The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-02-10
Roosevelt Administration Will Leave Question All Mud-
 d|ed and BefOgged
MUCH INTEREST FELT IN
 WHAT TAFT MAY REPORT
Senator Kittredge Makes the Senate Sit Up and Take Notice When He Discusses the Probable
 Cost of the Canal.
By PATTERSON sTEALEY.

By PATTERSON STEALEY.
 Washington, February 9.-(Special.)- Great interest will attach to what Presi- dent-elect Taft will have to say on the subject of the Panama canal. It is pre- stunned that he will make some statement shortly after reaching the United States. Otherwise he will reserve the subject for discussing in his first message to Con gress next month.
 The report of Senator Kittredge of South Dakota, submitted to the Senate today, was regarded as little less tha nsensa- tional by those who have been following canal developments. He declares a huge mistake was made in adopting the lock instead of the sea-level type of canal, and from the present estimates it may be ex- pected the lock canal will cost $425,00O,000
 The report seems to make it plain that the canal committee has changed front since two years ago when 1t acquiesced in the demand for a lock canal. It will be remembered that the international board of engineers reported in favor of a sea-level canal but the President turned it down and insisted that Congress should adopt the lock plan. As usual the Pres ident had his way about it.
 Senator Kittredge spoke with emphasis and no little bitterness. He had been the leader in the Senate for the adoption of the sea-level type and was only de- feated on close vote The developments of today make it certain that the Roose- welt administration will go out with the whole canal question muddled and be- logged, and with the question of future policy looming large and uncertain The repeated expressions of misgiving and uncertainty about the whole scheme on which the government Is now working are condensed in the Kittredge report of to- day.
 Something Is Wrong.
 The entire question of the type of the canal that should be adopted in the struction of the Panama canal was be- fore the Senate today. Senator Kittredge, chairman of the committee on interocean- ic canals, Senator Foraker and Senator Teller all declared they believed grave mistake had been made in adopting the lock project.
 The discussion grew out of a report by MT Kittredge the bill increasing the limit of the cost of the canal to $500 900 and authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to issue bonds to that amount. He said his committee had de- cided that the measure should be con sidered by the finance committee. and he reported it back with this recommenda- tion.
 Tn making the report MT. Kittridge said the canal committee disapproved of the proposed issue of bonds, and he read a statement showing that expenditures on account of the canal to date had been SIT, ,46S.
 In his remarks Senator Kittredge said that while the engineers of the canal zone had originally placed the cost of lock canal at $l39, ,0OO,0 900, they had now increased their estimates to $40O, 900 ,OOO Whereas 1t had been estimated that a sea-level canal could have been built for $247, 100000. Replying to MT. Foraker MT Kittredge said the lock canal had not progressed so far that it would not now be impossible to adopt the sea-level type. Mir Foraker agreed with MT. Kittredge that the sea-level waterway would have been preferable from an economic stand point
 Senator Teller also thought sea-level canal could be constructed more cheaply than a lock canal and would be far less dangerous in construction.
 Mistake In Estimates.
 MT. Kittredge said that the minority of the board of consulting engineers had pledged their professional regulations that the cost of the lock type of canal. ex- elusive of sanitation and expenses of the zone government, would not exceed S139. .0O0,OO0.
 Mir Kittredge said that in his judg- ment the experience of the American engineers had demonstrated that the sea level canal could have been constructed for S247 100000. The sea level proposition, he said, was a matter of digging, and in that class of work the greatest success had been accomplished.
 Have we progressed so far in the construction of the lock canal that we cannot now turn to the sea level canal?' asked MT. Foraker.
 By no means" answered MT. Kit tredge. He insisted that the sea level type should have been adopted at the beginning.
 'I want to say in this connection. said Mir. Foraker, that I was influ- enced to change my support from the Nicaraguan canal to the Panama canal because I supposed that we could build a sea level canal at Panama and that we could not build one at Nicaragua Everything that has occurred in connec- ton with that canal since then has paused me to regret my action"
 MT. Teller said that he had also sup posed that when the change was made from the Nicaragua to the Panama route nothing less than sea level would be undertaken. He had always preferred the sea level plan.
 Reports of No Value. A controversy over the height of tides at both the Atlantic and Pacific ends of the canal, which was raised by MT. Cur tis, brought forth the statement from the Kansas senator that the reports of the French engineers could not be accepted as of value, as they did not know what they were undertaking"
 They did not" said MT. Teller, land l want to say that they knew as much about it as our people-just about This remark called out laughter and