ment and maintenance of such waterways and feels that such a charge would be a burden to inland-waterways traffic and tend to restrict the use of the inland waterways. Such charges would also be contrary to the policy heretofore pursued by the Congress of maintaining free use of the waterways as provided in the Rivers and Harbors Act of August 2, 1882, and reiterated again in 1884 and various subsequent dates.

In order to conserve the committee's time and to avoid duplication, we would like to state that the Memphis Freight Bureau fully concurs in and supports the statement presented at this hearing by Col. Clark Kittrell on behalf of the Memphis and Shelby County Harbor and Port Commission, and by Mr. Everett T. Winter on behalf of the Mississippi Valley Association.

Thank you.

Mr. JONES. Thank you, Mr. Rook. Are there any questions? (No response.)

Mr. JONES. Thank you, sir.

Mr. Kittrell, will you call your next witness, please?

Mr. KITTRELL. Mr. Chairman, we have next Mr. J. D. Wooten, a local businessman.

Mr. JONES. Fine. Will you come around, Mr. Wooten?

Mr. DAVIS. I would like to welcome Mr. Wooten. He is a very highly successful businessman with a tremendous use of and knowledge of the river. We know him in this area as the vice chairman of our harbor project.

Mr. Wooten, Iwould like to get this committee down to our harbor project a few minutes.

STATEMENT BY JESSE D. WOOTEN, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, MID-SOUTH CHEMICAL CORP., MEMPHIS, TENN.

Mr. WOOTEN. We are more and more having something to show down there.

Mr. DAVIS. I know that and I want them to see it.

Mr. JONES. I want to assure you of one thing, Mr. Wooten. He never lets us forget the Memphis harbor project.

Mr. DAVIS. We have some work to do down there.

Mr. WOOTEN. It involves the future well-being of the entire area. That is what we on the harbor commission think.

Mr. JONES. The city of Memphis is very fortunate to have the chairman of the Flood Control Committee in the Congress to protect and further their interests. He has been devoted since I have known him to the Memphis harbor. As a matter of fact, I sometimes think he does not get very far away from the harbor.

Mr. DAVIS. It is a very worthwhile project.

Mr. JONES. We have been kidding him about it a great deal. He always talks about the lower Mississippi and the harbor project in Memphis. We are glad to have you, Mr. Wooten.

Mr. WOOTEN. Thank you, sir. I will read this short statement. I want to apologize for the incompleteness of it.

I was up at Peoria last night on important business and they really had a snow up there and I was a little late getting in.

Mr. JONES. Snow?

Mr. WOOTEN. Yes, sir.

70818-56-pt. 6- 3

My name is Jesse Wooten and my principal occupation is executive vice-president of the Mid-South Chemical Corp. of Memphis, Tenn. However, in addition to the chemical business I have been for 25 years engaged in the distribution of petroleum products throughout the Midsouth area. I first engaged in the petroleum business as a wholesale distributor in Tunica County, Miss., in 1930. Shortly after entering the business I discovered that our prices were not competitive with Memphis and other points that had facilities to receive by barge, and in partnership with Ellis T. Woolfolk of Tunica, we formed the MidSouth Oil Co. with the intention of barging our gasoline into the delta area, and distributing to our various bulk plants from a river terminal. We established a terminal near Friars Point, Miss., in 1935, and since that time our gasoline for that area has moved by barge from Smiths Bluff, Tex., into our Friars Point terminal, thence into bulk plants in the area.

It is interesting to note that at the time of the establishment of this terminal rail freight into the delta area was approximately 24 cents per gallon, whereas gasoline moving from Baton Rouge to Memphis by barge was 1 cent per gallon. Shortly after our terminal was established at Friars Point, competitors established terminals at Vicksburg and Greenville, thus the movement of gasoline in large quantities by river was effected, and over the years since establishment of these terminals all the people of north Mississippi have saved millions of dollars on their gasoline and fuel oil. Later, we established a gasoline terminal on the river at Memphis, Tenn., to receive products by barge, thus extending the benefits of this plan of marketing to our customers throughout the entire Midsouth.

During World War II it became almost impossible for farmers to purchase the nitrogen they needed, regardless of price, but after the war came to a close the anhydrous ammonia plants that the Government had built in various sections of the country were sold to private industry, and it became known that anhydrous ammonia could be injected into the soil, and that handled in this way it was the cheapest and best source of nitrogen. However, anhydrous ammonia has to be handled in vessels that will stand 250 pounds of pressure, and tank cars were very expensive and freight rates were high. Having had experience in river transportation, Mr. Woolfolk and I, along with our associates, formed the Mid-South Chemical Corp., and set up approximately 100 distributing plants throughout the Midsouth.

We are now expanding this business and changing our method of operation in that we are moving the anhydrous ammonia by barge from points in Texas and Louisiana to Memphis and distributing it to our bulk plants throughout the Midsouth by truck and tank car. This is and will continue to save the farmers in the Midsouth large sums of money, and nitrogen in adequate quantities is lifting the income of the farmers generally. As is illustrated by the attached map, our marketing plans call for additional terminals on upriver points, and we have established an anhydrous ammonia terminal at Harlingen, Tex., and are now starting construction on a terminal at Peoria, Ill.

We feel that with this plan of distributing anhydrous ammonia from our sources of supply in Texas and Louisiana, we are able to make nitrogen available to the farmers over a large area at prices that they can afford to pay, and that this definitely illustrates the need for

low-cost water movement inasmuch as we can economically reach the majority of the farmers in the Central, North Central, South Central, and Southeastern States, and supply them with the vital plant element at reasonable prices.

Gentlemen, that is our story as a company and as an individual. We have conceived and set up a marketing plan for the distribution of anhydrous ammonia. As illustrated here our manufacturing facilities are located in Lake Charles, La.

Through the intracoastal canal we go to Harlingen, Tex., and up the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. We are establishing terminals and will go up as far as Minnesota where we will reach into Wisconsin, Minnesota, and southern Iowa.

In going over this statement with one of my associates he said, "One question that will probably be asked is are these transportation savings in gasoline and anhydrous ammonia, and other commodities, passed on to the consumer.'

So, before I am asked that question I will deal with it by saying, not as such have they been passed on, but based on our experience in the oil business, and based on the experience we are now beginning to have already in the anhydrous ammonia business, the competition is seeing to it that the public quickly gets the benefits of transportation savings. So river transportation and the economies of river transportation are not only along these lines, as I have mentioned, but they are on all large bulk commodities and are enabling a manufacturer in one area and a manufacturer in another area not to have price monopolies.

The economies made on transportation of things like anhydrous ammonia and gasoline which are everyday necessities to so many people, are being passed on to the consuming public.

Mr. JONES. Are there any questions?

(No response.)

Mr. JONES. You might explain to the committee what anhydrous ammonia is and the nature of it, because we have a California farmer, a Michigan farmer, and a Wisconsin farmer on this committee and they have not used that form of fertilizer yet.

Mr. WOOTEN. Well, I wish it were about 8 o'clock this morning so I could do the job justice, but I will do it as quickly as I can.

Anhydrous ammonia is 82 percent nitrogen. It has been used for many, many years, but plants to manufacture it in quantity did not come into being in this country until World War II when our effort made it necessary for the Government to go in and build these plants in various sections of the country. The building largely was done close to sources of natural gas and where management was available for the operation. After the war came to a close these plants were sold to various organizations in the country.

Through work that was done in California and much work that was done by the Mississippi Experiment Station, it was quickly shown to the various farmers that anhydrous ammonia could be released from pressure at 200 to 250 pounds through a series of valves and tubes and injected into the soil about 8 inches down. There it combined with the particles of clay and became fixed. It has less leachability than other forms of nitrogen put into the soil; it is cheaper in price than other forms of nitrogen because Chilean nitrate has to be brought in and ammonium nitrate and ammonium sulfate and the

other forms of fertilizer are simply based on converting anhydrous ammonia into a solid. That conversion process is expensive and the transportation of ammonium nitrate, by way of illustration, is more costly because it is a heavy tonnage product.

Mr. Jones. That is what we Alabama farmers call soda.

Mr. WOOTEN. Soda is a nitrate of soda. Ammonium nitrate is 32 percent nitrogen and the balance of the bag is clay. Anhydrous ammonia is 82 percent nitrogen. So, our economy comes about by not having to go into the process of manufacture and entailing the additional freight which it takes to carry it. Of course the benefits of using nitrogen are going to be a wonderful thing for this crowded population which we have ahead of us. It is making it possible for our farmers to be more prosperous, but the big headache that Mr. Benson is having this year is coming about because of adequate quantities of nitrogen being available to our farmers.

Mrs. GRIFFITHS. You mean when we reduced the acreage controls? Mr. WOOTEN. Yes. I was interested in the comments made on irrigation. I had a hill farm in Mississippi. Traveling in California and Colorado, and various places where irrigation is practiced, I saw a way in which I could dam up a hollow and through stream irrigation and furrow irrigation reach nearly all of our cultivated land. So I got that process working as of last year and, believing what I say about anhydrous ammonia, although it is Mississippi, a traditionally poor State, we have our corn yield up to where it is better than 100 bushels to the acre this year. On the same land where last year we made 100 bales of cotton, we have already passed the 200-bale mark this year.

Mr. JONES. Look out California, here we come.

Mr. LIPSCOMB. I note, Mr. Chairman, he got some of his ideas from our great State of California.

Mr. WOOTEN. I got anhydrous ammonia there, too. I was at that time chairman of the agricultural committee of the American Petroleum Institute. It is our job to meet in various major agricultural areas to interpret to the farmers and to the soil interests what the needs of the farmers are and what our relationships should be. We met in 1946 in California, and I had the pleasure of going out to an experimental farm at Modesto and saw an anhydrous ammonia experiment where they injected it into the ground. So with that start and turning it loose here, we had a little advance information because we saw it in California.

Mr. LIPSCOMB. Was that a University of California thing?
Mr. WOOTEN. No; it was a Shell Chemical setup.

Mr. JONES. That is in the San Joaquin Valley?

Mr. WOOTEN. Yes, sir.

Mr. JONES. Thank you very much, Mr. Wooten.

Mr. WOOTEN. Thank you, sir, for letting me appear.

Mr. JONES. Our next witness will be Mr. Dana M. Henking.

STATEMENT OF DANA M. HENKING, MEMPHIS, TENN., PRESIDENT, PROPELLER CLUB OF THE UNITED STATES

Mr. HENKING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My statement will necessarily be brief.

Mr. JONES. We are glad to have you, Mr. Henking. Will you be seated, sir?

Mr. HENKING. Yes, sir.

My name is Dana M. Henking. I am a resident of Memphis, Tenn. I appear before you as the president and representative of the Propeller Club of the United States, port of Memphis, Tenn., and as representative of the Propeller Club of the United States, ports of Cincinnati, Ohio, Huntington, W. Va., Louisville, Ky., Nashville, Tenn., Paducah, Ky., and Pittsburgh, Pa., comprising the Ohio Valley region; and the ports of Camden, Ark., Joliet, Ill., St. Louis, Mo., and the Twin Cities (St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minn.) comprising the Mississippi Valley region; Bellingham, Wash., Shelton, Wash., Portland, Oreg., Seattle, Wash., and Tacoma, Wash., comprising_the North Pacific coast region; Baton Rouge and New Orleans, La., Port Isabel, Corpus Christi, Galveston, Houston, and Sabine, Tex., comprising the west gulf coast region; Charleston, S. C., Savannah, Ga., Jacksonville, Miami, Palm Beach, and Everglades, Fla., comprising the South Atlantic region.

I desire to have entered in the minutes of this meeting the following resolution adopted at the 29th annual convention of the Propeller Club of the United States and the American Merchant Marine Conference held at New Orleans, La., October 9 through 12, 1955:

The Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government (the Hoover Commission) has proposed Federal legislation to levy tolls or user charges on inland waterway commercial traffic and large pleasure craft. This recommendation is contrary to national policy, tradition, custom, and the Constitution of the United States.

The entire report of the Commission on water resources failed to win the assent of many of the Commissioners themselves who found its premise and conclusions erroneous in this particular.

The imposition of tolls would disturb a long-established balance in the pattern of transportation costs with resultant increase in such costs to the shipping public.

A completely just allocation of the cost of river improvements undertaken for the national welfare among all the immediate beneficiaries of such improvements would not be feasible, and the mechanics of assigning and collecting such charges would involve costs out of all relation to the revenue involved, and the Propeller Club of the United States hereby affirms its opposition to tolls on inland waterways.

Mr. Chairman, the Propeller Club of the United States, port of Memphis, Tenn., and the sister clubs that I represent hereby go on record as reaffirming their endorsement of the resolution I have recited and urgently request that the economy and welfare of the entire Nation be considered in your deliberations and final recommendations. Thank you.

Mr. JONES. Thank you very much, Mr. Henking.

Are there any questions?

Mr. REUSS. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. JONES. Mr. Reuss.

Mr. REUSS. Mr. Henking, will you tell us a little bit about the Propeller Club and its functions?

Mr. HENKING. Yes, sir. The Propeller Club is an international organization represented in some 8 or 10 foreign countries as well as our own United States. Its objectives briefly are to support and further and improve the American merchant marine and to aid in the development of river and harbor projects.

Mrs. GRIFFITHS. Does Detroit have one?