Mr. MCCORMICK. The canal from Lockport to Joliet.

Mr. SCHILLING. The 10-foot canal.

Mr. MCCORMICK. That is another $500,000. That will be completed this summer, and when that is completed the Illinois and Michigan Canal from Lockport to Joliet can have no further value whatever. It stands to reason that when you have a canal 22 feet deep nobody will use the canal that is 2 feet deep.

Mr. WILSON. What about the charges?

Mr. MCCORMICK. The sanitary district will charge no tollage. Whether the sanitary district will charge a tollage at the lock or not

I do not know.

Mr. STEVENS. I wish you would give us a reference to the statutes of Illinois of which you have spoken.

Mr. MCCORMICK. I have them all with me in a pamphlet, but I will have to mark them and give them to you afterwards. The canal right of way itself will be of no value further as a waterway, but the sanitary district has built a substitute waterway for the use of the State and the Government.

Mr. SCHILLING. Without any toll?

Mr. McCORMICK. Yes, sir: and has to maintain it forever, and has to maintain the bridges and operate it and receive no pay in return. The abandoned right of way is of no special value except to one who wishes to stand between the sanitary dockage and the back country.

Therefore we feel that the National Government should put us in a position to secure our title from the State forevermore. Furthermore, as Mr. Schilling here says, the southwest portion of the city of Chicago can not drain into the drainage canal until some final arrangement has been made to dispose of the Illinois and Michigan Canal land. The only way of doing it satisfactorily is to put those lands in the hands of the management of the ditch that exist for drainage. If it goes to the railroad company or to private owners, unless your act is very carefully drawn they may maintain that there is no right of way for easement purposes.

That is all I have to say.

ADDITIONAL STATEMENT OF MR. CHARLES L. WALKER.

Mr. WALKER. As to the questions that Mr. McCormick has suggested with reference to the tolls and that feature of it, and the question of the future size of the sanitary district, that it has only been for sewage and that it had not been made for a deep waterway, and the amount of the tolls, and the contracts with the Illinois and Michigan Canal that he talks about, if it had not been ultra vires, with that we have not now anything to do.

However, Mr. Snapp was attorney for the canal during the time of which he speaks, and he can give you gentlemen any information that you desire as to that situation. It does not cut any figure in this situation at all.

Mr. STEVENS. Only in this way, that Mr. McCormick contends that all these things constitute a part of the design of the State of Illinois to abandon the Illinois and Michigan Canal for navigable purposes along that stretch.

Mr. WALKER. Yes, sir; but it seems to me it would not have anything to do with the propriety of the passage of this bill. He talks

about being reimbursed. If the Federal Government wants to reimburse them, if the Federal Government wants to give them $1,000,000 that they have expended in order to get a deep waterway, that is a different proposition; but we say that the Federal Government ought not to be asked to undertake to give property that belongs to the State to the sanitary district. That is for the legislature itself to do.

The question of the effect of the construction of this channel across the channel of the Illinois and Michigan Canal-I do not know what idea the legislature has. The people evidently had an idea that the canal should not be done away with in any way, as the constitution provides, and, therefore, if the legislature has intimated anything, I assume that the legislature will change that intimation when it has received the vote of the people and knows the will of the people on the proposition.

Mr. STEVENS. Will you follow it as to the exact proposition that was submitted to the people and the requirement of the constitution of the State as to what should be done and the vote of the people at the last election, so that it can go into the record?

Mr. WALKER. I do not know that I can give you the vote at all. Mr. McCormick has said something about the question of dockage rates that the Illinois and Michigan Canal reserves on that. My understanding is that all that is in this act, and this act provides that a certain section of the land which is on the sanitary district channel shall be given to the State upon which the State can construct its docks. There is no question of dockage fees, as I recollect, but even if there were it seems to me it would not cut any figure on that proposition. If the State, in order to protect the Federal Government, provided that the transportation of the Federal property over the big canal should continue, that may have been for the purpose of any interruption during the period of construction or what not; at any rate it undertakes to protect the contract relation between the Federal Government and the State of Illinois, as provided by that law.

Mr. McCormick says they came here to you because you adjourn before the legislature adjourns; but they have not introduced any bill in the legislature asking anything of the kind that I have ever heard of, and there has been just as much time to get relief from the Illinois legislature as there has been to get relief from your body; and therefore it seems to me there is nothing in that proposition.

As to the destruction of the canal by the building of the Calumet channel through the sag across it, there is nothing in that proposition, because the sanitary canal is very much lower than the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and it can be carried across on an aqueduct, as in the case of some other streams; so that there is nothing, as the bill itself provides, it seems to me.

In regard to the sandbagging proposition, I do not know anything about that. I was not the attorney for the canal commission at that time; but I say that Mr. Snapp was, and he knows about that. I do not know anything about the canal being closed for one year. If the question of rentals, of income, cuts any figure, the canal commissioners want to be heard upon the question of fact. I did not believe there was a question of fact. I supposed that it did not make any difference to the Federal Government whether the canal paid or did not. It does not make any difference. It is being operated as required, at no

expense.

Mr. LOVERING. At no expense to the State? At no expense to the Federal Government?

Mr. WALKER. Yes, sir; no expense to the State except for the revenues that come to the canal itself.

Mr. WILSON. What are the revenues of the canal!

Mr. WALKER. I do not know. I may be mistaken as to the amount I stated; but I know that Norton & Co. paid $10,000 a year under their contract--have paid that—for their water power, and they also paid tolls on the canal. Just what they amounted to I do not know, but I have understood that they amount to quite considerable—in the neighborhood of $5,000.

Mr. WILSON. Does not the canal also pay Norton & Co. for certain services?

Mr. WALKER. No, sir; not that I know of; none whatever. So that it seems to me, if your honors please, that the question here is this. No fact of abandonment is now in existence. No definite action has been taken by the State of Illinois that shows that it is going to abandon the canal, and I think we all agree that under no law can there be any right in the Federal Government nor ought the Federal Government to exercise any control or take any action in regard to. it until the State itself undertook to abandon the canal.

And in connection with the rights that the sanitary district has had, they get them all from the State; it is a branch of the State, and they ought to go to the State to get any relief they desire. I believe that is all I care to say.

ADDITIONAL STATEMENT OF MR. McCORMICK.

Mr. McCORMICK. I have several extracts here from the laws relating to the sanitary district of Chicago, which I would like to read. The first is in the new act authorizing the construction of the Calumet Canal. The first part merely says how the canal shall be built and what size it shall be. Then it reads:

Provided, however, That before any such channel is constructed across said Illinois and Michigan Canal, or the navigation of said canal in any manner interfered with, said sanitary district of Chicago shall connect its present main channel from the controlling works at Lockport with the upper basin of the Illinois and Michigan Canal at Joliet by a channel of a depth of not less than ten (10) feet and a width of not less than one hundred and sixty (160) feet through its entire length, in which channel so to be constructed said sanitary district shall provide and construct a lock or locks of the size of at least twenty-two (22) feet in width by one hundred and thirty (130) feet in length between miter sills, connecting upper and lower levels, and provide suitable protection for water craft in using said locks and channel. Said locks shall be constructed of the most approved pattern of their size, and to be perfectly safe for use and be equipped with machinery to operate the same; and if only one lock is constructed it shall be provided with double gates to prevent accident, and said sanitary district shall forever maintain and operate the same.

Provided further, That said sanitary district shall furnish and provide at said lock a site of the dimensions of at least 20 by 30 feet, upon which the State, through the canal commissioners, shall have the right to erect a suitable office building and keep an agent therein, and the canal commissioners shall have such authority in and about said lock as is necessary to enforce the rules and regulations prescribed by them.

3. Said sanitary district shall permit all water craft navigating or purposing to navigate said Illinois and Michigan Canal to navigate the water of all said channels of said sanitary district promptly without delay and without payment of any tolls or lockage charges for so navigating in said channels.

There is a clause in here applying to the Illinois and Michigan Canal.

Mr. SCHILLING. Can you find that clause that relates to the abandonment of the canal at a certain point, or which provides that it may be declared a nuisance?

Mr. MCCORMICK. That is what I am looking for.

Mr. SCHILLING. We had it here the other day, Mr. Chairman, the Illinois statute.

Mr. MCCORMICK. Here it is:

and shall also have the right to construct a channel across the Illinois and Michigan Canal, without being required to restore said Illinois and Michigan Canal or said feeder to its former usefulness. If by reason of said abandonment a stagnant stream or pool of water shall remain upon the deposits of Chicago sewage, accumulated in said city of Chicago as a sewage outlet, said sanitary district shall fill up said canal to a depth sufficient to remove said condition and prevent the spread of pestilence and disease throughout the territory in which said Illinois and Michigan Canal is abandoned.

If that is to be done, it will cost another million dollars, at least. Mr. STEVENS. Where would that be?

Mr. MCCORMICK. From Joliet to Chicago.

Mr. WILSON. Where the locks are built.

Mr. STEVENS. Over the portion covered by this bill?

Mr. McCORMICK. Yes, sir.

Mr. SCHILLING. And that construction, now, cutting through the Illinois and Michigan Canal, which will break its continuity, is now being done by the sanitary district?

Mr. McCORMICK. Yes.

Mr. SCHILLING. And you say that will be accomplished by August, at the very latest?

Mr. MCCORMICK. August 1, at the very latest, barring acts of God. Mr. SCHILLING. And you mean to say after that is accomplished and those locks are built it can not be used from that point north? Mr. McCORMICK. Certainly.

Mr. WALKER. No.

Mr. MCCORMICK. It can not be, and it will not be. The canal costs about $10,000 a year, at least, more than it brings in; and when they get the big canal furnished free of cost it is inconceivable that they should continue the use of the other, and within a year we will cut the Illinois and Michigan Canal short in two.

Mr. WALKER. Why, you will not have your locks finished by that time--the 1st of August.

Mr. MCCORMICK. I beg your pardon; they will be.

And you

Mr. WALKER. I do not think that your engineer will say so. Mr. MCCORMICK. My engineer says the 1st of June. Mr. WALKER. I do not think anybody else will say so. can not cut the Illinois and Michigan Canal, you can not begin to cut it, until after you have done that, and you would not in the very nature of things, I should think, commence the cutting of the Illinois and Michigan Canal until you have fixed your rights that govern through the Calumet region; so that there can be nothing done except that, as Mr. McCormick says, it will be useless to maintain the old canal after the connection is made. But that does not interfere with the fact that it may be operated, and does not interfere with the fact that the State has not permitted any act of abandonment.

Mr. WILSON. Just one question before you finish. I spoke to Mr. Walker about the income of the Illinois and Michigan Canal and the contract that it had with Norton & Co. in Joliet. Are you familiar

with that?

Mr. McCORMICK. Yes, sir.

Mr. STEVENS. I do not think that is material to the issue here.
Mr. MCCORMICK. It has the revenue and the profit.

STATEMENT OF MR. GEORGE A. SCHILLING, PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF LOCAL IMPROVEMENTS OF CHICAGO, ILL.

Mr. SCHILLING. I find myself, Mr. Chairman, in a singular situation. Some months ago I called on Mr. McCormick, the president of the drainage board, and reminded him of the fact that the board previous to the one he is now a member of had made an agreement with the board of local improvements of Chicago to pay 40 per cent for the construction of the conduit over Bubbly Creek, Chicago, which is about Thirty-ninth and Roby streets, to go westward to the avenue, and from there to the outfall of the sanitary channel, and I asked him if he thought there would be any trouble in carrying out that agreement, and I called his attention to the fact that that entire district there, twenty miles square, had no drainage. He said, "Certainly, if the drainage is necessary and the previous board has entered into this arrangement, we will help to carry it out."

I then called his attention to the fact that there was a feeling in the minds of some of the lawyers of Chicago, including the legal department of our board, that the United States Government had some claim there, and that unless we got a permit from Congress enabling us to go through the Illinois and Michigan Canal with those sewers we might be interfered with in a legal proceeding confirming special assessments, and because of that I thought it would be wise to get the consent of the United States Government to pass through the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and also the consent of the State of Illinois.

Mr. STEVENS. You do not know whether you want to pass through one of the even or odd sections, do you?

Mr. SCHILLING. No, sir; I do not. The fact of the matter is, Mr. Chairman, that until we had this thing thrashed out, I was under the impression that there were two distinct grants, one a right of way which was continuous, and the other the alternate sections; but it seems, according to the statements made this morning, that that original grant, the continuous right of way, was not taken advantage of, and now it seems that you have simply an alternate grant, with an

easement.

Mr. STEVENS. So that if those two branches of your main sewers that you desire to pass through the Illinois Canal were in an odd section, that is Kedzie and Western

Mr. SCHILLING. Yes, sir; Kedzie and Western.

Mr. STEVENS. You would have no business here, and we would have no business with this?

Mr. SCHILLING. No, sir.

Mr. STEVENS. So that, so far as you are concerned, you would have no standing before the court.

Mr. SCHILLING. I am trying to explain why even this bill is before the committee. The motive that prompted it, although I did not see