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TENNESSEE RIVER ABOVE CHATTANOOGA, TENN.

COMMITTEE ON RIVERS AND HARBORS,
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
Washington, D. C., January 20, 1914.

The committee met at 10.45 o'clock a. m., Hon. Stephen M. Sparkman (chairman) presiding.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Austin has a matter here that he is desirous of talking about.

STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD W. AUSTIN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TENNESSEE.

Mr. AUSTIN. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I desire to ask favorable consideration of the recommendation of the Chief of Engineers in reference to the improvement of the Tennessee River, found on page 964 of Volume I of the Annual Report of the Chief of Engineers for 1913. The language of the report is as follows:

It is recommended that the sum of $150,000 be provided for the fiscal year 1915 for work of improvements, to be applied to purchase of necessary floating plants, dredging rock excavations, and dyke construction; and that contracts be authorized for the entire balance of the estimate for the completion of the lock and dam at Caney Creek Shoals, viz, $1,285,000. The appropriation recommended is for the extension of benefits and also to make the improvements available.

Gentlemen, the bill which you reported and which became a law on July 25, 1912, adopted a project for slack-water navigation on the Tennessee River, and this item to which I have called attention is applicable to the upper division of the river, known as the division. between Chattanooga and Knoxville. There was incorporated in the rivers and harbors bill approved March 4, 1913, $510,000 for the first lock and dam in the project adopted, known as the Harts project. We spent last year trying to find a suitable foundation upon which to build this first lock and dam, and after spending several months and a little over $10,000 the division engineer has succeeded in finding a suitable place. He has made his report to the Chief of Engineers, and that report has been approved. The next step in that improvement is a survey of the lands that will be affected, damaged, or destroyed as a result of the construction of this lock and dam. This is known as the Caney Creek Shoals. It is a few miles below Kingston, Tenn., in Roane County. It is about 150 miles below Knoxville, Tenn. The construction of that dam will give us slackwater navigation all the year around up to Harriman, on the Emery River, a tributary of the Tennessee River.

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We hope to tap a coal field there and lower the present railroad freight rates on coal between the coal fields and Knoxville, Lenoir City, Loudon, and other river points. The present coal rate is 50 cents a ton on steam coal to Knoxville by rail to the nearest mine. It is 75 cents a ton on soft or steam coal to Loudon, and the same to Lenoir City, about 60 miles from the nearest coal field. It is $1.25 a ton to Louisville on the Tennessee River. We selected this first lock and dam because it will enable us to have slack-water navigation, and we can utilize the entire upper river when there is any flood or any high water in the river, and boat out coal without waiting for the completion of this entire project. Now, what we wish is to have this committee favorably consider this recommendation by the Chief of Engineers and enable the Secretary of War to endeavor to make a contract for the completion of this entire lock and dam. In letting contracts over on the Ohio River they have been enabled, by having a provision of this kind, to save as much as $100,000 in the construction of a single lock and dam, because they can secure better and lower bids where the contracter bids on the entire project rather than in sections. I am not particularly interested in saving the money, but I know that there are several members of this committee and many Members of Congress that look after those points and value them, perhaps, more than I do. But here is some money that you may be able to save and put on Mr. Humphreys's projects on the Mississippi River, or on any other deserving proposition. I am pointing out how you can save some money on my proposition to use somewhere else, not that I do not want that money to be used in my district

Mr. HUMPHREYS. In other words, what you do not want yourself you want other people to have. You do not want any money spent in your district that can be avoided?

Mr. AUSTIN. I want all I can get.

Mr. EDWARDS. Somebody said the other day that Dick Austin says he has never voted against an appropriation.

Mr. AUSTIN. That is right. I make it a rule never to vote for a tax and never to vote against an appropriation. I want to commend that to my colleagues as a safe platform on which to run. If you run on that platform you can never be beaten.

Mr. HUMPHREY. I suggest to Mr. Austin that his remarks are being taken down.

Mr. AUSTIN. That is right; I want them taken down. I have put the same statement in the Congressional Record, and I want to go on record here with that statement.

The CHAIRMAN. You say that lock and dam is below the Emery River?

Mr. AUSTIN. That is below the Emery River, which comes into the Tennessee River just above Kingston. This will give us slack water at the wharf at Harriman. Here is the Tennessee River [indicating on map]; here is Kingston at this point [indicating]. Now, this dam goes in just below Kingston and backs the water up above Kingston and up to Harriman on the Emery River. Harriman is located at this point on Emery River [indicating on map].

The Louisville & Nashville Railroad, the Southern Railway, and the Cincinnati Southern Railroad reach Harriman. Here are three railroads with which we can make a river connection. Now, we are

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