its population, and its distribution in such a way that it may be afforded an opportunity to live, to live properly and happily, and to decentralize the great masses of the people which are accumulated, and have been for many years, in our great cities. That is, undoubtedly, one of the basic difficulties that underlies the immediate situation. This is a movement in the direction of decentralization of population, under a vast project which will accommodate, as has been pointed out, many, many people, and they will come as fast as the development affords them the opportunity to realize a livelihood.

I do not think it is necessary at all to take up the question in its every detail. I just want to say that I trust the good judgment of this committee, and that I will be perfectly satisfied with whatever it may do in the premises; but I do wish to urge the favorable consideration of the committee on the pending bill, and your cooperation in bringing forward a proposal here which will do so much toward developing a great section of the country; and I think it is just as obvious as anything can be, that there is here a matter of mutuality between the east and west.

Reference was made to the distribution of commodities and the output and consumption of the east and west respectively. You are familiar with those figures. I would not be here to urge a sectional development of this magnitude, if I thought it was not to the advantage of the whole country; I would not encourage it, or ask for it. We ask for small distributions of Government funds in the matter of small enterprises throughout the country, in common justice to all sections, when Federal cooperation is extended; but when it comes to a gigantic enterprise of this kind, I realize that there must be national consideration of the subject, from a national standpoint, and your record will undoubtedly disclose advantages to flow to all sections of the country, as well as to this.

There is national need for this opportunity to further disperse our population in a way that will accommodate pro tanto the people of the nation, generally, and I do not know of any other place in the United States that affords such an opportunity of expectation in that regard, as the premises on which this bill is predicated.

I must go now to my committee meeting. I thank you for the opportunity of coming in here to express my interest and sympathetic attitude toward the legislation.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Hadley, we appreciate your statement.

Mr. HILL. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Summers is, of course, interested in this, as are all of the Members of the congressional delegation of the State of Washington; but, in addition to that, I may state that he has a perculiar, direct interest, for the reason that the lands largely lie in his district. I want to ask Doctor Summers at this time to make a statement.

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN W. SUMMERS, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON

Mr. SUMMERS. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, first, I want to express my appreciation to you for coming here day after day to hear our story of the Grand Coulee power project, one of the great developments that is to take place in the Pacific Northwest.

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I would like to call the attention of new members here to the fact that, for several years, I sat as a member of this committee. And while we had many projects to consider, after all, the thing that stands out in my mind is the very early hearings on the Boulder Dam project, which were held by this committee during the years when I was a member, and I shall always look back upon that as something really worth while in my congressional career.

The thought I have in mind is this: That the town council will handle the spring branch that runs through the town, but the members of this committee to-day are dealing with one of the greatest undeveloped national projects to be found within the confines of the United States, and the consideration that you give this bill now before you and the favorable action we hope you will take, you may always look back upon as being a real constructive move in behalf of the whole Nation.

This project lies in the central eastern part of the State of Washington, but it transcends the limits of that State. This is truly a national project. I think General Goethals said it would mean more to the United States than the Panama Canal.

I want to bring out, in the very beginning, that we are not asking for a donation of any kind from the Treasury of the United States. We are discussing here a project which proposes to repay its cost, with 4 per cent interest, and that within 30 years.

I am now addressing myself to that part of the project which really is before us at this time, that is, the power project, because that is the project that is to come within the first 20 or 30 years.

THE GRAND COULEE POWER SITE

The United States Army Engineers have told you, that at the head of the Grand Coulee, on the Columbia River, is the greatest undeveloped power site in all the North American Continent. The United States Reclamation engineers, the Secretary of the Interior, the Director of the Budget, and the President of the United States concur in their findings.

This was emphasized by Col. Hugh L. Cooper, who is, perhaps, one of the world's best known constructors of hydroelectric power dams, thoroughly familiar with power sites throughout the country.

These statements were made by these engineers after years of investigation. The water supply is constant and unlimited. The Columbia River has its source in the very heart of the Canadian and American Rockies, in the glaciers, and is augmented by the heavy snowfall and rainfall; and the great run-off comes not in the early spring, but rather toward midsummer; so we have, to start with, an unsurpassed and dependable water supply that reaches its maximum when most needed. Nobody questions that. It is several times beyond what will ever be required in the development of the great features of this project; and underlying the Columbia River, at the point where the dam is proposed to be constructed, nature has placed a bed of granite on which the dam may be constructed. The engineers tell us that a dam 4,000 feet long and 400 feet high, will prepare the way for the establishment of a power plant unequaled any place now, or at any time in the future, on the North American Continent.

I think we might well ask ourselves this question: Is this water to run on to the sea throughout the ages, serving man in no way, or shall we begin to take advantage of this great natural asset?

In a speech I made on reclamation years ago, which I called, "Jack Rabbits and Markets" I traced the sagebrush plains. To-day I trace this water power, which was there, unused, when the white man first stepped on the American Continent, and throughout all of our colonial development, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and on down, and not one cent has been derived for the people of the Northwest, or the East, or any other part of the country, from these great resources. We believe the time has come when we should look forward to the development of this great project.

SAGEBRUSH AND MARKETS

Colonel Cooper told you that, with this development, Washington could be and would be one of the greatest and wealthiest States of the Union. Is there going to be any jealousy? Are we jealous of the fact that New York is a great metropolis and the commercial and financial center that it is? Are we jealous of the fact that Illinois came along, and out of a wet, soppy, prairie, half covered with frog ponds, has developed into one of the greatest States in the Nation? Is it a detriment to New York that Pennsylvania has developed as a great manufacturing State, is it a detriment to Massachusetts? Not at all. Will it be a detriment to any State for the State of Washington to finally pay ten times the income tax it now pays?

We have to get a national viewpoint on this thing; we have to get a vision that obliterates State lines. We have to see its benefit from ocean to ocean and from Canada to the Gulf. Only by the vision of her statesman can any nation become great.

I tried to illustrate what reclamation projects mean to the whole country when I drew this map [see page 208], which shows two irrigation projects out in the Northwest. Each line here runs out to the States that shipped carloads, or multiple carloads, of their products into these irrigation projects. There is not a State in the Union but what directly benefits from a development of this kind. Seventy thousand cars of manufactured goods of every kind and description from farms and factories are now shipped from every State in the Union into two reclamation projects in the State of Washington annually. Without reclamation not one train of these products would be shipped to these sagebrush areas.

Let any man who questions the value of western development trace to the source these 70,000 cars of outside products that were shipped

by rail in one year into two reclamation projects in the State of Washington:

Carloads shipped into the Yakima and Wenatchee projects in one year

As I stated, the power development, the unlimited power, engineers have told us, by far exceeds what is produced, or can be produced, under any conditions, at any other place in the United States and at half the cost. We have near by a great storehouse of timber, which ought to be manufactured, instead of being shipped throughout the world in its raw state. We are surrounded by mines, we have agricultural products, we have the raw materials that are necessary in order to utilize that power.

What is going to become of the manufactured product?

We are facing the Pacific Ocean, and the Pacific faces about threefifths of the population of the globe, and water transportation is the cheapest transportation. Japan has been, of all nations of the earth our third best customer, and still Japan is a small nation in comparison to China or India. So we have, in three of those countries over there, six or seven hundred million people that furnish a potential market for the products that can be manufactured here. What does that mean to our people further east? In some of the speeches that I have made on reclamation, I called attention to the fact, statements made after careful check, that 50 cents out of every dollar produced out in our country very promptly rolls down the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains and is distributed across the Mississippi Valley and all the way on to the East.

So whatever we do in the way of creating foreign markets out there, is to the benefit of the whole country.

THE PLAN

Now, I could go on with the development of power indefinitely. I do want to call attention to the figures that were given here in your presence by Colonel Butler and, preceding that, the statement of