278 DOCUMxER ABY HISTORY O THE FLORDA CA1AL

 Florida canal has been discussed for 50 or 100 years and it never reached any
 semblance of fruition until this emergency power of the President became avail-
 able to start the thing without any congressional scrutiny.
 The first time that the project shows up In Washington currently is when an
 B. F. loan is sought on the basis of a self-liquidating project. The application
 is referred to Secretary Ickes and the P. W. A. Secretary Ickes makes a com-
 plete survey of the situation aadrejects it as not being a sel-liquidating project.
 His report is that on a basis of 8 cents toll it could not pay its way and amortize
 itself at any rate of interest. Using his colloquialism, when he appeared before
 our committee, he dismissed it as "a bad business proposition."
 When it failed in Secretary Ickes' Department it then turned up through the
 President and his emergency relief appropriation and an order to General Mark-
 ham, who becomes his contractor. General Markham had no part whatever in
 the designation of the project for the purpose of beginning construction. He is
 just an agent.
 Now, the President had all of these boards' reports Senator Fletcher refers to.
 The President had the benefit of the reports of the Department of Commerce to
 which Senator Fletcher refers. Evidently, however, most of these reports did
 not make much of an impression upon him. The Department of Commerce said
 the consensus of opinion of that part of the shipping industry with which con-
 tact has been established in the preparation of this study appears to be that the
 probable cost of building a projected waterway is not justified through any ben-
 efits which might thereby accrue to cargo or vessels. That is the statement of
 the Department of Commerce.
 Now, when I read that to General Markham before our committee upstairs, he
 said he could not understand why they would not use the canal if it was built.
 I will quote further from the reports of the Department of Commerce to
 indicate one of the reasons why they will not use it.
 A single question which has been generally raised relates to the length of time
 a vessel would be confined to restricted waters. It has been pointed out by ship
 operators that the proposed waterway would be practically twice as long as the
 world's longest canal, the Sues, and, roughly, 36 to 40 hours would be required to
 move vessels from open waters to open waters over this distance. The question
 reflects directly the reluctance of those responsible for the operation of the ships
 to have them confined to restricted waters.
 I recall when the St. Lawrence seaway was in argument, one of the great
 things urged against it was that ships would positively not transit a waterway
 that had 40 miles of restricted water out of 1,200 miles.
 Senator Corma.An I think I argued that myself.
 Senator VANwmNBm. Yes; this waterway has 200 miles of restricted water out
 of 200 miles.
 Now, bearing upon the question of whether or not the conclusions of the
 Department of Commerce are justified, I simply relate this further circumstance
 for what it is worth. When this scheme was first proposed to the Board of
 Rivers and Harbors engineers in 1933 they sent out a questionnaire to some 65
 ship operators, the major operators in Florida and Gulf waters, and they asked
 them what their attitude would be respecting (1) the use of this canal if built
 and (2) its economic justification.
 Out of 65 operators they found 9 in 1983 who answered the hypothetical ques-
 tion affirmatively in some degree, so that they were able to say that they had
 found 9 operators out of 65 who would use the canal. *
 In 1935, after the canal has ceased to be a mere abstract discussion of an
 idea and has become a specific prospective canal, I asked the same 65 ship
 operators (1) whether they considered it economically justified, and all 9 of the
 ship operators who had said "yes" in 1983 to the hypothetical question said
 "no" in 1935 to the practical question.
 In addition to those nine, with one single exception, I failed to find a ship
 operator who looked with any favor whatsoever upon the prospective use of the
 canal.
 Now, referring again to the Commerce committee's survey-the Commerce
 Department's survey-and this bears upon the type of economic justification
 which is argued for this thing-it is argued hypothetically that, if every ship
 that might have used the canal to get from the Atlantic to the Gulf in 1981
 had used it. if every one of them had used it, they would fnd a navigation
 saving of $6,187,50.
 Now, out of that 86,000,000, according to the Commerce Department report,
 fully half-yes, much more than half--4,500,000 would accrue to the oil
tankers. That is $4,100,000 to American tankers and $400,000 to foreign tankers,