274 DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF THE FLORIDA CANAL

 Senator FLrcan. My contention is that the Senator admits himself out of
 court when he admits that this authorization is based upon the Relief Act of
 1935 which gave the President absolute authority and power and right in his
 discretion to designate the projects upon which we would begin work and make
 allotments of funds with which work is proceeding. He did that In this case
 and in the case of these five items on page 15, part 2, of the hearings of the
 House committee.
 Now, he exercised his discretion. He exercises the power which Congress
 gave him in designating these as not merely work-relief projects, the authority
 for which came under that act called the Work Relief Act of 1935, but Con-
 gress gave him wide discretion to begin publil-works projects wherever he saw
 fit and proper to do it.
 He took into consideration the matter of employment I will ask General
 Markham about that. This $5,000000 was Intended to apply to the work on
 the canal I think that the general told me at one time he would employ
 25,000 workers on this canal when they got to full speed in full headway, but
 I will ask him about that in a minute.
 But the other proposition that the President has acted here apparently with-
 out any information from the engineers and those who have studied the
 problem is not correct
 In the first place, the act of Congress calling for the survey of a ship canal
 across Florida passed In 1927, directing the Chief of Engineers to make this
 survey. There had been previous surveys and reports on a barge canal not
 necessary to consider here. The Chief of Engineers appointed a board, a special
 board. He did not refer it to the district engineer as with the ordinary usual
 small projects in the rivers and harbors procedure and have the district engi-
 neer report to the division engineer and he to the Board on Rivers and Harbors,
 and then to the Chief of Engineers, and the Chief of Englneers to the Secre-
 tary of War, and the Secretary of War to the House. That was not the pro-
 cedure here. That is not the procedure that prevails in these large projects
 at all.
 He appointed a special board to make this survey and that board spent some
 18 months going into the problem. They took Into their conferences the Com-
 merce Department to ascertain the economic Justification, the amount of traffic
 and business that would pass through the canal, and so forth. They made
 their report to the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors. There it has
 rested, because there were applications made by the proponents of the canal
 in Florida for granting a loan to it by the R. F. C., to put it on a self-liqui-
 dating basis. That was referred, all of those matters from the R. P. C., were
 referred to the P. W. A. The P. W. A. went into the question and with their
 engineers they examined the whole problem as to the justification and as to
 whether or not this security that was offered would be regarded as adequate
 security by them for the loaning of $115,000,000.
 In the survey the special board considered the canal as a lock canal with
 three locks in it. The P. W. A. engineers considered it with two locks, a lock
 canal with two locks. There is a difference between their estimated costs,
 and other items entered into that matter, but that reconciliation seemed to be
 Important to be made to satisfy the President about it, and the Senators from all
 of the Gulf and South Atlantic States joined in a letter to the President asking
 him to appoint a special board of review to reconcile these two reports of these
 different engineers on this canal and to make their own studies and investigate
 the conditions, and make report to him on the question of the Justification and
 proper authorization for this canal.
 That board of review canceled out the lock features entirely from the canal,
 and they reported to the President in favor of a sea-level canal, with a lower
 estimated cost.
 Senator CA~m. What board was that?
 Senator PLFm ni. That was the board of review appointed by the order of
 the President, composed of two Army engineers, two engineers from the
 P. W. A., and a civilian engineer, Mr. Douglas, of New York, who was made
 chairman.
 Now, that board of review reported to the President in favor of a sea-level
 canal as against a lock canal, and made their estimate of cost. That report
 was made on June 28, 1984. That board made a report to the President recom-
 mending the construction of the sea-level canal and estimated its cost at $142,-
 700,000, exclusive of lands and rights-of-way, and interest during construction.
The rights-of-way have been provided by the State.