MUSCLE SHOALS WEDNESDAY, MAY 21, 1924 UNITED STATES SENATE, COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY, Washington, D. C. The committee met, pursuant to adjournment, at 10 o'clock a. m., in room 326, Senate Office Building, Senator George W. Norris presiding. Present: Senators Norris (chairman), McNary, Capper, Keyes, Gooding, Ladd, Norbeck, Harreld, McKinley, Smith, Ransdell, Kendrick, Harrison, Heflin, Caraway, Ralston, and Johnson. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. ADDITIONAL STATEMENT OF ELON H. HOOKER Mr. E. H. HOOKER. I will ask Mr. Weller to place in front of each. member of the committee, just to clearly recall to your minds our proposal, the original chart that we showed you when I first testified, and attached to it is a financial analysis of the return to the Government and the return to the individual bidders under the four proposals now before you, omitting Senator Norris's bill. Senator Norris's bill, of course, gives all the returns to the Government, and the returns to the individual would be nil. Senator RANSDELL. Do you estimate what the Government would get net out of the Norris bill? Mr. E. H. HOOKER. Well, the answer is obvious. The Government would net everything that it would net under our proposal, plus everything that would come to us, assuming that the Government could operate it as economically and as successfully as we could. Senator RANSDELL. Is that a correct assumption. Mr. E. H. HOOKER. I don't think it is a correct assumption. To whatever extent it is incorrect our bid is justified. If the Government could do just as much for the farmer and citizen under Senator Norris's bill as it can under ours, our bill should be discarded. Senator RANSDELL. Isn't it the basis of your bill that the experience which you men have could give greater returns to the Government than they could get out of ordinary Government officials? Mr. E. H. HOOKER. Yes, Senator; the basis of our whole proposal is that three men whose records indicate they are well qualified in the particular, crucial problems involved in this enterprise offer their services in partnership with the Government to give to the farmer the maximum amount of cheap fertilizer in the shortest possible time, at an eventual return to the Government and the people which would be greater after deducting payment for business initiative, than could be achieved by any form of Government operation. In other words, that the return to personal incentive is less than would be saved by the advantage of applying personal business initiative to the great business venture which this is. Senator McNARY. Under your estimate, Ford's offer does not measure up to any great, big thing for the Government? Mr. E, H. HOOKER. Far from it. Senator, I wish to call your attention to the fact that General Williams testified before this committee a few days ago, giving a general comparison of bids (with inadequate reservations in his own statement, which, of course, did not reach the press), but which would give the impression that our offer nets the Government $2,000,000 less than Mr. Ford's, and therefore, Senator Noris's bill but little more. If this committee was impressed with the comparison which General Williams made I should say they are bound to think very little of our offer or of Senator Noris's bill. The difference between General Williams's figures and ours is ver easily explained, and I will go into that. Adverting first to this original chart which was placed before yo I shall not go into that in any detail again, except to say that t figures here have been slightly changed in these revised charts three or four million dollars here and there, to make them a lit more accurate and bring them up to date. We used $160,000,0 before, and now we use $164,000,000. The essence of our proposal is that a saving of $30,000,000 a y can be made to the farmer by the use of the concentrated fertil instead of the ordinary fertilizer from the one Muscle Shoals involving a large saving in freight rates, a very great increas the freight radius for fertilizer, and the use of a cheaper price ammonia than has been used in the past. It includes the sprea of power as widely as possible through the South to help the ufacturers in general in the local communities of the South, power for fertilizer to the fullest extent that it can be used to c the greatest amount of fertilizer, and eventually, as power req ments for fertilizer decrease, diverting more and more power t general uses in the South, incidentally building up at Muscle s and in that immediate vicinity whatever local industries can be veloped to use the surplus power. This divides the power su between local distribution, a wide distribution in the South, and maximum amount of fertilizer that can be developed. Now, as to this diagram giving the relative return to the ernment and to the individual bidder under these four bids, Ger Williams expressed the desire to put the four bids on a compar basis. In doing that he took out of our bid one of the very things involved in it, which makes a difference of well on towal hundred million dollars in our proposal, and which does not al the other bids at all, so that his method of making a fair compar is one that treats us and Senator Norris most unfairly. It figur our bid at $113,000,000 instead of $305,000,000 by omitting essentia Now, General Atterbury and Mr. White and I did not make ti estimate of $305,000,000 as return to the Government from our pr posal lightly. We are all engineers. We are all accustomed figures, and we all have reputations at stake, and I want to say |