of sewage from Chicago, with what water is allowed, will become a menace to the valley people unless it is treated in some form. We are beginning investigations. We have not got anywhere yet as to what plan must be adopted; but what will be done is this, that some temporary works-not temporary, but what they call settling basins-will have to be established in order to relieve the canal. At that time I expect that the Illinois and Michigan Canal in Chicago will be used to put the settling basins on, and then the sewage will be run half purified into the drainage canal. That plan is down to the point where I can talk about it.

Mr. STEVENS. That is none of our business.

Mr. MCCORMICK. I supposed that you might care to know about it. I have been talking as much as I have mostly because of a letter that I saw from Major Riché. Is your interest upon the legal aspect of it or upon the rights of it?.

Mr. STEVENS. We first want to know your opinion of the legal aspect of it, and then, secondly, what reason you think should be given for the passage of the bill.

Mr. MCCORMICK. My opinion of the legal aspect--and as I am not a lawyer I will not put very great store by it, and I am sorry that we have not got our lawyer here, but he is engaged in the trial of a very important case-is that the various acts mark the abandonment; and if they do not, they should. The legislature has imposed upon the sanitary district the expenditure of many millions of dollars that were not drainage. They have imposed the duty of substituting a canal 10 feet deep for the present canal, and the district has been compelled for other reasons to spend another half million dollars directly for the benefit of the canal commissioners.

Mr. STEVENS. You claim that that has been followed by the fact that whatever traffic formerly went by the Illinois and Michigan Canal now goes by your canal?

Mr. McCORMICK. It will next summer. We would be practically finished now, but a flood came on a month ago and flooded out our works, and we have not been able to finish. By the 1st of August at latest our canal will be finished and will be turned over to the Government or to the State for the operation of traffic, and it will certainly be taken in preference to the little canal.

Mr. STEVENS. Proceed as rapidly as possible.

Mr. WILSON. Are you familiar with the distance between the Illinois and Michigan and the drainage canal?

Mr. McCORMICK. It is on the map. Between Chicago and Summit they are separated by a railroad right of way. It will show on the map. It is very close all the way. It is widest at Lockport; there it is half a mile.

go

Mr. WILSON. I did not know but what you knew, so that it could in the record.

Mr. McCORMICK. It is very close all the way.

Mr. WILSON. Very near.

Mr. McCORMICK. Yes.

Mr. STEVENS. But there are intervening rights?

Mr. MCCORMICK. Yes; but from the point of view of the commercial use of the canal, if you wish me to talk of that at all, the Illinois and Michigan right of way, the canal, is needed by the drainage canal. The sanitary district has the right to lease dockage on its canal; the State of Illinois reserving the right to take a part of that rental to itself. The strip on the side of the drainage canal is narrow. It is not sufficient in itself for a man to put a factory there; he has got to go in the back country. Now, if we have our strip here, and then comes the Alton Railroad, and then the Illinois and Michigan strip, and another owner comes in between, he controls not only the back country but the canal as well, because a man can not get access from the drainage canal to the back country, and if he can not do that there is no object in his being on the drainage canal. In fact, we now have a big firm negotiating for a lease. They tried all sorts of ways. One clause they wanted put in was that we should guarantee them access to the drainage canal. We could not do that.

Mr. STEVENS. Is there any right of way of any railroad now on these reserved lands?

Mr. MCCORMICK. Not to my knowledge. There are three railroads from Chicago to Joliet.

Mr. STEVENS. Not on these lands?

Mr. MCCORMICK. Not on the public lands. Now, as to the value of this right of way. It is something that nobody can do more than guess at. The sanitary district bought 70,000 acres of right of way at a cost of about $3,000,000. According to Major Riche's figures the right of way of the Illinois and Michigan Canal is approximately 1,000 acres, and I take it should figure a strip through the even portions as well as through the odd, so that it would be considerably under 1,000 acres. If the same value is to hold true for that 1,000 acres as for the 70,000 acres, that would be about $300 or $400 an acre. But the value will not be as great, as you know. When you condemn property you buy the property at its greatest value for any purpose; so that the district had to pay the high value for that land. The Illinois and Michigan Canal land would not have had any value for farm land. It would not have been valuable for anything but a right of way. The value of the right of way of course comes down to the question of the need for a right of way and the supply and demand. That is not the only right of way obtainable. There is room for a number of them, and the competition is great. There are already four railroads between Chicago and Joliet, and the question of anybody wanting it is exceedingly doubtful. So that our case comes

down to this.

In the first place, we are inclined to believe that the rights of the State of Illinois and of the Illinois and Michigan Canal between those two points have been conveyed to us, anyhow. We come down to the point that in the building of the drainage canal the city of Chicago has spent $20,000,000 to make it a waterway for the use of the whole Government. We come down to the point that we have paid to the account of the canal commissioners $500,000, and to build a substitute canal we are spending another $500,000.

Mr. STEVENS. What is that canal?