404 DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF THE FLORIDA CANAL

 KARLY WOMn DMALT ONLY WITH PaoPO ED LOCK CANAL
 Early in 1982, nearly 2 years before the Corps of Engineers had completed
 their survey, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation was formed, having power,
 among other things, to lend money for self-liquidating public works. On the
 theory that the Florida ship canal would charge tolls which would eventually
 pay for it, the association applied to the R. F. C. for a loan to be made to some
 public corporation such as B. F. C. might approve. This was midsummer 1982.
 Before IB F. C. got into action a new administration came into power at
 Washington. The Public Works Administration was formed, and the power of
 R. F. C. over loans for public works was transferred to P. W. A. In the mean-
 time the Legislature of Florida had created a ship canal authority and adopted
 a memorial to the President urging the construction of the canal. General
 Summerall was made chairman of the ship canal authority, with four other
 members representing the four major sections of Florida. The authority asked
 P. W. A. for a loan to build the canal.
 Secretary Ickes, as Chief of P. W. A., appointed his own engineers to make
 their own physical and economic survey. October 19, 1983, they made their
 report. The project was feasible, sound economically and from an engineering
 standpoint, and a public necessity. The P. W. A. engineering board recom-
 mended that the loan be made.
 The Army engineers made their report on December 30, 1933. Both reports
 agreed on the feasibility and the benefits of the canal, but the Army's estimate
 of cost was $190,000,000 and that of P. W. A. but $115,000,000. The 10
 Senators from the 5 Gulf States saw both reports, and all signed a Joint peti-
 tion to the President asking him to appoint a board of review to try to reconcile
 the two conflicting reports.
 Both were still talking about a lock canaL
 In May 1984 the President appointed a board of review-two Army engineer
 officers, two engineers named by P. W. A., the four choosing the fifth. The board
 did a real Job. It went to Florida, studied the project, went over the route, set
 a new group of geologists to study the possible effect of the canal on the State's
 water supply, and on the strength of their study reported to the President these
 conclusions:
 1. That it would be cheaper and more efficient to dig and to operate a sea-
 level canal than the lock canal contemplated by previous surveys and estimates.
 They fixed the cost at $142,700,000.
 2 That there was no likelihood of any impairment of the fresh-water supply
 of any part of Florida from a sea-level canal, either by possible lowering of the
 water table or by seepage of sea water into the subterranean fresh-water
 channels.
 3. That the economic benefits to the Nation as a whole would justify an ex-
 penditure of $100,000,000, which would cover interest during construction and
 all other costs, exclusive of the land required for the right-of-way.

 SPECIAL BOARD UBGES THAT THE CANAL BE O(NBTBUCTED
 The State of Florida, in the meantime, having authorized the counties through
 which the canal would run to bond themselves for the purchase of the right-of-
 way, and the entire right-of-way having been pledged to be so purchased and
 presented to the Nation, the President's board of review recommended on June
 28, 1934, that the canal be built
 One question remained, and the President asked it. "Can the canal collect tolls
 enough from ships using it to pay the costs?"
 No inland waterway ever built or improved under a rivers and harbors apppro-
 priation has ever charged tolls. The Panama Canal, lying entirely outside of
 the United States, is the only important waterway under United States control
 on which tolls are charged. All others are "general welfare" projects.
 The board got busy on a new economic survey. It figured that whereas the
bulk of traffic through the Florida Straits at present, and for some years to come,
is oil tankers, the oil reserves of the United States and Mexico may peter out in
the next 15 or 20 years. Therefore the board was not willing to predict what
might happen to Gulf-Atlantic traffic by the time a 50-year bond issue on the
canal matured.
 That board declined to commit itself so far into the future in the supplemen-
tary report it made to the President on September 15, 1934. That report took the
canal out of the class of self-liquidating projects, to which the authority of