has been no effort to prevent a comprehensive plan, as has been done in the case of the Sacramento River.

The CHAIRMAN. The fact remains that as far as this project is concerned, it is not for the San Joaquin River at all. It may, however, stop the flow of water down through the valley.

Mr. MCCLATCHY. That is right.

Mr. CURRY. The waters of the San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers intermingle and flow in and around the islands of their common delta for 30 or 40 miles, and this work that is being done on the mouth of the Sacramento River will also help to improve the conditions on the San Joaquin.

Mr. BOOHER. But there is no part of this money to be expended for flood protection now along the San Joaquin River other than the incidental protection that will result from the improvement of the Sacramento River.

Mr. TAYLOR. Is there any amount of débris on the San Joaquin River?

Mr. CURRY. No; not like there is on the Sacramento.

Mr. SHINN [indicating on the map]. The plan here is to cut off some of the channels that break across from one river to the other. Here is Three Mile Slough, a very heavy stream, that breaks across. A large amount of the channel of the San Joaquin there is filled up with sand that has been carried through from the Sacramento River. This plan proposes to cut that Three Mile Slough off.

Mr. CURRY. This will incidentally assist the San Joaquin project materially. Of course, the report of the board of Army Engineers will contain a recommendation that an appropriation be included in the rivers and harbors bill, and that will dovetail right into this plan. Now, I think that all of the appropriation called for in H. R. 9913 $400,000-will be absolutely necessary. Maj. Cheney would use all that money and needs it all, and he has said to me and to the board that he will need that money. On the second page of that bill there is a typographical error, the amount being given as $100,000 instead of $400,000.

So far as the bill H. R. 9912 is concerned, we want the approval of that proposition so our State board can go ahead and provide for the by-passes and the work on the weirs. I do not know whether they want all of the $400,000 at this session of Congress or whether they want less.

The CHAIRMAN. Of course, that is something we could ascer

tain

Mr. CURRY. Yes; from the Army engineers. I wish to impress on the committee the absolute nosessity, if this plan is to be carried out, of approving this system at this session of Congress, so the State board can go ahead and do the work. There is not one dollar of the Government's or State's money that is to be used for anything except to improve the navigability of the river.

The CHAIRMAN. Of course, that is the opinion of the engineers, but we have to draw an arbitrary line somewhere. What do you think the Government should expend in developing navigation on the river? That is one of the questions we have to decide-the committee first, and Congress afterwards; if we reach that point, we have to decide for ourselves how much we think the development of the navigability of the river will require of us.

On its face it appears now quite expensive to spend five or six million dollars to develop that much commerce, because that is all there is at present in sight. A very important question would be whether we could not get this work done and reach the same end by the expenditure of a much less sum of money. I do not mean permanently improve the river, as they say there, but whether in the course of years we could not attain the same end in some other way. Mr. CURRY. This proposition has been considered by the State of California, by the Congress of the United States, and by the Engineer Corps of the Army for the past 30 years, and no other cheaper plan has so far been recommended or suggested.

The CHAIRMAN. I will say that there has been no plan presented as full and complete as this. This is one of the most comprehensive plans for the development of a river and controlling floods that has been presented to Congress at any time. However, the point we are dealing with and the point we will be called upon to decide is the question of navigation.

Mr. CURRY. That is all we want Congress to appropriate the amount that Congress and this committee think is their just share and proportion of the cost of maintenance of navigation. Congress is not going to be called upon to appropriate one dollar for a levee or a by-pass, nor for the condemnation or acquirement of property. It is not going to be called upon to spend one dollar for the maintenance of the proposition after it is completed. All we want Congress to do is to help us put that river back in a navigable condition-to spend its share of the money on the mouth of the river, to straighten it, to rectify it, and put it in proper shape, and the State of California and the individual property owners are doing and will do their share.

Now, if there is any cheaper plan than that, I have not heard of it. If there is a more comprehensive plan, I have not seen it. We are willing to spend the money, but we can not spend it until you approve this proposition, so we want you to appropriate the amount you think is right, after consulattion with the engineers who recommend this plan to you and to us. I am satisfied that those gentlemen would not recommend anything they did not have confidence in. I do not believe there is a State in the Union that has better laws looking toward the cooperation of the citizens and the Government than the State of California. We have tried, as far as possible, to separate and segregate the different elements of this proposition and we do not want this committee or Congress to appropriate one dollar for anything except to assist us to do what you think is your share toward putting this river back in the condition it was before the débris went

into it.

So far as the reclamation of the land is concerned, the owners will care for it. So far as the rectification of the river is concerned, California will do one-half of it, and we will care for it after it is placed in the condition it was in originally. If there is anything else that Congress or this committee think we ought to do, we stand ready and willing to do it, but we are very much interested in having this plan approved by this committee at this session of Congress. If there is any question you gentlemen would like to ask, I should be very glad to undertake to answer it.

The CHAIRMAN. I have not any.

Mr. CURRY. We have finished, with the exception that Judge Raker would like very much to address the committee. He represents the northern edge of the Sacramento Valley. I do not suppose it would be possible for the committee to give him a hearing, but if they could we would appreciate it.

The CHAIRMAN. Of course any time Mr. Raker desires he can be heard. If he prefers to file a statement with the committee, we should be glad to have him do that.

Mr. CURRY. Then it is understood that if Mr. Raker wants to be heard the committee will hear him at some future time?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, sir. We are very glad to have heard you gentlemen.

Mr. CURRY. We thank you for your kindness in listening to us. The CHAIRMAN. Now, if you gentlemen will kindly give us the room, the committee desires to have an executive session.

Mr. CURRY. Mr. Chairman, we do not desire to detain the committee, but Mr. Hayes, of California, would like to add a few words to what has been said.

STATEMENT OF HON. EVERIS A. HAYES, A MEMBER OF CONGRESS FROM CALIFORNIA.

Mr. HAYES. The only thing I would like to call attention to is the fact that this is not the ordinary case of improvement of a river. I presume, however, that has been emphasized sufficiently by the other gentlemen. During the early years of the State of California, the Sacramento River was filled up with débris, and the State of California was powerless to prevent it, because the United States owned the land which was being washed into it. It took us many years to get the Government of the United States to understand the position in which we were, so that we could stop the hydraulicking and washing of the hills down into the Sacramento Valley. I feel, therefore, that the Government of the United States owes to the people of California a somewhat different duty than it does to the people affected by the ordinary river.

The CHAIRMAN. Who did most of that washing there?.

Mr. HAYES. That was done by the miners, of course.

The CHAIRMAN. Who were the miners?

Mr. HAYES. They were men who came there from all over the country, from everywhere.

The CHAIRMAN. It was not California people alone?

Mr. HAYES. Oh, no; they were mostly foreigners that started in there.

I might state also that the gold that came out as a result of the hydraulicking and sluicing was almost a necessity to the Government of the United States, because in the early sixties the Government would have had difficulty in paying the interest on its bonds in gold except for the $50,000,000 or $60,000,000 a year that came out of California. The trouble came largely after the sixties, when they used these "long Toms," as they called them, to wash the hills away. That was the thing the people of California objected to, and it was impossible for them to protect themselves.

Mr. HUMPHREYS of Mississippi. But whether the people of California objected or not, and whether they desired it or not, the fact

is it was the Federal Government's exclusive business to see that navigation on that river was not destroyed.

Mr. HAYES. That is right.

Mr. HUMPHREYS of Mississippi. And if it failed to do it, it was its fault.

Mr. HAYES. Yes; and the damage has been done. The fact I want to emphasize is that it is a case that has a little larger equities than the case of an ordinary improvement of a river.

Mr. TAYLOR. Was not that sluicing necessary in order to get that gold?

Mr. HAYES. Certainly. There is a lot of that gold there yet.
The CHAIRMAN. How do you get it out now?

Mr. HAYES. We are not getting it. The damages more than offset the results, so far as our State is concerned.

Mr. TAYLOR. The State of California is not looking for gold? Mr. HAYES. The products of the soil are so much greater than the products of the mines

Mr. TAYLOR. You find the soil of this valley more valuable than the gold?

Mr. HAYES. Absolutely. And the gold when it is gone is gone forever, while we will always have the soil.

Mr. TAYLOR. Have you any idea of the amount of gold produced in California?

Mr. HAYES. It runs up into the hundreds of millions. It is the leading State to-day.

Mr. TAYLOR. I know that. I wanted to know if I wanted to know if you had any data by which you could show the value of the gold produced compared with the value of what you are doing there now.

Mr. HAYES. During the Civil War there were years when the product of the California mines exceeded $60,000,000 in a single year. It ran all the way from $30,000,000 to $60,000,000 a year.

Mr. BURGESS. Is there just one gold-producing section in California?

Mr. HAYES. All along the mountains. You can get the gold in almost any section there in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Mr. HUMPHREY of Washington. Is it not a fact that there is still some hydraulic mining done there? I am under the impression that I saw it on a recent visit to California.

Mr. CURRY. I think you must be mistaken in that, for the reason that no hydraulic mining is permitted along the Sacramento or its immediate tributaries. Hydraulic mining is only allowed in California when permission is obtained from the California Débris Commission, a national commission of Army engineers, and they do not grant permits to hydraulic where the débris can ultimately find its way into a navigable stream. What I think you saw and what you thought was hydraulic mining was dredge mining.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON RIVERS AND HARBORS,

Washington, D. C., January 12, 1914.

The committee met at 10.30 o'clock, a. m., Hon. Stephen M. Sparkman (chairman) presiding.

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN E. RAKER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Raker, you may proceed.

Mr. RAKER. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, the matter I desire to present briefly to the committee, in addition to what has already been presented, is in relation to House Document No. 5 (63d Cong., 1st sess.) and House Document No. 81 (62d Cong., 1st sess.), known as the Sacramento and San Joaquin River systems in California, asking that the Congress adopt the plan provided for in House Document No. 5, which is a correction or modification of. House Document No. 81 (62d Cong., 1st sess.); and that at the present time a reasonable appropriation be made to carry out the work already started under appropriations heretofore made by Congress of $400,000 by the Government and of $400,000 by the State of California, in relation to the beginning of the work in dredging down at the mouth of the Sacramento River.

There are many matters connected with this project and a great number of them have been, I believe, quite fully presented to the committee, and to a large extent the committee is quite familiar with the necessity of the improvement of the Sacramento River for the purpose of navigation. This project, of course, involves necessarily three things, as it is almost impossible to do one without doing the others, namely, it involves the question of flood control, débris control, and the improvement of the navigability of the river. As to the question of flood control, a great part of it, as has been shown by the reports here, is handled by private individuals after it has gone through and over the weirs and down through the by-passes and also the proper leveeing and the proper protecting of the banks of the river.

The débris control is a question that is necessarily involved because the sediment or silt, whichever you desire to call it, is to a large extent in the river, and there must be some way to eliminate that from the river before its navigability can be made what it was in the early days from 1849 up until 1870.

Then comes the question of navigation. Of course, those things having been done, navigation can be kept in proper shape. One of the reasons for the river not being navigable as it should be-and it has been so for the last 20 years -has been occasioned by virtue of the débris or silt coming from the mountains, a great part of it occasioned by early mining in California. I want to say parenthetically that as a boy and from boyhood up to manhood and at the present time my knowledge of the general conditions there has been somewhat intimate, as for 35 years I have been over practically all the counties and the rivers and tributaries of the Sacramento River. I have observed in the early days a great deal of the mining and have observed the cessation of it since the litigation that arose in California. I think it is well I should state that practically all the territory rep