DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF THE FLORIDA CANAL


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painless, pregnant, and persuasive scheme to dull the effect of this responsi-
bility, but the responsibility remains; it is inherent in the text of the resolution,
as any realistic analysis of it must disclose.
 In the first place, the effort was made to tie these two projects together and
to make them sink or swim together. There is no relationship whatsoever be-
tween Maine and Florida in respect to these undertakings; there is no inherent
reason whatsoever why the decision upon them should have to be joint, and
I cannot escape the conclusion that the purpose of putting them together--and
I remind the Senate that the Commerce Committee declined to let me separate
them in the committee-was so that both could jointly "gang up" on the
Treasury when alone they could not hope to succeed.
 The able Senator from Maine [Mr. Hale], in his statement yesterday, asked for
a division of the question, and I compliment him for the courageous statement
he made in that connection. At least, the question is now to be divided so that
each of these undertakings shall stand upon its own merits.
 Secondly, looking at the resolution, which is now offered in the form of an
amendment, it adroitly avoids raising the main issue. Instead it innocently
seems to invite what is merely an expert survey; it seems to be merely the
authorization of a quest for information, and, of course, who, from the face
of the record of this session, could be less opposed to a quest for information
than the junior Senator from Michigan? But, Mr. President, I will show that
the quest for information is almost inevitably a direct delegation of power to
six unnamed engineers to decide for us what the answer of the Senate is upon
its own responsibility in respect to these two undertakings.
 Mr. President, you will forgive me for being a little suspicious of these
 Presidential boards. I speak in no sense of reflection upon anybody's motives;
 but human nature is human nature. I know they never could get a board that
 would approve the Florida canal with finality until one day they thought of
 the scheme of appointing a special board of review by the President. They
 appointed the board, and they got exactly the report they expected and wanted.
 I cannot forget as to Quoddy, after every other instrumentality of the Gov-
 ernment had said "'no'; this thing is unjustified", that when the political
 necessity arose to pour a little money into Maine there was a Presidential board
 appointed to survey Quoddy, and they got exactly the report they expected and
 exactly the report they wanted.
 To he perfectly frank, I do not think much of these Presidential boards, and
 I cannot escape the conviction that the Presidential boards contemplated
 by the pending amendment inevitably will say that the projects are grand and
 the projects will be built; and I think any Senator confronting the realistic
 situation must use his vote in that contemplation.
 Mr. President, I understand that a special Presidential board on Quoddy
 was appointed 2 or 3 weeks ago, and I understand that the report at this
 moment is upon the desk of the President. I do not know whether that is
 the board which will be named under this amendment; I do not know whether
 or not that is the report which is to be conveniently produced on July 20;
 but I know that is the fact, and I state it as the fact.
 That is another reason why you will forgive me, Mr. President, for being
 suspicious of the amendment. I think the purpose of the amendment is to
 produce an indirect approval for Quoddy and the ship canal, when the pro-
 ponents of these undertakings know that they cannot get a straight-out affirm-
 ative approval by the Congress. But they have it fixed now so that these proj-
 ects never again have to come back to Congress for action during the years;
 they have it fixed now so that the moment the President, who is partial to
 these enterprises, has appointed his particular investigators and they have
 made their particular response, the Congress is irrevocably committed to con-
 tinue the expenditures upon both undertakings. The proponents of these proj-
 ects are not going to take any more chances with a Congress which has flatly
 declined to have anything to do with either one of the projects whenever it
 has had.a chance to meet the issue squarely.
 I think it requires no very extravagant use of the imagination to contem-
 plate the character of the reports called for by the amendment if the reports
 already made are not actually available somewhere. The distinguished Senator
 from Florida [Mr. Fletcher], who is revered by everyone in this Chamber,
 read this morning from a letter or an interview or a statement of some sort
 made by Secretary of War Dern. Mr. Dern said: "The canal is feasible and
 worth while."