tional defense as a basis for sustaining the T. V. A. indicates to me that it does take on a more or less major importance, or else they were giving it an importance that it wasn't entitled to have. My observation of many acts recently passed is that the principal justification for them from a legal standpoint has been that it was assistance to our national defense.

Colonel PARKER. I think that you might be interested in a little information as to our more recent thinking in regard to this particular contingency. Knowing that the valley was so recognized as an emergency possibility, we have given some consideration to the extent to which it could be so utilized, and we find that there is a very considerable possibility of that sort of use.

We find initially that we have a very considerable number of empty replacements for generating units. Such units could be installed much more quickly than units at a new development. We have as now set up a contemplated scheme of operation for the joint benefit of these various factors, we have a system which is to be operated primarily for flood control.

In an emergency it is assumed that that primary consideration might be temporarily sacrificed in the national interest. Should such sacrifice be made, it would be available from our existing reservoirs, a considerable amount of energy which could be developed and made useful by the installation of additional machines in our vacant stalls. We have estimated that there would be available, that such an increase, such a method of operation, would increase the available energy by at least 27 percent.

Mr. BIDDLE. You mean the present available energy?

Colonel PARKER. We would increase the availability in the present system or in a system somewhat larger than the present system, it would increase that energy by, we will say, 25 percent in round numbers. Should such expansion be desirable, it is most important that it be initiated as far as possible in advance of the emergency, inasmuch as the manufacture of this equipment requires so much time that, as I before stated, it is more than 2 years from the time that the equipment is purchased before it can be utilized.

Mr. BIDDLE. That 27 percent is based on additional equipment, but did you also figure to what extent the present system could be used in a case of national emergency for national defense, if flood control was not considered during the emergency, and the dam system was used only for the production of electricity and such navigation as the Government might wish to use. In other words, what is your possibility of getting juice out of this system for national defense?

Colonel PARKER. I think that I may have misstated that or been misunderstood. That 25 percent is what can be realized with existing equipment, on the assumption that the load factor would be somewhat increased owing to industrial processes being introduced which would have a greater continuity, such as the manufacture of arma

ment.

These estimates are very rough, but they are interesting perhaps. We estimated that that energy could be obtained, that would amount to perhaps 95,000 kilowatts additional prime capacity by that means. Mr. BIDDLE. In addition to the present quantity of 160,000 kilowatts?

Colonel PARKER. In addition to a system which would have a capacity of 353,000 kilowatts. That would be a system composed of Norris, Hiwassee, Chickamauga, Guntersville, Wheeler, Wilson, and Pickwick Landing.

Representative WOLVERTON. In speaking of this feature of the national defense, I have intimated by my question that the T. V. A. attorneys evidently thought that it was a substantial item or they wouldn't have used it in their legal presentation of the case to the court to sustain it.

Now, there is another element that seems to indicate that. We must not overlook the fact that when Wilson Dam was built, it was built as a national defense proposition. That was the principal thought that was in mind when that was built, and it could only take 1 on importance in our national defense scheme by its ability to create power, and what you can do with power, and it would seem to me for that reason that when you come to make the allocation now even though we are enjoying peacetime, yet the potential national defense I value is still there ready for use at any time and it is the power side of it that would be the most beneficial and helpful to us at a time of national emergency, and therefore there should have been a larger percentage given to power than in this allocation that you have indicated.

Colonel PARKER. I think that we should also remember that our navigation would be extremely valuable in the event of such an emergency. It gives a duplication system to the railroads, and would afford a ready means for the movement of large numbers of bulky goods in the interior.

Representative WOLVERTON. Now, I wonder if you could really justify that opinion when you stop to realize that in a time of war, speed is what counts, and that all of our navigable rivers, as a means of transportation, even in peacetime, is being greatly curtailed by improved highways, use of trucks, and especially, in addition to our transportation system. My observation of the Tennessee Valley, from the standpoint of navigation, would indicate little likelihood that navigation would enter very materially into the question of improved national defense.

Colonel PARKER. I think that you might be interested in knowing that we have received very sizable shipments of structural steel and other equipment which was initiated at Pittsburgh, and in that district, and took only 7 days to travel from Pittsburgh to our Pickwick Dam.

Representative WOLVERTON. Well, 7 days is a rather considerable time when you consider what it could have been done in by train or trucks or whatever other means might be available, but after all you don't speak of the shipment of steel into that district as being one of the future possibilities that will increase navigation on that river.

That was used for construction in connection with the dams, was it not?

Colonel PARKER. I think perhaps Mr. Alldredge will be able to tell you a little more about navigation.

Representative WOLVERTON. I would rather do that than to ask you to sustain the opinion that you have expressed.

Mr. BIDDLE. Coming back to this allocation, I am a little bit puzzled about it. Let us assume that you had allocated some of these costs to national defense. If one of the main usefulnesses and purposes of the T. V. A. system is for national defense power, wouldn't the value of power have been diverted from the allocation to power and allocated as a portion of those considerations coming into national defense, to national defense?

Colonel PARKER. I should expect-

Mr. BIDDLE. In other words, let me make it still clearer. Power is now commercially used, let us assume that for the purposes of national defense, that power would be used for the manufacture of munitions. Let us assume further that you can put a figure on that amount. Now, would that be properly allocated to national defense or to power, where you had decided to allocate something to national defense?

Colonel PARKER. I should think that any such allocation to national defense would decrease the allocation to the other factors, such as power. As a matter of fact

Mr. BIDDLE. Let me ask you some more about this national defense.

Representative WOLVERTON. Pardon me. That is assuming that national defense isn't a part of your power allotment.

Colonel PARKER. I didn't hear that last.

Representative WOLVERTON. You say that if you did make an allotment for national defense, that that would decrease the allotment or allocation to power. You are making that, as I said before, on the assumption that if there is only 100 percent to be divided and you give some of it to the national defense, it must necessarily decrease power.

Now, I would say, why wouldn't it just necessarily decrease navigation, or flood control, as Mr. Biddle has already indicated. In an emergency, you might forget entirely about flood control, so that you could decrease those two without decreasing power. Why would it necessarily mean that you would have to decrease power, in view of the fact that power would be the thing that you would use in a national emergency above everything else?

Mr. BIDDLE. Put it this way

Representative WOLVERTON. Just a minute. I put it my way. Mr. BIDDLE. Answer Mr. Wolverton's way, and then I will try my

way.

Representative WOLVERTON. Why, certainly.

Colonel PARKER. I think you would have been very much interested, Mr. Wolverton, to have been present at some of these actual deliberations of this committee.

Representative WOLVERTON. I think that I would.

Colonel PARKER. At which we actually-one of the principal considerations for not considering any possible allocation to the national

defense, which would have had to have been made in an arbitrary way, was because we did not think that it was a conservative attitude, and would be inclined to invite criticism and opposition for that reason.

We are attempting to take as conservative an attitude as regards the charges and allocations to power as we can, consistently. I regard this 52 percent, which we have allocated, as a maximum.

Representative WOLVERTON. All right. I am not differing with you on that now. Suppose you leave it as a maximum, but you leave it as 52 percent, and then if you want to do something for national defense in an allocation, take it off of flood control, or take it off of navigation. You don't have to take it off of power.

Mr. BIDDLE. Excuse me.

Representative WOLVERTON. Now, I haven't finished. Now, take this group having this interesting discussion which you said I would have been interested in hearing, and I am quite certain of that, but take Mr. Kohler, the comptroller, he is the one who deals with figures. Now, I imagine that his contribution would be very helpful to this question of what part power would have in a national-defense program-or you take Mr. Fitts as an attorney, I suppose that he is well qualified to give a fine opinion and enter into a fine discussion on how much of this allocation should be given to power, from the standpoint of national defense, and I suppose that Mr. Ager, the chief Budget officer, could have been very helpful in that respect.

Now, what I am trying to get at is from the individual who I consider properly the top man in that set-up, even though you were not the chairman, yet nevertheless you were the chief engineer of this enterprise, and I would assume that you have a broad viewpoint upon this subject, much broader than those gentlemen whose names I have just mentioned, and that is the reason that I am inquiring from you on this matter, that I think takes on a considerable degree of importance.

Colonel PARKER. I think that we would be much interested in an expression of your own views, sir, in that regard. Do I understand that you definitely favor an allocation to national defense?

Representative WOLVERTON. I am in the position of doing what Congress has asked me to do, and being a Member of Congress I am interested in knowing the basis for what you do.

Colonel PARKER. I think I have tried to express our reasons. Representative WOLVERTON. Well, I won't press it any further. It might seem that from my questions we have a different viewpoint. I don't wish to get into a discussion with you in which I would have to sustain my viewpoint. I am only a layman; but it might be that you might without any discourtesy say to me, "Mr. Wolverton, I don't think you know what you are talking about."

But it is because I am a member of this committee, and I consider it a very important item, that I am asking these questions seeking to ascertain from someone who I think should be qualified to express an opinion his views with respect to this important matter.

Colonel PARKER. I think it is a very important matter, and if there is a prospect, increasing prospect of there being some emergency use, I should think that this allocation, if such use were made, we

might very well consider the question as to whether or not the allocation might perhaps be changed.

Representative WOLVERTON. Well, you see I realize that it takes on additional importance in the time of a war emergency, as compared to peacetimes such as we are having now. But when you speak about the ability to increase the facilities by putting in additional generators, for which there is provision that has been made, you certainly wouldn't feel that you could put in those additional generators and get the benefit of them without using facilities that are already there. And it is because those facilities are already there which have a potential war value that it seems to me there should have been some allocation made to power that would take into consideration its value in time of war. And you say that has just been entirely eliminated.

Mr. BIDDLE. Colonel Parker, let us assume that the Government takes

Representative WOLVERTON. What was the

Mr. BIDDLE. I beg your pardon, I thought you were finished. Representative WOLVERTON. Did you wish to make any comment on what I said?

Mr. BIDDLE. No; I wanted to ask a question.

Representative WOLVERTON. No; I meant the Colonel.

Mr. BIDDLE. I thought he had already commented.

Colonel PARKER. I think I have expressed our thoughts. Our feeling was in the event of such generating units being added undoubtedly that would constitute an opportunity for a direct allocation to national defense.

Representative WOLVERTON. What I had in mind-I think probably you see it-is that you couldn't just take four generating units, put them down on those foundations that are sitting there at the present time and generate power if you didn't have all the other manifold equipment that is already there, so that there is already in the plant much of that which is necessary to make your four generating units function when the time comes that you need them.

Colonel PARKER. I don't think I have any more comment to make, sir. It seems to me though, again-contradicting my last observation-that regardless of whether power is used for one purpose or another, it is still power.

Representative WOLVERTON. That is true.

Mr. BIDDLE. Well, then, if the Government required you to take from commercial purposes, your production of power, 75 percent of it, and use that for the national defense purposes, or producing gunpowder or nitrates for the making of gunpowder, and you are directed to allocate a certain portion of that to national defense, would that not necessarily, that increased power, be allocated to national defense, and withdraw such portion of it as hitherto had been allocated to power?

Colonel PARKER. I think so.

Mr. BIDDLE. What advantages, as long as you spoke of national defense, are there in the valley with respect to national defense, that you may not have commented on?