to us comes as a cooling breeze on a fevered brow. Here is good neighborliness at work and at its best.

We do not feel the slightest amount of terror or concern at this news which has deluged us seriatum. There are those who have seemed to believe that all that is needed to stampede us into endorsing this legislation is to prod us again and again with the reminder that Canada is going to construct the seaway. It is like shouting that "The British are coming." We are supposed to quake or be frozen into rigid position with fear. We say to Canada and all others, "On your way, start digging. This time, somebody else is going to pay the bill."

This Nation is confronted with pyramiding obligations all around the world, economically, militarily, financially, and in any other manner. We are to pay 40 percent of the $300 billion bill for NATO. We are promoting point-4 programs. I note that a House committee is asking the Army engineers pertinent, pointblank questions on how materials have been wasted and great sums totaling some $50 million have been poured "down the drain," to use an expression of the subcommittee chairman.

It has been said that it is necessary to double the cost of anything the Army engineers have anything to do with. Whether this is true would have to remain for supporting evidence.

On the other hand, we do know that the United States, instead of having a surplus is faced with the usual deficit, while Canada is reported to have a handsome $50-per-capita surplus for the present fiscal year. I believe Canada's population is approximately 14 million.

If your committee wants to come up to date on what our own national fiscal situation is, I'll be glad to mention the high spots. We are literally in the ditch without digging another. Six out of every ten of our own families are in the hockshop in one form or another. They are debtors. Two-thirds of that debt is on nonfarm homes, inferring that one-third is on farm homes. Forty-seven percent of nonfarm homes occupied by the owners are mortgaged. Approximately three-fourths of all consumer debt is owed by the 90 percent of families in the lower income groups.

It has been contended that we have to construct a seaway to get more ore to the furnaces. Yet, this campaign never was so frantic as when five or six steel companies suddenly struck it rich with new iron deposits. There are other developments, many of them, going on in Canada today. Nickel-copper is being developed in British Columbia and a 155-mile railway is being built to the point at Prince George from Vancouver. And titanium is being tapped at Allard Lake and lead-zinc deposits on Great Bear Lake and there are others. Why be partial, why not dig some seaways to all these and the others?

As regards cost of a seaway, we find that one estimate is as good or as bad as any other. Whether the deal will ever bail itself out, some say "Yes," some say "No." And as for tolls, some claim they fear that Canada would set rates too high if it constructs the project. Canadians are good businessmen. They are not going to price themselves out of a market which will continue competitive. To conform to the wishes of the committee for brevity, our position can be summed up once more as completely opposed to Senate Joint Resolution 27. The CHAIRMAN. You are not in accord with the CIO then? were here this morning.

They

Mr. RILEY. Let's put it they are not in accord with us. The CHAIRMAN. They came first. That is the reason I asked if you were in accord with them. They came first to the hearing, not they are first over your organization otherwise.

Mr. RILEY. We are not in accord with the CIO on this proposition.

DIVERGENT OPINIONS WITHIN AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR

Senator WILEY. I notice the statement says "George D. Riley, member." There have already been plenty of A. F. of L. statements in the record.

The CHAIRMAN. Member, national legislative committee.

Mr. RILEY. May I get your question straight, Senator Wiley? Senator WILEY. Yes. I notice that this statement of yours says "member."

Mr. RILEY. A member of the National Legislative Committee of the American Federation of Labor.

Senator WILEY. That is right. Where is your office?

Mr. RILEY. 901 Massachusetts Avenue NW., Washington 1, D. C. Senator WILEY. And you know very well that large groups of the A. F. of L. are in favor of this seaway.

Mr. RILEY. Senator, you have given me an opening I hoped you would afford me on this. If I understand your question, you want to remark that certain units of the A. F. of L. are in support of this proposition.

Senator WILEY. Yes.

DEMOCRACY IN LABOR UNIONS

Mr. RILEY. That is quite true. That is democracy at work in a labor union, and I hope that is remembered by those who want to perpetuate Taft-Hartley acts when the statement is made that there is no democracy in unions.

Nine State federations of labor out of a total of 52 State federations of labor have endorsed this proposition. They include Colorado, North and South Dakota, your own State of Wisconsin, Michigan, and one or two others, totaling nine. The great majority of the internationals—I might add, by the way, that one international union out of the total in the American Federation of Labor likewise is in support of this proposition.

All the others in convention assembled and ratified by the Executive Council of the A. F. of L. are on record in opposition to the proposition. Senator WILEY. Have you got the number? Take those nine States, Michigan, Wisconsin, and so on, your total A. F. of L., take the number of people represented by those nine as against the others represented. Mr. RILEY. You are talking about membership?

Senator WILEY. Yes.

Mr. RILEY. I think those figures can be assembled and supplied it the committee would like to have them, and I could also supply those on the other side by States.

Senator WILEY. I meant that.

Mr. RILEY. All right, you want all 52 State federations by numbers. Senator WILEY. Where do you get your 52?

Mr. RILEY. Well, some of the Territories I think are established as State federations. We might say the State Federation of Labor of Hawaii, for example, or Alaska or Puerto Rico.

The CHAIRMAN. What the Senator wants is the number of members in the unions that are for the treaty as opposed to those members in the other States against the treaty.

Mr. RILEY. I am wondering if Senator Wiley has in mind a canvass of this thing.

Senator WILEY. I thought you were to give us here the attitude of the AFL. Now we find the attitude is split. We want to know how big is the split.

Mr. RILEY. I am expressing the attitude and not anybody else. The attitude is the AFL is opposed to this.

The CHAIRMAN. What the Senator means, though, is numbers that are for it as against the numbers that are against it. You can get that, can't you?

Mr. RILEY. I will do my best to get it. It sounds like a rather abstract approach, but if that is what is wanted, I will do my very best to assemble it.

Senator WILEY. That is all.

The CHAIRMAN. Any other questions? You are excused.

Mr. W. D. Johnson, Order of Railway Conductors of America. Where is Mr. Johnson? I talked to him. I know he is opposed to it, but he had better say so for himself.

Mr. W. P. Hedden, director of port development, the Port of New York Authority.

Mr. HEDDEN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. This is a statement which Senator O'Conor submitted. He cannot be here, and I ask that it be put in the record. Senator WILEY. No objection.

(The statement is as follows:)

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE HERBERT R. O'CONOR, UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MARYLAND

One of the propositions upon which there is widespread agreement both among Members of Congress and among thoughtful citizens generally is that costly new undertakings which cannot be thoroughly justified from the defense standpoint should not be undertaken at this time. The critical materials that would be necessary for such projects, and the required manpower, would cut so deeply into present short supplies of both that construction of anything but the most essential nondefense projects would be highly detrimental to the defense effort. Over the past year, there has been developed in congressional hearings on this proposal a voluminous record which has made it possible, by thorough sifting of the evidence, to obtain a better perspective regarding the merits of the project and its limitations.

Careful analysis of this record and of accumulating evidence brought out in other recent studies regarding the seaway, rather than affording any convincing justification for the proposal, points strongly instead to the very dubious desirability of the undertaking either as a matter of security or of any real transportation economy.

This much is absolutely certain. The utter impossibility of shipments through such a proposed waterway during the five winter months, and the vulnerability of the seaway's "bottle neck"-the Welland Canal locks-to hostile attack offer little assurance that the seaway could be maintained on a going basis for any great length of time, should any prospective enemy consider it important enough to sabotage.

On the question of cost, the latest official estimate by the Army engineers, based on conditions in 1950, is that the total cost of a seaway and power project to provide a channel 27 feet deep would amount to $982,175,000. However, the eventual cost of the project would probably prove to be much greater, for sev eral reasons. In the first place, the estimate noted above does not encompass a complete Great Lakes seaway project, inasmuch as it does not include any allowance for the costs of improving harbors on the Great Lakes to accommodate oceangoing vessels. Apart from that omission, moreover, it has not infrequently been true that the actual cost of constructing public works of this general type has been substantially greater than had been indicated by preliminary estimates. Take, for instance, the Welland Canal, which would be such an important part of the St. Lawrence seaway. It was estimated to cost $40,000,000. Actually it cost three times that much, or $120,000,000. Or consider the Bonneville Dam, estimated to cost $42,000,000, actual cost $80,000,000. Expenditures for the Hoover Dam originally were placed at $70,000,000. Total expenditures, however, were $116,000,000. The same drastic rise in costs over estimates has resulted in the Suez Canal, the Panama Canal, the Chicago Drainage Canal, the New York State Barge Canal and practically every other major undertaking of this nature. An even more serious consideration with respect to costs, however, is whether the project as presently envisaged by its sponsors would provide a seaway worthy of the name. It is an established fact that a 27-foot channel would be deep enough to accommodate, when fully loaded for efficient operation, only a small

fraction of the total number of ships in the American merchant fleet-limited to those shallower-draft vessels which comprise less than 10 percent of our ocean going vessels.

If we rule out the great number of American vessels that would be unable to use the St. Lawrence seaway profitably for the reason cited and eliminate all traffic, small or large, American or foreign, that could not use the seaway at all for 5 months of the year, then the estimated Army engineers construction cost would be entirely uneconomical.

Even with such greater costs and limited availability in view, perhaps it might still be concluded as a matter of public policy that the seaway project should be undertaken if the advantages and economies claimed for it by the proponents could be adequately supported. It is precisely at this point, however, that basic infirmities in the contentions advanced by the seaway advocates are found to lie beneath the surface of the glamorous of generalities with which they have sought to surround it.

The present drive to build seaway is centered predominantly on the contention that it will be essential to facilitate the movement of important iron ore into this country, in order to supplement the remaining reserves available in the region of Lake Superior. Actually, this premise with reference to the seaway is unsound, even though our imports of iron ore from foreign sources, including Canada, will increase in the future. But it is not likely at all that the seaway would at any time in the foreseeable future be an important, much less an indispensable, factor in the movements of such ore to steel mills in this country.

Let us consider briefly, first, the iron ore requirements of steel mills in the Midwest area. At present, this area produces more iron ore than the steel mills located there consume. It is a surplus ore-producing area which sends iron ore in large volumes to steel mills in the East and elsewhere. There is no reasonable prospect that iron ore of any substantial volume would move into the Midwest via the St. Lawrence seaway or otherwise for many years to come, if ever. To meet the needs of this area, there are large reserves of high-grade ores remaining in the Lake Superior region of the United States. In addition there are virtually unlimited reserves of taconite and other iron-bearing materials already in the initial stage of development, and mining operations also are going forward in the promising Steep Rock area north of Lake Superior in Canada.

Eastern steel mills, on the other hand, depend heavily upon iron ore produced outside that area. At present, much of it is Lake Superior ore, but the prospect is that the eastern steel plants will rely in the future more and more upon imported ores-from Venezuela, Labrador, and other foreign sources. It is altogether evident, however, that the eastern steel mills have made and are continuing to make their forward plans involving large additional investments, without reliance upon the possible development of a St. Lawrence seaway. Obviously, ores from South American or African sources will not move to Atlantic seaboard plants via the St. Lawrence, nor would such ores destined for the Pittsburgh area take the long haul up through the St. Lawrence rather than be transshipped by rail from Baltimore or Philadelphia. Ore imported from Labrador, where contemplated plans and facilities call for total iron-ore production at a rate of approximately 10 million tons a year, would logically be expected to move largely by ocean to the eastern steel mills where it can be utilized more economically than elsewhere. If ore from this source were to be transported via the proposed seaway to steel mills on the Great Lakes, the result would be to deprive the eastern steel plants of such ore and consequently to increase their deficit requirements, which could then only be made up by wasteful cross-hauling movements of ore from the Lake Superior district.

It seems clear, that, except for some possible movements of Labrador ore to interior eastern steel mills such as those in the Pittsburgh and Youngstown areas, prospects for the movement of iron ore in any appreciable volume via the proposed seaway are very remote. Even as to these destinations, it is at least doubtful that ore could be delivered cheaper via the seaway, with tolls changes included, than it could be by other existing methods of transportation, including transshipments by rail from Baltimore or by using the existing canal facilities on the St. Lawrence. Possible movements of iron ore are thus shown to furnish a slender threat from which to hang an attempted justification of the St. Lawrence seaway project.

In short, there is no reasonable prospect whatever that the costs of the proposed seaway could be made self-liquidating through toll charges, as claimed by its sponsors. Neither is there merit in the argument that the seaway is needed so as to permit the movement of large ocean vessels into and out of the

Great Lakes area for construction or repairs. Facilities and possible new locations for such construction at tidewater points are more than ample and, if necessary, they can be dispersed as widely as considerations of the national security may require. Furthermore, it is unrealistic under existing conditions to regard the Great Lakes as a relatively safe haven for ships or for shipbuilding.

The conclusion seems inescapable that the St. Lawrence seaway would provide cheap transportation only in the sense that it would make available to certain shippers a heavily subsidized transportation facility. No real basis has been shown for hoping that the shipway project would be self-supporting or that it would fulfill the glowing promises of its advocates.

It is not persuasive to have proponents advocate spending many hundreds of millions of dollars of the Government's tax money for a project on which they not only did not have exact data but in connection with which it would certainly seem that they avoided trying to secure such data because they knew it would not prove the point they are trying to make.

Why it should be necessary for us to go along with it is not clear. Why should we spend hundreds of millions of dollars which, whatever they may do to improve the economic status of some particular area of our country, will certainly have only a harmful effect on certain other areas which have, over the years, built up expensive facilities which would be rendered partially obsolete thereby?

Certainly we won't lose any of our rights on the St. Lawrence River. We talk of economy. Let us begin right here to practice it. Every reasoning American realizes the necessity of reducing the terrific expenditures which are proposed in the budget for 1953. I consider it my duty to protest against, and to vote against, the St. Lawrence seaway proposal, and all other such nondefensible undertakings.

The CHAIRMAN. Your time is limited to 10 minutes, Mr. Hedden.

STATEMENT OF WALTER P. HEDDEN, DIRECTOR OF PORT DEVELOPMENT, THE PORT OF NEW YORK AUTHORITY

Mr. HEDDEN. I will keep within it, sir. Thank you.

My name is Walter P. Hedden. My business address is 111 Eighth Avenue, New York City. I represent the Port of New York Authority, which is an agency of the States of New York and New Jersey created in 1921 for the development of the port of New York.

My personal experience in this matter of the planning and developing and financing of port terminal projects extends over 30 years. I am now in charge of all of the planning of our facilities from an economic standpoint.

I served also as president of the American Association of Port Authorities, the North Atlantic Terminals Operators Association and as a consultant in transportation to the War Production Board and the Office of Defense Transportation in the last war on an unpaid basis. I have had the opportunity of appearing before this committee before in 1946 and in 1947, and before various committees of the House in 1941 and again as recently as 1951.

Therefore, since the situation has not changed too much since April 24, 1951, I would like with your permission to file for the record the very complete statement I made before the House Public Works Committee on that date, together with certain supplemental information which I furnished the committee at its request, on March 3, 1951. The CHAIRMAN. Any objection to printing it in the record?

Senator WILEY. Did he want it printed in the record? He said

filed.

Mr. HEDDEN. I meant for the record, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Any objection? There is no objection. It will be printed.