Mr. DAVIS. We feel that the area in mind, if developed after the war, would be a spot where we can take up the slack of people from that entire district. There would be many come there from other sections, even from the East. I do not see why there should be restrictions along sectional lines if the applicants are qualified.

Mr. MURDOCK. The fact that we call this an antispeculation bill indicates that you would not want those originally on the ground to hog the whole thing.

Mr. DAVIS. That is true. The big problem has been to prevent an encroachment upon the interests of the Federal Government and the State of Washington and the people on the project and those who are to come there. Our idea has been to properly protect those interests.

The CHAIRMAN. You want to reach in a proper manner the objectives you have in mind in the development of this project. That is what you have in mind, is it not?

Mr. DAVIS. Yes. I think we have done quite well, in fact.

Mr. MURDOCK. I should like to read a proposed amendment, which has been handed to me, and ask what the gentleman thinks of some such proposal.

At page 20, line 23, change the colon to a period and add the following words:

"Preference among applicants otherwise qualified in accordance with the standards prescribed as above provided, may be given to persons in various classes, including as classes persons who have served in the armed forces of the United States in wartimes, and have been honorably discharged or separated therefrom or placed in the Reserve forces and persons who have been forced by economic circumstances beyond their control to abandon farms in other parts of the United States, when, in the judgment of the Secretary, it is to the interests of the Nation so to do and in keeping with the sound development of the project, but in no event shall more than 75 percent of the land offered for sale by the United States in one irrigation block be sold to applicants on the basis of such preferences." What would the gentleman think of some such proposed amendment? Mr. DAVIS. It is too far reaching for me to express an opinion without careful study of it. I cannot carry it in my mind sufficiently clearly to express a sound judgment on it.

One must bear in mind that there are two possible ways of developing this Columbia Basin project, first, as a relief measure, and secondly, as a paying, going proposition. A combination of the two ideas would probably be the ideal, because, after all, we want this to be an outstanding project. If there are too many who have been on relief on this project, that would not be well. In other words, in selecting settlers, we must largely stick to the men who give better or best promise of making a success of the venture.

Mr. SHORT. Permanency and stability count for very much, you are saying.

Mr. DAVIS. Yes.

Mr. SHORT. I subscribe to what you say about the Great Pacific Northwest. If they chase me out of Missouri I may go to the State of Washington, if I do not go to the State of Texas.

Mr. WINTER. There is a provision in the pending bill for reducing those farms to not exceeding 160 acres each. How much land is now being farmed there by dry farming and open stock ranges?

It is a

Mr. DAVIS. This area is much larger than other such areas. very large one. I would not know how to tell you in actual figures,

but you will find the same situation you find in any country adapted to stock grazing, wherever there is a scarcity of water, and where wheat is grown largely.

Mr. WINTER. Are there many successful farmers owning good farms in that area that will be required to cut down acreage, divide their farms into smaller tracts?

Mr. DAVIS. May I give you this reaction: There have been many times in the past when farmers were successful in raising wheat. Last year is a good example. We had a very fine wheat crop. Then we may run for 10 years and have very poor wheat crops. All of the land involved has been at the point of being abandoned at times and the State or others have come in and provided seeds and otherwise helped to pull those farmers through. We have had short periods during which there have been successful farmers there.

Mr. WINTER. Are those who own farms there willing that their farms shall be cut up, reduced in size?

Mr. DAVIS. They are hesitant about that, after the good crop of last year.

Mr. WINTER. Under this law, if they should not want to come in the irrigation district, and the Secretary of the Interior wanted their land, he could condemn it and take it over.

Mr. DAVIS. Ultimately, I presume he could.

Mr. SHORT. This area is almost as large as the State of Delaware, is it not?

Mr. DAVIS. It is about the same size.

Mr. WINTER. Somebody suggested yesterday that we make it a forty-ninth State.

Mr. SHORT. If they put water upon it, it may become just that. Mr. DAVIS. In connection with condemnation, I do not know the answer, but I am sure you who have had experience with reclamation districts know that unless you take in a block of territory and make it exclusively a reclamation district you have a small chance of success if somebody can hold out a tract within that reclamation area. That would defeat the purpose of the reclamation district. It might be that after all other means fail, it would be necessary to condemn some land in order to complete a practicable and workable district. We believe, however, that all these people will come into this plan of their own accord.

Mr. SHORT. If you get water on there a man can raise as much on 160 acres as he can now on, say, 1,000 acres, I take it.

Mr. DAVIS. There have been many Government men on that project ever since it was started; they know every person out there, and every foot of the land, and it is the height of their ambition to make this project a going, paying, live one.

The CHAIRMAN. Is not that particular area scattered with monuments of abandoned places with little houses left by people who could not make a go of it and moved away; and those who made a go of it have had the benefit of stock ranges?

Mr. DAVIS. It makes one sick at heart to see the abandoned homes in that area.

Mr. WINTER. How much stock grazing is there in that area?

Mr. DAVIS. It is a spring and fall set-up for stock. We have mountain pastures.

Mr. WINTER. How much stock are you going to raise on 160 acres of land?

Mr. DAVIS. Over the district they will raise more stock than now when each settler has only three or four head of cattle.

Mr. WINTER. Those are for his own domestic use, they are used to produce milk. I am thinking of raising stock on the open range. Mr. DAVIS. That will be changed.

The CHAIRMAN. There is a great deal of range in the snowy areas and the rugged country to the east. Sheepmen have fallen into the practice of grazing their herds in the forests and they have to come off about October 1. This abandoned area of sagebrush is fertile but it is arid, and it is a fine place to hold these great bands of sheep and feed them in winter. A great wool-growing industry has grown up in this area. The land is utilized in that way as a holding place for these flocks, an economical unit of which is 2,000 sheep. A man may have anywhere from 2 to 40 or 50 bands. They ship them on the railroads and move them to the grazing lands and back again and hold them in the winter. That is one way this land is utilized, but that does not make for a proper settlement of a community.

Mr. DAVIS. Yes; one may drive for hours and see nothing but sheep tracks.

The CHAIRMAN. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Dworshak, of Idaho. Mr. DWORSHAK. I appreciate that, in your official position, you have a profound interest in the success and permanency of the development of the Columbia Basin project, and I am wondering how you contemplate the objectives of H. R. 6522. It is one thing to put water upon land and reclaim it, making it produce good crops; it is another thing to adopt radical innovations in connection with our successful reclamation laws and to permit the Farm Security Administration to be almost solely responsible for the settlement of those fertile acres. Do you realize the scope of this contemplated legislation?

Mr. DAVIS. Yes; I am sure I do.

Mr. DWORSHAK. You have been interested in this matter for more time, no doubt.

Mr. DAVIS. Yes; that is true.

Mr. DWORSHAK. I suppose you can tell me who sponsored this pending bill.

Mr. DAVIS. I would not know how to answer that. I contacted many people who were interested in it in the State of Washington.

Mr. DWORSHAK. Who really brought in the provisions of H. R. 6522? I observe that our distinguished chairman is named as the author of this bill, but perhaps the conservation department of the State of Washington has had a vital and important part in the drafting of this bill. Can you tell me anything about that?

Mr. DAVIS. I would not say that. We have been contacted many times in connection with the provisions of this bill, and we know all about it.

Mr. DWORSHAK. Who is responsible for drafting H. R. 6522-the Farm Security Administration, the Department of the Interior, the Bureau of Reclamation, the Department of Agriculture, or who else? Mr. DAVIS. I cannot answer that question.

Mr. DWORSHAK. You have told us that your irrigation districts have been contacted in connection with this matter, as I understand.

69725-42 -8

Mr. DAVIS. Yes; that is true.

Mr. DWORSHAK. Who has been contacting you?

Mr. DAVIS. My contact in connection with this matter has been with the Bureau of Reclamation here.

Mr. DWORSHAK. It is vitally interested in this matter, of course. Mr. DAVIS. Yes.

Mr. DWORSHAK. Has the Bureau of Reclamation contacted the three irrigation districts involved?

Mr. DAVIS. Yes.

Mr. DWORSHAK. Referring particularly to the resettlement and colonization features of this bill, have you no knowledge of the innovations contained therein, so far as it is comparable with the reclamation policies that have been in effect for the last 40 years?

Mr. DAVIS. I would not say that we know that this plan will work thoroughly satisfactorily. We are out there, we know the situation, and the different agencies designated in connection with this work have contacted us. This is, however, in the last analysis, your baby here.

Mr. DWORSHAK. No; that is not true. The people vitally concerned in the reclaiming of the land in the Columbia Basin project are the citizens in the State of Washington. If it should be unsuccessful, if these innovations are applied and prove unsuccessful, and embarrassing, it will not be Members of the Congress nor the members of this committee who will be affected to the greatest extent; but it will be the people in your district, whose great concern it is to develop that project as part of our reclamation development.

Mr. DAVIS. Yes.

Mr. DWORSHAK. Is that right?

Mr. DAVIS. Yes.

The people of Washington are not coming here and telling you gentlemen who are putting up millions of dollars for such work, among other important work, how to do this job. We think you understand it thoroughly and will do the best by us.

Mr. DWORSHAK. But if the Farm Security Administration should take over responsibility for this settlement and it should not work out successfully and satisfactorily, you would come here and tell us that a blunder had been made and that we should readjust the situation and make remedial provisions for a correction.

Mr. DAVIS. Yes. If you want to get rid of that responsibility, turn the money for the development of this project over to us, and we will gladly assume full responsibility.

Mr. DWORSHAK. In furthering that development, would you adhere to the reclamation requirements of the past, which provided that a man must have had successful training and have financial resources before he would be permitted to locate on this land; would you follow that course?

Mr. DAVIS. If you set up a new plan

Mr. DWORSHAK. You have said that, if we want to shift the responsibility for this development, we could turn the money for the development of this project over to you and you would supervise it and assume all responsibility in connection with it. Would you adhere to those principles of reclamation that have been so successful in the past, or would you make some radical innovations?

Mr. DAVIS. If you are seriously considering this, give us a little time to answer such an important question. We would have to think seriously before answering such a question. We would certainly try to develop that area soundly so that we would be sure, so far as possible, that it would be successful. Above everything else, we would not want an unsuccessful project.

Mr. DWORSHAK. I assume that you would be very reluctant and cautious in accepting or adopting these radical innovations in connection with this bill; because you have stated that, if you were supervising the expenditure of this money and the development of this program, you would be careful not to do anything that would jeopardize the success of this entire project.

Mr. DAVIS. I do not want to be in the position of-I am not too

keen

Mr. DWORSHAK. I think you are. I know your good background. Mr. DAVIS. I might give a bad answer.

Mr. DWORSHAK. I think you are well qualified to answer these questions.

Mr. DAVIS. We want to be highly cooperative and faithfully work with the plans you gentlemen may set up. We believe this plan will work successfully.

Mr. DWORSHAK. Do you not think that it is your responsibility and the responsibility of the people of your section of the country to see that only sound, logical principles are applied to the development of this Columbia Basin project? If that procedure is not followed, will they not suffer greater disadvantages rather than those suffered by Members of the Congress or the Federal Government itself?

Mr. DAVIS. There is something you may not know about this project. The Department has taken this project and assumed that we are colonizing it. Theoretically, they have put people on the project. They have encountered the problems they believe people will meet in settling and making homes. They have divided those problems into 28 parts. In other words, there are 28 different problems that have been considered. Experienced, well-trained men have worked on these problems, and they have tried to calculate, as best as possible, exactly what the settlers will run into.

Mr. DWORSHAK. Who did that?

Mr. DAVIS. It has been done.

Mr. DWORSHAK. It has been done by whom?

Mr. WARNE. That has been done by the joint investigations. It has been done by 40 different Government and other agencies, including the Department of Conservation and Development of the State of Washington.

Mr. DWORSHAK. Including the Farm Security Administration? Mr. WARNE. Including the Farm Security Administration and the Bureau of Reclamation. I am codirector of the general set-up of the plan. The Bureau of Reclamation has had an important part in the direction of some of these studies. The Department of Agriculture also has taken a prominent part in many of them. Every agency of Government having to do with this matter has taken part in the framing of this plan. In order to show the character and scope of these joint investigations, which have provided an unique example of cooperative action, I submit the following statement: