and priority of, we will say, a treaty obligation which probably would not exist at the time, it reserves to itself no power, no means of compelling the observance and execution of those conditions, except through an action in court, and that I can easily point out and you can readily recognize is an exceedingly inefficient and ineffective method of controlling floods.

There can be no forfeiture clause in the license. The corporation takes its license and goes on to the land, builds its works in accordance therewith, and thereafter it is only a legal question of whether or not it has lived up to or violated its license. The only place, the only forum where that can be questioned is the forum of the courts of the land.

Mr. LEATHERWOOD. Would not that be a pretty good place to test it? Mr. SWING. I am coming to that. The practical working out of it would be this way. Take the situation like this. A dam at Boulder Canyon is under control and operation of a private power company. Word comes that the Gila River, a hundred miles below, is on a rampage, that there has been a tremendous torrential desert storm, such as come up and happen there on short notice.

The people of the Imperial Valley or Yuma wire the officials to shut down the works, so to leave the river bed of the Colorado free to receive this dangerous flood that is rushing down from the Gila.

The power company may think that the farmers are unduly alarmed. They say, "Well, we will run on here for a while longer. We will shut it down some, but we can not afford to shut down entirely."

The recourse to the courts under those conditions would be absolutely ineffectual. The damage of the water would happen just as surely as anything and the going to court would be an idle waste of time and effort.

Mr. LEATHERWOOD. Where does the Gila enter the Colorado River? Mr. SWING. Just above Yuma and below the Laguna Dam.

Mr. LEATHERWOOD. The Boulder Dam would not control the Gila, would it?

Mr. SWING. No; but it would control the bed of the Colorado River and it could be operated, and it is our hope and our belief that it will be operated. It can serve the lower reaches by so regulating the flow in the main river, that should an unusual and dangerous flood come down the Gila, the bed of the Colorado can be prepared to receive it and pass it safely on by reduction in the main flow of the Colorado itself.

Mr. LEATHERWOOD. Suppose you had your Boulder Dam as proposed, that you have leased the right to generate power, as presumed to operate the plant, you would have to let down the average flow of the river, wouldn't you, constantly?

Mr. SWING. The Government would keep its hand on the gates. The dam is to be always owned and operated by Government officials, and that is the advantage of this thing.

Mr. LEATHERWOOD. Would you shut down the power plant?

Mr. SWING. Absolutely.

Mr. LEATHERWOOD. And empty the river for the Gila?

Mr. SWING. Where life and property are involved, a temporary suspension of power production is absolutely warranted, and under our theory of Government operation, that would be what would actually take place.

Mr. LEATHERWOOD. Every time the Gila went on a rampage the industry would have to stop?

Mr. SWING. If it got on a rampage where it was going to endanger whole communities.

Mr. LEATHERWOOD. I assume that.

Mr. SWING. Yes, sir. As to agriculture, the organization of even the Edison Co., the biggest one of those that has been suggested as an agency which might operate under the Federal Water Power Commission, contains no branch of its organization or field service for the gathering of agricultural data, or after it had been gathered, for digesting it, understanding it, and knowing what it meant and what it needed.

Their purpose is the development of power. Their engineers are power engineers, not agricultural engineers, not irrigation engineers. The United States Government, on the other hand, has its branches of Government which assemble, and which interpret, and which understand the needs and purposes of agriculture, and could operate this dam in accordance with those needs.

But the power company has no incentive to operate its dams in accordance with the needs of agriculture. Its first and predominating incentive is to operate for profit.

Second, it has no field agency to gather together the data for agricultural needs, and if it was gathered together, it has no experts to interpret and understand what the needs actually are.

It turns

Therefore, we find that the Government loses the manual control of the situation. It loses the manual control of the river. it over to a private power company, absolutely, as far as the Federal Power Commission is concerned. It can not send an agent down there and take the control of that dam or that power plant or that river out of the hands of the licensee, except through a long-drawnout appeal to the courts.

The proposal to turn the Colorado River over to the private power corporations and to trust them to protect the lower river communities reminds me of a story I am going to tell. It was a case where the young, hopeful son in the family comes to his father one evening and says, Father, I want the family automobile to take my sweetheart out riding."

The boy is just at the age where he is neither boy nor man.

Mr. RAKER. That gets us all.

Mr. SWING. His father wants to humor him. He says, "Well, I am willing to have you take the car, but remember this is a brand new car. It is a powerful machine. I will let you take it on the sole condition that you promise to operate the car carefully so as to avoid accidents and not to injure the car or hurt anybody on the streets."

The boy spins over, gets his sweetheart, and is soon out on the highway, under the moonshine and the influence of the beauty of the surrounding countryside, and, not the least, under the influence of the magnetic personality of his sweetheart at his side.

Mr. LEATHERWOOD. You do not assume that he would have any moonshine in the car?

Mr. SWING. His right hand slips from the wheel and is put lovingly around the waist of his sweetheart. Soon his eyes drift from the road ahead to gazing into the eyes of his promising one.

Of course the thing happens that is bound to happen. A youth driving a powerful car and devoting more attention to his sweetheart than to the road is sure to have a collision. People are injured or killed and the machine is wrecked. The boy goes home, and the best the father gets is an explanation.

That is what will happen on the Colorado River if you put the private power company in control of that tremendous force, because its sweetheart-profits and dividends-will ever be at its side. You may give it instructions and say:

Now, Mr. Private Power Company, operate this stream with due care toward the people below and with due regard toward the agricultural interests.

The company is not going to give more than one eye and one hand to the interests of other people; it is very likely to give most of its attention to its sweetheart, Miss Dividend Profits. Because of this I agree, under these circumstances, with Secretary Hoover when he says:

Any construction in the lower Colorado is primarily for flood control and storage of water for irrigation. Power is only a by-product. Where protecting the lives of the people from grave danger and the use of storage water for extension of irrigation are the dominant questions I believe the construction work must be undertaken and flow of the water therefrom controlled solely by the Government. I do not agree that dams in such cases should be built by private enterprise, because power is necessarily their dominant consideration. The President made much the same observation in his recent message.

The President's message, with which you are all acquainted, said: The time has come to resume in a moderate way the opening of our intracoastal waterways; the control of flood waters of the Mississippi and Colorado Rivers; the improvement of the waterways from the Great Lakes toward the Gulf of Mexico; and the development of the great power and navigation projects of the St. Lawrence River, for which efforts are now being made to secure the necessary treaty with Canada. These projects can not all be undertaken at once, but all should have the immediate consideration of the Congress and be adopted as fast as plans can be matured and the necessary funds become available. This is not incompatible with economy, for their nature does not require so much a public expenditure as a capital investment which will be reproductive, as evidenced by the marked increase in revenue from the Panama Canal. Upon these projects depends much future industrial and agricultural progress. They represent the protection of large areas from flood and the addition of a great amount of cheap power.

That is an accurate description of the benefits which will flow from the construction of this project when it is completed.

Coming to a reply to the argument of Mr. J. C. Allison, who testified on May 8, 1924, the testimony of J. C. Allison before the committee on May 8 against the all-American canal is unreliable and in many important particulars contrary to fact.

First, he says that the canal project is opposed by the majority of the landowners of the Imperial irrigation district. In this position he purports to stand with C. W. Brockman, one of the five directors of said district. He presents a letter from Brockman to Harry Chandler, of Los Angeles, and Allison's client, relating to the canal

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and the district's water business in Mexico. In that letter Brockman asserts that the majority of the people of his district regard the proposed canal unfavorably.

The attitude of the people of Brockman's district, and also of the entire irrigation district, regarding the all-American canal has been formally and officially tested, and the result was contrary to his claim. I refer to the election in the district on January 21, 1919, on the question of the ratification of the contract between the United States, acting by Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior, and Imperial irrigation district, committing the district to the construction of the all-American canal.

Mr. Brockman was elected from and represents division No. 1 of the district. For the purpose of such election his division contained five precincts, to wit: City of Calexico, Heber, Mount Signal, Alder, and Verde. The vote of these precincts at such election, as shown by a certified copy of the minutes of the district which is herewith presented, was as follows:

(The paper referred to is as follows:)

Mr. MARK ROSE,

Care of Hon. Phil D. Swing,

IMPERIAL IRRIGATION DISTRICT,

El Centro, Calif., May 1, 1924.

House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.

DEAR SIR: Complying with your telegram of April 30, we inclose herewith excerpt of the minutes showing vote on all-American canal by precincts.

This is to certify that the foregoing are full, true, and correct excerpts of the minutes dated January 27, 1919.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and the seal of said district this 1st day of May, 1924.

F. H. McIVER, Secretary Imperial Irrigation District.

The same arguments were made then in the canvass of the district as were made here. It was debated, and it was contended by the opponents of the contract that the all-American canal was not feasible, that it was not desirable, that it was not necessary, and that the Mexican lands were an asset to the community. But that is the response that was given by the electors.

Calexico, which is situated at the international boundary line, is the commercial capital of that portion of Mexico just below the line. The governor of Lower California resides in Calexico, and in that city the American interests, headed by Harry Chandler, owning nearly a million acres of land in Mexico, have their headquarters. Mr. Allison in his testimony before the committee, at page 16 of the reporter's transcript, says that Calexico is the district "where most of those operating in Mexico live."

American interests in Mexico are opposed to the all-American canal, and the influence of those interests naturally showed itself in the Calexico vote on the contract.

Also in the north end of the district, where the towns of Brawley and Calipatria are located, the Chandler interests owned and controlled at the time of the election more than 45,000 acres of land, and the influence of those interests was shown in the votes of those towns on the contract. Brawley gave 52 votes for and 321 votes against the contract, and Calipatria gave 41 votes for and 106 votes against the contract.