450 DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF THE FLORIDA CANAL

 That was not entirely satisfactory to the Florida proponents, so they sub-
 mitted a revised plan. The revised plan was sent around by Administrator
 Ickes to the various bureaus for renewed reports.
 February 2 1935, the P. W. A. legal division said "No." April 10, 1935, the
 P. W. A. finance division said "No."
 Secretary Ickes finally declined to reopen the case and the dismissal stands
 today. So far as the official attitude of the Public Works Administration and
 Administrator Ickes is concerned, the project stands today under their con-
 demnation.
 After that there was only one way left by which to get Government money,
 and that was through one of the W. P. A. allocations. Of course, there had to
 be some excuse for making an allocation from the W. P. A. The President
 found himself in precisely the same situation he had confronted in Maine.
 The official bodies of the Government had said, "This will not do. We cannot
 approve it" So there had to be some new authority created in order to set up
 a semblance of justification of some sort. Accordingly provision was made for
 another of these Presidential boards, the kind which are provided in the
 amendment offered by the Senator from Arkansas [Mr. Robinson]. To the
 surprise of nobody, the Presidential board which had been appointed for that
 purpose said it was a grand idea, and promptly $5,000,000 flowed into the canal
 project by allocation of September 3, 1985.
 Mark you, a great deal is said about the Board of Rivers and Harbors Engi-
 neers and their reports in connection with this undertaking, and frequently a
 studied effort is made to make it appear that these official engineering and
 surveying authorities in the War Department have put their stamp of approval
 upon the Florida Canal; but the fact Is-and I quote Gen. G. B. Pillsbury,
 Acting Chief of Engineers, December 21, 1935: "The customary procedure for the
 authorization of river and harbor projects has not been followed in the author-
 ization of this canal."
 Worse!-and this is highly significant, from the same letter-"the review
 of the board has been deferred at the request"-who do you suppose requested
 them to defer this official, formal, final, conclusive finding by the experts of the
 Government of the United States in the War Department? Who do you suppose
 asked them not to let anybody know what they thought about it? I am reading
 General Pillsbury's letter: "The review of the board has been deferred at the
 request of local Florida interests desirous of submitting additional data."
 Mr. President, that report has not been made to this good hour.
 Mr. FLtromm. Mr. President, the matter was then being considered by the
 board of review.
 Mr. VANDENBMBG. That Is not all. The Secretary of War tells me, in a letter
 dated May 25, 1966: "The Florida Canal project is now under formal study
 by the Corps of Engineers, with its customary thoroughness and fairness. The
 next step of that study is a responsibility of the 'special board' to which you
 refer."
 I wonder if the Secretary of War was unwittingly ironical when he used
 the language "Its customary thoroughness and fairness" as he wrote about
 the Florida Canal? The Corps of Engineers has not even conclusively reported
 yet, and we have already sunk millions of dollars in the project; and we
 are asked, indirectly, to put our final stamp of approval on it this afternoon
 through the adoption of an amendment which is sheer camouflage so far as
 relieving the Congress of the United States of its responsibility is concerned.
 Those were the credentials the Florida Canal enjoyed.
 I wish to be fair about the special Board of Review to which the able
 Senator from Florida [Mr. FLromo ] has repeatedly referred, and upon which
 he entirely and exclusively relies for his case. It is the only thing he had
 on which to rely. They did just exactly what the Presidential board in
 Maine did.
 They were not inhibited by any of the facts that had previously been dis-
 closed, nor by any of the recommendations previously made. They drew their
 own picture, and they concluded that the canal was economically Justified in
 this fashion. Now, follow me:
 They counted all the ships that had traversed the area from the Atlantic
 Ocean around Florida to the Gulf in a year; and then they said: "If every
 one of these ships had gone through the Florida Canal, it would have saved
six or seven million dollars in navigation costs."
 That is a very Interesting contemplation, but it is an enormous "if." "If
they had all gone through", there would have been a six- or seven-million-