them who genuinely do not want to leave, and that with the rest it is a different kind of sentiment.

The CHAIRMAN. General, is the naval proving ground at Indianhead satisfactorily located?

Gen. CROZIER. No, sir; it is poorly located, and the Navy wants to find another proving ground.

The CHAIRMAN. They have taken an option on 4,300 additional acres of land there, and that is a very remarkable thing if they are not satisfied with it.

Gen. CROZIER. As I said a moment ago, they had an option on this place near Ocean City.

The CHAIRMAN. They have an estimate here for acquiring 4.300 additional acres at Indianhead, and if it is an unsatisfactory location, I do not understand that.

Gen. CROZIER. I suppose if they buy enough of the country down there they will feel comparatively safe.

The CHAIRMAN. They only have six or seven hundred acres now. Gen. CROZIER. I do not remember the size of it.

The CHAIRMAN. What I had in mind was whether it would not be possible to put the Army and Navy together in one place.

Gen. CROZIER. If you were to put them together, I certainly should not want it to be at Indianhead. It is very difficult to fire over the water at Indianhead. They do sometimes fire over the water, but it is troublesome. The Potomac River is not nearly as good a sheet of water as Chesapeake Bay, and this firing in opposite directions, which I spoke of a moment ago, could not be done at all. They do not have anything like the great amount of work we have to do in testing field artillery and ammunition, because, of course, they do not use field artillery.

Mr. CANNON. What I would like to know is this: Suppose you do not get a proving ground, what are you going to do? You are getting money now by the hundreds of millions of dollars for the manufacture of these guns and of this ammunition, and you are going to ship across the ocean great quantities of it. How necessary is this proving ground for furnishing proper arms and ammunition to our men? Suppose you do not prove it at all, would you go on and send these things over there and put them into service?

Gen. CROZIER. I should not want to be responsible for the guns and I should not want to be responsible for the ammunition. I should not want to be here in this place with the complaints pouring back that the shells would not burst and that they burst prematurely and killed our own men when being fired over their heads or bursted in the guns and killed the crews, and then have it develop afterwards that we had not done our best and that we had not proved those things over here and that we did not know it would behave that way. Now, it will behave in that way to a certain extent if we do the best we can. Many of the shells do not explode when they strike and they do not do to the enemy what they are designed to do. A surprising number, I do not know how many it has been reported to be, have been reported to have burst in the guns and to have destroyed the guns, in some cases killing the crews.

I have heard that in the hands of one nation something over 200 guns were destroyed in that way in the first year of the war. Now,

what would happen here, with our kind of criticism of officials, if that kind of report came back from the other side and it developed that we have been hampered in our ability to try out this dangerous material? Where would we all be, simply because a few people do not want to move off of Kent Island and have sent in petitions with a whole lot of signatures in the same handwriting, and I am informed so that I believe it, that a lot of the signatures are those of colored people who do not own any property and are simply employed there by the day and are squatters and would be just as well off on the mainland as on this island. Where would we all be when it was ascertained that they had kept us from properly testing the ammunition that our soldiers have got to use over in Europe in this war?

The CHAIRMAN. General, in reference to the options that have been secured, have options been obtained on anything except the land there? Have any options been secured on the buildings or improvements or anything like that?

Gen. CROZIER. These options have been obtained by a man who has been doing it for the Government without any compensation and without any expectation of any profit. He is not a landowner himself and has no land to sell. Now, just what character of land it is or whether there are buildings erected on it or not I am not familiar. There is only one collection of buildings worthy of the name of a village on the part of the island we want to buy, and that may have 50 buildings in it, counting everything, and is a little place called Stevensville. The other land that he has optioned, embracing six or seven thousand acres, undoubtedly has farmhouses on it. Whether he has optioned any of the land in this village or not, and if so how much. I do not know.

The CHAIRMAN. Some of the land is in villages and the rest of it is farm land?

Gen. CROZIER. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. The question is whether he has got any options on property in the villages or whether it is all farm land.

Gen. CROZIER. That I do not know. I think the greatest opposition comes from some people in the village. I think there is a man there who is a doctor and who would undoubtedly suffer a loss unless he were well compensated for his land, and there is a little bank there that would have to be restablished over on the mainland, but if the amount of money which was paid these people afforded them a good profit for the land, a price at which a lot of them would have been glad to have sold their land some time ago, that would enable them all to relocate in the same vicinity.

Mr. SISSON. As a matter of fact, don't you suppose you have gotten options on practically all of the land from the parties who are willing to sell? In other words, those who have not agreed to give options are those who do not want to sell.

Gen. CROZIER. This matter of getting options was interrupted before it had gone very far by the opposition that was stirred up, and then we ceased to try. I am inclined to think that if it had been possible to proceed with it and get options from all of the people they would have been glad to sell their lands for the price that the majority of them agreed to.

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Mr. SISSON. That is true, but the fact that that opposition was strong enough to stop you from securing options would indicate that you had probably gotten all the options you could.

Gen. CROZIER. If we had plenty of time to do this I think that within the next year we could get a whole lot more options than we have gotten so far.

Mr. SISSON. Take my own case, for example: If I owned a piece of land on the island and wanted to sell it at $100 per acre, and other people were giving options at $100 per acre, I would be certain to hold that land

The CHAIRMAN (interposing). There might be many of those persons who are willing to give options on their land for a certain figure but who never contemplated that the giving of the options meant that they would have to move off the island. They might have expected to locate elsewhere on the island, and, then, if they found that they would be excluded from the island, that would materially change the situation. What I would like to have you state would be just what efforts have been made in recent times to locate some other site that could be utilized.

Gen. CROZIER. We have not been able to do it, and if you are going to make us do it now, having been unsuccessful, I would rather somebody else would estimate what the effect of that delay would be on this war that we are now in.

The CHAIRMAN. If you had this island now, how long would it take to fit it up so that you could utilize it?

Gen. CROZIER. We could commence to use it to test field-artillery ammunition

The CHAIRMAN (interposing). How long would it be before you could use it for that purpose?

Gen. CROZIER. I should say within two months. There are some buildings there now that could be used for quarters, and we could fire over the lower part of it almost from the beginning. Field artillery could be brought there easily on cars and it could travel upon the roads. As for the heavy artillery, it would take a long time to put up platforms for it there, but that is seacoast artillery and we are not called upon to do much testing of that kind of artillery right now. But as for field artillery that travels around over the field; that could be gotten to this field as quickly as to any other field.

The CHAIRMAN. You estimate $3,000,000, and of that sum one. and a half million dollars is to be devoted to improvements?

Gen. CROZIER. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you any estimate of the entire sum that would be required for the improvements? You estimate one and a half million dollars for the land that is to be acquired and one and a half million dollars to be expended for improvements. How much do you estimate would be expended for improvements, all told?

Gen. CROZIER. I think that would cover it, or that is all we see now. At least, we think that we could make such use of this island as we need now with one million and a half dollars to be expended for improvements. There are some buildings there now which would stay and which would be inhabited by the officers, enlisted men, and employees at the proving ground. The railroad, as I have said, is already there, and we could acquire that and use it. The railroad

company would be very glad to have us come there, because it would mean increased business for them, and there are some other people there who would be glad for us to come, because it would mean increased business. We would employ in normal times 300 people, and in extraordinary times twice that number. The Government would spend several hundred thousand dollars a year there, and those people would be consumers. There would be a market.

Mr. CANNON. You have been hunting for a place, you say, for how many years?

Gen. CROZIER. We have really been hunting for a better place than Sandy Hook for many years.

Mr. CANNON. How much time has been devoted to it, or how many boards have looked into it?

Gen. CROZIER. This subject presented itself acutely to the commanding officer at Sandy Hook, who is the officer immediately responsible, about a year ago, and his officers commenced a vigorous search and an examination of maps of all parts of the country. In some cases where there seemed to be some promise they got and examined largescale Geological Survey maps. The number of places is limited. You want a sheet of water, and it should be in the interior. Now, how many large interior sheets of water are there in the United States? Then it should be around in this part of the country where a large part of these munitions is coming from. So, you see, you are narrowed right down at the very beginning to a few places, and it does not take a great while to examine them all.

Mr. CANNON. Let me put the question direct to you. You say that if you had this island, within two months you could begin to use it?

Gen. CROZIER. Yes, sir.

Mr. CANNON. And of those guns, a part of them would have to go within six months to the other side. They would have to go within six or eight months, or within what length of time could you begin to send those guns to France?

Gen. CROZIER. We expect to send both guns and ammunition to France this winter.

Mr. CANNON. Now, you could send neither guns nor ammunition to be used with safety and with effectiveness against the enemy in the war, or with the least danger to the people who use them, until you have proved them?

Gen. CROZIER. No, sir; you could not. It would be criminal negligence to send either cannon or ammunition over to the other side which had not been properly proved and tested.

Mr. CANNON. Now, I gather from what you say that you do not know of any place but this that could be used under stress or under the existing conditions?

Gen. CROZIER. Yes, sir; that is what my conclusion is.

Mr. CANNON. And you are satisfied, from your examination, that this land could be purchased, either through options or by condemnation, and the improvements made within $3,000,000?

Gen. CROZIER. Yes, sir.

Mr. CANNON. That is all.

The CHAIRMAN. Is there anything else?

Gen. CROZIER. There has been a good deal of expression in the press and in writing in favor of this transfer. It is not all oppo

sition by any means. Most of the press expressions that I have seen have been in favor of it-that is, the expressions in the Maryland papers.

BENICIA ARSENAL, CAL.

The CHAIRMAN. The next item is on page 35, "Benicia Arsenal, Cal. For addition to main issuing and receiving storehouse, $11,000." Gen. CROZIER. Mr. Chairman, that estimate should be increased to $16,000. It is intended to increase the main issuing and receiving storehouse, or to increase its capacity, about 40 per cent. Although the Benicia Arsenal is away out on the Pacific coast, it has felt the increased activity that all the arsenals have in the necessity for supplying the troops that are raised out there.

STOREHOUSES.

The CHAIRMAN. In addition to that, you are asking $60,000 for two storehouses.

Gen. CROZIER. Yes, sir. Those are two storehouses which we expect to make of reinforced concrete. They are not very large-about 50 by 100 feet each, of two stories, and with proper equipment, such as lights, elevators, and sprinkling system. Even in normal times, as I have said to you more than once, the demand for increased storage space at Benicia Arsenal has been considerable, and of course that has greatly increased now.

GARAGE.

The CHAIRMAN. For a garage for motor trucks and automobile messenger wagon you ask $7,000.

Gen. CROZIER. There are two motor trucks and an automobile messenger wagon, and we will probably have to get another truck. This equipment is now kept in a wooden shed, which is not a good place for it, and which is not a safe place for it. It ought to be a suitable garage, such as everybody puts up who has that kind of vehicle to store. People do not keep them in wooden sheds.

OIL STOREHOUSE.

The CHAIRMAN. The next item is, "For an additional amount for an oil storehouse, $3,500." We gave you $2,000 for this purpose.

Gen. CROZIER. That $3,500, Mr. Chairman, is intended to include the appropriation of $2,000 already made. It is an additional appropriation of $1,500. The $3,500 is intended to cover the whole of it. In other words, when the estimate was made it was uncertain whether that was a lapsing appropriation or not. It is covered in the sundry civil bill for the fiscal year 1918.

The CHAIRMAN. That is this year.

Gen. CROZIER. I see that the estimate of $3,500 was made before it was known whether that bill had passed Congress. It was before it passed. Therefore this can be reduced from $3,500 to $1,500. The CHAIRMAN. Why do you need to increase it at all?

Gen. CROZIER. On account of the increased cost of labor and material over that which governed this estimate which was made in

1915.