316 DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF THE FLORIDA CANAL

 engineers and must have had experts and engineers before it and must have
 obtained full and complete data from the engineering staff of the Army.
 Mr. VAOasruna. Let me tell the Senator Just what the committee had before
 It. That is a very pertinent Inquiry. In the first place, let me remind the
 Senator that this project was not before the Commerce Committee, which has
 legitimate jurisdiction of the question of whether or not the canal should be
 built. The Commerce Committee has never once passed upon the question.
 The nearest the Commerce Committee ever came to it was to appoint a sub-
 committee to decide whether or not a resolution of inquiry which I introduced
 ought or ought not to be adopted.
 We are not talking about the Commerce Committee when I reply to the Sena.
 tor's question. We are talking about the Appropriations Committee, which has
 no legitimate jurisdiction whatsoever over the question of whether or not the
 waterway ought to be built There never has been a decision or any sort of
 recommendation as to this project by the committee of the Senate with appro.
 private jurisdiction. I submit to the Senator that even if it were a small
 casual expenditure, that would be a challenging expenditure, but when It is a
 $200,000,000 expenditure potentially, it is so utterly challenging that I fail to
 understand how any Senator can overlook it.
 Let me answer the Senator's question. He asks what the Appropriations
 Committee had to aid It and upon which to base its decision. It had two very
 partisan statements by laymen, one by a very partisan friend of the project,
 my very able and distinguished and beloved friend, the senior Senator from
 Florida [Mr. Fletcher], and a statement from an equally partisan adversary.
 I happened to be testifying at that particular moment.
 General Markham sat there as a sort of immobile umpire, embarrassed to say
 too much about what he really thought of the project. I do not want to put
 any suspicions in his head, but I could not help but wonder, as I looked at him
 that day, after having read the record of the Hagood case, whether any engi-
 neering officer of the Government could be relied upon to be a free witness when
 discussing the validity of an Executive expenditure. But there he was! He
 had no testimony whatsoever to offer respecting the inherent merits of the
 undertaking except to say that he was the contractor hired by the P. W. A. to
 build the canal, and that so far as he was concerned he proposed to build it,
 and that he wanted so much money for this year's portion.
 Without any exaggeration, that is the extent of the committee consideration
 which this $200,000,000 proposition has received at the hands of any committee
 in the Senate-<When I subsequently give the Senator some of the testimony
 which I have taken the trouble to collect to show how utterly fabulous are
 the pretenses that there is any economic justification, he will, indeed, wish that
 he could have the recommendation of some expert upon which to base his
 Judgment.
 Mr. President, let us see about this canal and whether It Is Justified. The
 proponents of the canal have constantly referred to the fact that the Depart-
 ment of Commerce made a survey and are constantly intimating that they are
 relying upon the recommendations in the report of the Department of Com-
 merce for the economic justification which they plead in behalf of affirmative
 Senate action this afternoon.
 Mr. President, it happens that the report of the Department of Commerce
 has been exceedingly difficult to obtain, because It was never printed. It is a
 very voluminous affair involving nearly a 5-foot bookshelf. I laboriously went
 through the report of the Department of Commerce when Secretary Roper very
 kindly made it available to me at my request. In the voluminous presentation
 of the problem by the Department of Commerce-mark you, we have already
 had the Department of the Interior turning thumbs down upon the project, and
 now we are over in the Department of Commerce-what does the Department of
Commerce say about it? I quote:
 "The consensus of opinion of that part of the shipping industry with which
contact has been established in the preparation of this study appears to be that
the probable cost of building the projected waterway is not justified through
any benefits which might thereby accrue to the cargo or the vesseL"
 The decision of the Department of Commerce is that the project is not Justified
in terms of economic advantage to ships and shipping.
 I continue quoting:
 "The significance of this is that it rests primarily upon the considered opinion
of the principal and naturally most interested group, namely, the tanker trade."