Mr. BYRNS. How long has Kent Island been under consideration, Mr. Price?

Mr. PRICE. The first we knew of it was about six weeks ago. Some lawyers appeared on Kent Island, trying to get options on the land. They interviewed the citizens and went about in a very mysterious way. They told nobody that it was for the Government, and they did get some options. They got options from some people who owned land and who had moved away from Kent Island, and would therefore be glad to sell out. There were a few of those. All of the people that they did secure options from who are genuine residents of the island have since repudiated those options after they found out what they were for.

The CHAIRMAN. How do you mean that they repudiated them? Mr. PRICE. They attempted to withdraw them.

The CHAIRMAN. If they have given valid options which are still in existence, they could not withdraw them.

Mr. PRICE. I do not know whether they have been able to withdraw them or not, but they want to withdraw them, and they have notified the Government, through a petition which I presented to the War Department, and asked that the options be recalled because they had been secured under false pretenses.

Mr. SHERLEY. Is that the same petition which protested against the acquisition of the island?

Mr. PRICE. It was not in the same petition, but it was presented at the same time.

Mr. SHERLEY. The petition against the taking of the island seemed to be very largely in the handwriting of a few people; there would be 10 or 20 or 30 names signed in the handwriting of the same person.

Mr. PRICE. Yes; I think that is true, because in one or two neighborhoods, where there were some negroes and some illiterate people, they had somebody sign for them. I know personally the people who took those petitions around, and they are high-class citizens, and there is no man's name on that petition without his consent. I will vouch for that before this committee.

It was represented that only a small proportion of the people were opposed to the acquisition of Kent Island. As a matter of fact, the petition you refer to was circulated in 24 hours and signed by over 2,500 people. The island only claims a population of some 3,000, and I was told by the gentleman who circulated the petition that it was signed by everybody it was presented to except two people, and nobody refused except two people; and everybody who was at home upon the island at the time the petition was circulated signed it. Therefore it seems the report that the people were not unanimous in protesting against it is erroneous.

Now, gentlemen, I do not know whether you know very much about Kent Island or not, but I am going to tell you a little about it. The CHAIRMAN. Before you take that up, Mr. Price, you say you suggested several other places to the department.

Mr. PRICE. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. When?

Mr. PRICE. I suggested them since they have decided to take Kent Island.

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The CHAIRMAN. To whom was the information given? Mr. PRICE. I did not suggest all of them, but they have been suggested by people of Maryland. Mr. Linthicum suggested a place. The CHAIRMAN. Who informed you it was too late to investigate it! Mr. PRICE. Mr. Linthicum. State Senator Peter J. Campbell, of Baltimore, wrote a letter to Mr. Linthicum suggesting a point of land at the head of Chesapeake Bay which lies between Bush and Gunpowder Rivers, the two rivers you go over between here and New York on the Pennsylvania Railroad; and he was told that it was too late. I think there are about 30,000 acres in that tract of land, and it runs down to a point at the head of the bay. It is pretty level and has the same water range that Kent Island would have, only it points south. It comes down to a point north of Kent Island. The name of the island is Pool Island.

Mr. GILLETT. Does not the railroad run across it?

Mr. PRICE. The railroad does not run across it until you get up some 12 or 15 miles, and below the railroad it is unobstructed and very sparsely settled.

Mr. SISSON. Is it sandy?

Mr. PRICE. It is practically the same kind of soil you would find in this section of the country, except it is a little gravelly.

There is another place which has been suggested, which is Point Lookout, in the southern part of St. Marys County, right here at the mouth of the Potomac River. The land there is not very accessible and therefore not very high in price. There is no railroad which runs immediately to it, but it is land that could be bought at a reasonable figure, and there are large farms, and in getting sufficient land for a proving ground you would really disrupt very few families. Mr. SISSON. How far is the last place you speak of from the railroad?

Mr. PRICE. I could not say exactly. It is some 10 or 12 miles, possibly. Of course, a railroad could easily be built to it. The Government could buy that land and build a railroad and still make money over the price they would have to pay for Kent Island.

I did this at the suggestion of the War Department. I suggested those places not because it was my duty but because I was trying to show them that when they said it was an emergency we were not trying to block any plan so far as their having a proving ground is concerned if it was a necessity.

Now as to Kent Island, it is the largest island in Chesapeake Bay. Mr. GILLETT. Have you a map of it?

Mr. PRICE. Yes, sir; here is a map of Maryland. Here is Kent Island [indicating] and here is the mouth of the Patapsco River, and Baltimore is about 12 or 15 miles up here [indicating]. It is about 25 miles altogether from Baltimore. Here is Pool Island, where they say they want a water range from the north point of Kent Island to Pool Island, about 20 miles or so up there [indicating]. I will come to that point in a moment. Kent Island, in a direct line from Love Point on the north to Kent Point on the south, is about 16 miles. That is the length of it. It is about 63 miles wide at the widest point. It has approximately 3,000 inhabitants and about 18.000 acres of land. It is as fertile, some of it, as any land in the United States. There are 10 towns varying in population from 100 up to 500 or 600. About two-thirds of the inhabitants live in towns

and villages. There are 2 large tomato and fruit canneries; there are 23 stores; 1 high school; 10 rural schools; 8 churches, representing all denominations; 4 hotels; a very prosperous bank; a concrete plant; there are 3 post offices on the island; 2 rural routes; 2 coal, wood, and lumber yards; 4 sawmills; a planing mill; and a grooving and finishing mill and a flour mill and other enterprises. There are 2 farms containing about 400 acres each, and there are 94 farms running from 100 to 200 acres each, and there are 31 farms running from 10 to 75 acres each. There are grown annually from 150,000 to 200,000 bushels of wheat and about 150,000 bushels of corn. There are many thousands of cases of tomatoes packed there, and this year there are 1,200 acres in tomatoes ready for the canneries. Last year 800,000 bushels of oysters were taken from the waters around Kent Island and shipped to the city markets. There is a large crab industry there doing a business of $25,000 or $30,000 a year and which pays out at this time of the year to the crabbers for daily receipts of crabs from $400 to $500 a day. There is a large amount of poultry business done there. It is a wonderful place for geese and ducks, and I have had an estimate made by some very reliable gentlemen there who tell me that the geese, turkeys, and other fowls amount to between $25,000 and $30,000 a year, and that the lambs and wool this year netted them $30,000, and that the calves and cattle netted them about $15,000. There are 100 automobiles owned on the island, 12 traction wheat-thrashing machines, and there are some very valuable tracts of oak and pine timber which are small. The taxable basis of the island is over $1,500,000. It is traversed by the Maryland, Delaware & Virginia Railroad and numerous steamers, schooners, and sailing vessels plying between various points and Baltimore. One of the regular routes of travel to Rehoboth Beach, Del., which is quite a summer resort, is by daily steamers from Baltimore to Love Point, which is on the north end of this island, and then to Rehoboth by rail. The portion of the island east of Craballey Creek, which they say they do not need, contains 14 farms running from 100 to 200 acres each, and 9 farms of from 6 to 50 acres each. There are 2 towns on that part of the island, and in addition to the above there are about 50 small houses and lots there which we do not call farms.

The part of the island east of Craballey Creek is the most unproductive on the whole island, and practically all of the low marshy land on the island is in that section.

Now, gentlemen, it does seem to me that at a time when we are called upon to stimulate production and to conserve food it is most unwise to wipe out of existence such a community as that-lands that produce from 40 to 45 bushels of wheat to the acre. I do not know whether you gentlemen know it or not, but Kent County and Queen Annes County, of which Kent Island is a part, contain some of the best wheat land in America; and when you undertake, as I say, to wipe out of existence such a community it should be demonstrated beyond the shadow of a doubt that there is no other place available for this purpose. Figuring the food value of the corn and wheat, you will see that Kent Island produces enough bread to feed three or four army divisions in France for a year. When one department of the Government is asking us, as it has asked them as well as every other community in America, to grow

all the grain that they can possibly grow in order that we may feed ourselves and our allies, so that we may be sure to win this war, I say that it becomes a serious matter to wipe out of existence a community like this and use such land as this for the purpose of proving guns, especially when it must be apparent to all of us that there must be thousands and millions of acres of waste land in this great country of ours east of the Mississippi Valley suitable for such purposes. I have figured it conservatively, and I have gotten these figures from as reliable people as there are in the State of Maryland that the annual production of this productive land must be in the neighborhood of $1,000,000; and yet you gentlemen are asked to appropriate money to lay it waste for the sole purpose of shooting guns across it. I might say, too, before I leave that point-and I will refer to it briefly-that it is a great oyster section. It produces everything that is good and that will tickle the palate of man. Everything of that kind can be gotten from the waters around Kent Island, and about one-fifth of the entire oyster production of my State is obtained from the waters in and around this zone that would be established for a proving ground. But they say to us that the oysters are still there and that the crabs are still in the water; but I want to ask you gentlemen how many of us would be brave enough to go out in small boats to catch fish, oysters, or crabs with guns thundering around us that would shoot 25 and 30 miles? The result would be that the waters would be abandoned and this great rich harvest of food supplies coming from those waters would be lost.

Now, in this connection, let me say that to my mind one of the most serious propositions in this whole thing is the danger zone. Gen. Crozier admits in his letter to me that one of the reasons why they are pressing to leave Sandy Hook is on account of the dangers to navigation. In speaking of it, he says:

The increased shipping from New York Harbor and, and in particular the large increase in the number of small sailing boats used for fishing, has at the same time interfered most seriously with firing over the water.

He says, further, that the interference by shipping is very great ineed at the Sandy Hook proving ground, and that at times it practically suspends operations. He says further:

Another fact of great importance is that range firings at any ranges can be conducted in one general direction only.

So that it can not be contended that this is not a danger zone when you establish a proving ground such as this. Col. Ruggles made this statement:

The projectiles from heavy guns fired southward from a proving battery at the northern tip of the island could be recovered for examination.

Speaking about the desirability of an all-land range, he made that statement. He says further:

Again, it is necessary, in perfecting the range instruments, to fire in two directions in order to ascertain exactly wind effects. Kent Island meets that need, for there is an open stretch of 20-odd miles of water to the north, between Kent and Pooles Islands.

I want to show you gentlemen just where that is. Here [indicating on map] is Kent Island, right opposite the city of Annapolis, and here [indicating] is the north point that he refers to. He says that he wants this range from there [indicating] to Pooles Island,

which is over 20 miles. I want to call your attention to the fact, gentlemen, that that runs directly across the mouth of the Patapsco River, and that it runs directly across the line of several steamboat lines which make daily trips. We have a steamboat line to Philadelphia through the canal and to Havre de Grace, and I believe to other places. This range that he speaks of would come right across the mouth of the Patapsco River, across one of the finest fishing grounds in the State of Maryland, or any other State, and across the finest oyster grounds in Maryland or elsewhere. But I am particularly calling your attention to this danger to navigation. All of you know that Baltimore is a great shipping point; that there are hundreds of craft going there every day; that there are dozens and dozens of steamboat lines running their daily; and if this objection that he points out at Sandy Hook is objectionable there, it is equally so at Kent Island.

Mr. SHERLEY. Will you read again the statement as to the water range? I do not mean what he says about Sandy Hook, but I mean the statement about the range.

Mr. PRICE. He says

Kent Island meets that need

That is, for firing in two directions-across the land and across the water. He says

Kent Island meets that need, for there is an open stretch of twenty-odd miles of water to the north between Kent and Pooles Islands.

This article says:

Col. Ruggles stated he knew of no other place where such ranges could be found and which could be so effectually isolated for safety.

Mr. SHERLEY. Did you gather from that statement that the guns were to be fired from the northern end of the island?

Mr. PRICE. I did gather it from that statement.

Mr. SHERLEY. I judged that you did, but I think you are mistaken in that fact. I may be wrong about it, but my information was that while they would have that water range, the guns would not be fired necessarily from that part of the island

Mr. PRICE (interposing). The island itself is only 16 miles long, and they have 20 miles of water to the north. He must go somewhere pretty near the north end of it if he gets a land range for the heavy guns.

Mr. SISSON. As I understand it, Gen. Crozier says that the advantage of having Kent Island is because you can fire there in two directions?

Mr. PRICE. Yes.

Mr. SISSON. So as to get the wind currents, and in firing north you have that open water?

Mr. PRICE. Yes.

Mr. SISSON. And going south you have a stretch of 14 miles of land?

Mr. PRICE. Yes.

Mr. SISSON. So that in firing a projectile they can determine exactly what effect the wind currents have. They can determine whether there are wind currents or not and can determine exactly what a projectile would do under normal conditions. To determine what