Evening star., 1936-07-26

Administration and the Veterans Ad-
ministration, and both organizations
are considering converting it to their
uses.
1t is hoped that either DR.. Rexford
Guy Tugwell will see his way to making
1t into some special kind of resettle-
ment project, or that the Veterans
Administration will be able to use it
as convalescent home, or a retreat
for semi disabled veterans. No action
has been taken in either direction,
however
Until some definite decision is made
the War Department will keep a small
maintenance staff in 'Quoddy Village
to watch over what has been built al
ready. The department experts say
the uncompleted sections of the tidal
power project itself are perfectly safe
and will remain unharmed until day
comes, if it ever does come, when Con-
gress is willing to resume the work on
'Quoddy.
That is the great riddle both in
Quoddy and the canal With the hope.
perhaps, of bringing the day a little
nearer, a new survey is being under
taken of the canal and its potentiali-
ties. The War Department denies it
is being done either at the order or re-
quest of President Roosevelt, who ini-
tiated both projects on his personal re-
sponsibility.
Survey Ordered in 1888.
The survey was ordered, they say, in
1888, in the rivers and harbors bill
of that year. Work on it was promptly
begun by the Rivers and Harbors Board
engineers, but it was interrupted wheE
the canals Floridian boosters saw an
easier way out and started their CAM
paign to make the canal works prof.
ect. Much Of the data had already
been collected, but the survey was
never resumed, and no official finding
has ever been made by the Rivers and
Harbors Board. Members of the board
say that the finding must be made some
time to comply with the law, and may
as we'll be made now.
The survey, which will cost between
S25, 1000 and 100000, will be paid for
out of the general rivers and harbors
appropriation. Both sea level and
a lock canal will be considered in it as
possibilities. In the last, incomplete
survey, a sea-level canal was dismissed
as impractical, and a lock canal was
decided against as uneconomic Ac-
cording to the Rivers and Harbors
Board, a resurvey is now necessary
since much new data has come to light
in the interval. The previous surveys
findings were not official in any case,
for they had not been passed on by
members of the Rivers and Harbors
Board, nor even quite passed the stage
of preliminary study by a special COM
mittee of engineers.
The task of debating the two prof.
ects began some time ago, as soon as
It became obvious that Congress was
hopelessly balky about letting Presi-
dent Roosevelt have money to spend
on them. The large corps of relief
workmen which have been laboring
on each of them have slowly been
A. has assumed the task of finding
other work for the men thus newly
unemployed.
5000 Peak Employed at 'Quoddy.
At 'Quoddy, for example, the peak
number of workmen was 5000. BY
the beginning of this last week their
numbers had been reduced to 1,500,
and at each pay day more have been
Lat 10 hove
been kept on up to the present, had
it not been desirable and feasible
to finish the Pleasant Cove and Carlo
Island sections of the dam. The last
men at 'Quoddy will be paid of next
Friday night, and start for their
homes in the Maine back country
Saturday On the canal the reduc-
tion Of the working force has been
even more rapid, and there are few
workmen left there even now.
When the last workmen 60 the
projects will simply have to wait
until the mood of the next Congress
is ascertained. If the New Deal is
returned in the election, and If Con-
gress proves amiable, the projects are
almost certain to be resumed, for the
criticism of them seemed to make
them only the dearer to the Presi-
dents heart and he never ceased his
efforts at the last session to get them
approved in one way or another. If
the New Deal does not come in, how
ever, or if Congress Is not amiable,
the projects are finally dead.
(Copyright, 1885. by New York Herald
TribuneJ