forcefully exhibited than in the task-force detraction from the contribution of the waterways to national defense and in their proposal that loss of railway revenues resulting from waterway improvements be treated as a cost of the improvements. Reference is also made to the great subsidies given by the Government to the railroads who complain most persistently of a subsidy to the waterways and whose party line has been swallowed by the task force. We conclude that the reports of the Commission and the task force insofar as they relate to user charges on the waterways must stand condemned for utter lack of objectivity and fairness. On behalf of the Ohio Valley Improvement Association I wish to express our sincere thanks to the committee for this opportunity to present our views on a public issue of the utmost importance to the Ohio Valley and the Nation. Mr. JONES. Without objection, the following telegrams will be made a part of the record at this point: A telegram directed to me by William E. Neal, former Representstive of the Fourth West Virginia District. Also, a telegram from Mr. W. J. Amoss, director of the port board of commissioners of the port of New Orleans. (The documents referred to follow :) Hon. ROBERT E. JONES, NEW ORLEANS, La., November 9, 1955. Chairman, Subcommittee on Government Operations, Federal Post Office Building, Cincinnati: The port of New Orleans representative previously testified before the Bricker committee in opposition to imposition of tolls or users charges for use of our inland nabigable waterways or our harbors. We reiterate our opposition to tolls such as recommended by Hoover Commission. Time will not permit personal appearance in Cincinnati. Would appreciate advice as to future hearings, preferably Washington, and your permission for port of New Orleans representative to appear. W. J. AMOSS, Director of the Port Board of Commissioners of the Port of New Orleans. HUNTINGTON, W. Va., November 10, 1955. Hon. ROBERT E. JONES, Chairman, Public Works Subcommittee, Post Office Building, Cincinnati: Common carriers on the Ohio River are making a major contribution to the industrial development of the valley with its proportional reflection in increased tonnage on all other forms of transportation. Institution of ton-mile tolls on the inland waterways system will tend not only to limit Ohio Valley industrial extension but will discourage future development in other areas capable of developing their water transportation potential. WILL E. NEAL, Former Representative, Fourth West Virginia District. Mr. JONES. Mr. Biery, do you have your statements and resolutions! Mr. BIERY. I have several more that I would like to present. Mr. JONES. Will you present them and identify them for the purpose of putting them in the record. Mr. BIERY. We have one more witness, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Miller. Mr. JONES. Very well, Mr. Miller. Before Mr. Miller takes the stand, I am going to have to leave, in order to catch a plane. Mr. Lipscomb will preside and before I do leave, I want to take this occasion to thank you, Mr. Jenkins, Mr. Scherer, and Mr. Hess, for joining us. You have been most helpful and cordial in your reception of us. I also want to express to the vast number of witnesses who have appeared here and who have made excellent statements and made valuable contributions, the gratitude of our committee. I want to express to the press my thanks for attending, here, and the judges and the custodians who have permitted us to use the courtroom. I know the Ohio River has played a vast role in the economic growth of our country. I recognize that prosperity is not divisible. Either we all enjoy prosperity or we do not progress economically. What is good for your section is good for my section of the country. The committee has demonstrated by their action and their questioning of witneses, that they too are interested in your future welfare, your growth and development. I want to tell you how much I have enjoyed being in Cincinnati. I hope that if I stay in public life, I am directed to come here again soon. Thank you very much, and goodby. STATEMENT OF A. P. MILLER, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND GENERAL MANAGER, NEWPORT STEEL CORP., NEWPORT, KY. Mr. MILLER. My statement will be very brief and quite an anticlimax to the statement that just preceded me. My name is A. P. Miller, and I am executive vice president and general manager of Newport Steel Corp., a subsidiary of Merritt-Chapman & Scott Corp. The Newport Steel Corp. manufactures steel ingots, sheet bars, hot rolled, and hot-rolled pickled coils and sheets, cold-rolled coils and sheets, electric weld line pipe, aircraft alloy plates and sheets, electrical sheets, galvanized products, culverts, roofing, and formed and fabricated products, with plants located at Newport and Wilder, Ky., on the lower reaches of the Licking River within approximately 1 mile from the confluence of the Licking and Ohio Rivers. Newport Steel Corp. and its predecessor, Newport Rolling Mill Co., have been in continuous operation at the Newport site since 1891, and at the Wilder site since 1908. I am appearing for the purpose of opposing the tolls on inland waterways transportation proposed by the Hoover Commission. We are interested in any matter affecting Ohio River navigation, since the use of water transportation is of vital importance, not only to our company but to all industry, and to the economy and well-being of all sections of the country located on or served by transportation moving on the Ohio-Mississippi River system and connecting inland and coastal waterways. Any imposition of tolls will adversely affect navigation on the Ohio-Mississippi waterway system, and is therefore a matter of grave concern to us. The use of water-transportation facilities results in lower delivery costs, with resultant important economic effects, in areas as far from the Cincinnati area as New Orleans on the gulf and Minneapolis on the north, and at all other points which are served by the inland waterway system. We maintain storage facilities at Memphis, Tenn., and Houston, Tex. These storage facilities serve as distribution centers for large movements made by water from our Wilder and Newport, Ky., plants and enable us to give small industries as well as western and southern customers the benefits of lower delivered costs for basic steel commodities. These lower delivered costs result in an economic and competitive condition and encourage the growth of industrial and manufacturing projects throughout the entire area served by the Ohio-Mississippi system and its connecting inland and coastal waterways. Rate structures, which have been in effect for many years, would be disrupted by the imposition of tolls and would adversely affect the economy of the entire area. What I have just said with respect to the utilization of the inland waterway transportation facilities for the shipment of steel manufactured by our own company and the inbound movement of raw materials for our own manufacture into finished steel products is, of course, equally applicable to all other types of heavy industry and to commerce generally in the area served by the Ohio-Mississippi River system. Newport Steel Corp. has recently invested in excess of $10 million in expanded and modernized facilities, which includes not only facilities for the production of steel products, but also a new barge loading and unloading facility on the Licking River for the handling of waterborne incoming raw materials and outgoing finished products destined for all points in the western and southwestern sections of the country which we supply. There is presented herewith a statement showing the tonnage, inbound and outbound, which was handled by our new barge facility during the year 1953. While the year 1953 is recognized as a record business year in which more than 120,000 tons of freight was handled through this facility, I believe that our potential tonnage via water should consistently exceed 100,000 tons per year, and with the expanded and modernized facilities recently installed by our company this tonnage will, in my opinion, increase from year to year. The growth of water transportation in the area and the related expansion in general industrial and commercial activity throughout the section served by the proposed Markland Dam pool will have a profound effect upon the industrial activity of the section and result in increased business and economic activity for the whole section with related increases in tax revenues that result from such industrial and commercial activity. We respectfully direct the attention of the committee to the fact that waterway transportation benefits accrue to our customers, and in turn to the ultimate consumers of our steel products, who are in reality a segment of the general taxpayers. Navigation benefits are not only a matter of local interest, but since they help the economy of our entire Nation, the imposition of tolls would, therefore, upset the whole competitive system on which the Nation's economic structure is founded. Any change in such a basic element of our economy is one which calls for due consideration of the effect on the suppliers of raw materials and the manufacturers of finished products and on their employees-the loss of taxes to the Government, and the economic loss to our customers who must necessarily pay higher prices for their supplies when competitive price structures have been eliminated. Mr. LIPSCOMB. Any questions? FURTHER STATEMENT OF HUDSON BIERY, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, OHIO VALLEY IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION, INC., CINCINNATI, OHIO Mr. BIERY. Mr. Chairman, since the privilege of offering testimony before your committee yesterday, a number of very important communications have been received by our association for insertion in the record. Before I present these, I want to add what issued as exhibit F, being an editorial which appeared in one of our Cincinnati papers Wednesday, and one which appeared this morning with regard to the very rapid industrial development in this valley. I told you yesterday that it was moving so fast we could scarcely keep up with it. This is in further support of that statement. I offer for the record a letter addressed to the chairman of your subcommittee from the Micko Grain Co., of Cairo, Ill. I have another communication from the Joint Executive Committee for the Improvement and Development of the Philadelphia Port Area. This is addressed to Chairman Jones of your subcommittee and is offered by Mr. Harry G. Schad, president of the Philadelphia Port Area Committee. I also offer a telegram received by me, reading as follows: The board of directors of this association in meeting today expressed their opposition to the charging of tolls for use of inland waterways. This is signed by Harry G. Kennedy, executive secretary of the Kanawha Coal Operators Association. It comes from Charles Town, W. Va. I also have a communication which was sent, presumably in your care, although it is erroneously addressed to the Hoover Commission at Washington, D. C. However, it is dated November 2, and I believe the Hoover Commission no longer exists so I think you can safely accept delivery of the message, which comes from the Pittsburg Coal Exchange, offered by Mr. David Matthews, Jr., executive president of the coal exchange. Mr. LIPSCOMB. It was in your care, however? Mr. BIERY. It was sent to my office. That is why I am presenting them in this manner. I have a further communication which outlines in writing the position of the Cincinnati Gas & Electric Co., which was briefly referred to yesterday by Mr. Creditor. I am giving you as a final message a formal prepared statement from Lowell L. French, president of the Union Barge Line of Pittsburgh. That, Mr. Chairman, concludes the list of exhibits and the statements that have been entrusted to my care, and I close my testimony thanking you and the committee for your patience and for your courtesy in coming to Cincinnati. Mr. LIPSCOMB. Without objection, the items submitted will be placed in the record. (The documents referred to appear at p. 524 of this record immediately following the other documents previously submitted by Mr. Biery.) Mr. LIPSCOMB. Is there anyone in the audience who would like to testify before the subcommittee before we adjourn? Is there anyone who has not had the opportunity to present his views either for or against the recommendations of the Hoover Commission? Before we adjourn, I would also like to add to my chairman's statement about the citizens of Cincinnati, Ohio, and the people of Ohio, in general. I think that they have stated a good case in their favor with regard to recommendation No. 8. I also would like to say that it is a pleasure to be here with my colleague, Congressman Scherer. He is an able and conscientious Representative from the city of Cincinnati, and I am sure that he will continue representing you on this problem in Washington. I also was very impressed with the people from the State who spoke on the water resources problems that they are handling at the State level. It was encouraging to me, as I said yesterday, that the State of Ohio is taking action, on their own, and working in coordination with the Federal Government in solving a very vital problem that exists all over the Nation. As I said yesterday, I only wish that the other States of the United States and of our Nation, would take as aggressive leadership in solving the problem at the local and State level as the State of Ohio. I thank everyone, as did the chairman, for their participation. It was a pleasure for me to be here as a member of this subcommittee. Mr. SCHERER. Could I say on behalf of Congressman Hess and myself that we deeply appreciate the subcommittee's invitation to have us sit with you during your hearings here in Cincinnati. While I have indicated from a few remarks that I have made during the hearings that I am opposed to the imposition of tolls-and within I am I would not want any inference to be drawn that I am opposed to any other of the provisions contained in the Hoover Commission's report, because I am at this point, not so opposed. Thank you very much. Mr. LIPSCOMB. Thank you. I meant to also thank Congressman Hess, for his courtesies and hospitalities extended to the subcommittee while we were here. The subcommittee now stands adjourned. (Whereupon, at 3:20 p. m., the subcommittee adjourned to reconvene at the call of the chairman.) The following persons were invited by the subcommittee to testify at Cincinnati: Hon. Gordon H. Scherer Hon. William E. Hess Hon. James G. Polk Hon. Thomas A. Jenkins Hon. John E. Henderson Hon. Wayne L. Hays Col. John L. Person, Ohio River division, United States Corps of Engineers, Cincinnati, Ohio The Congressmen were invited by letter which read as follows: MY DEAR COLLEAGUE: As you know, a Special Subcommittee on Water Resources and Power of the House Committee on Government Operations, has been established to study and report on the Hoover Commission report on Water Resources and Power. Our subcommittee will hold a hearing at Cincinnati, Ohio, in the United States district court on November 9 and 10. We would like to extend this invitation for you to appear and join us and testify before the subcommittee if you so desire. With every good wish, and kindest personal regards. Sincerely yours, |