When a man like Mr. Stearns, of national and international reputation as a waterworks engineer, who for many years has been in charge of the extensive construction work of the Massachusetts Metropolitan Water and Sewerage Board, and who probably has as large a practical and theoretical knowledge of earth-dam construction as any living authority, declares himself to be strongly in favor of the lock project and believes in the entire safety of the dams required in connection therewith, I hold that such a judgment may be relied upon and that it should govern in national affairs as it would govern in private affairs if the canal construction were a business enterprise and involved the risk of private capital. When we find a man like Mr. Harrod, who for many years has been in charge of levee construction in Louisiana, thoroughly familiar with the theory and practice of river and flood control, express himself in favor of the lock project and in opposition to the sea-level canal, I hold that we may with entire confidence accept his judgment as a governing principle in arriving at a final decision respecting the type of the canal to be finally fixed by the Congress. And, going back to the minority report of the Board of Consulting Engineers, we find that Mr. Joseph Ripley, the general superintendent at present in charge of the "Soo" Canal, and Mr. Isham Randolph, chief engineer of the sanitary district of Chicago, and thoroughly familiar with canal construction and management, both American engineers of much experience and high standing, pronounce themselves in favor of a lock canal. When confronted by these facts, I for one would rely upon American engineers, American conviction and American experience, and accept the lock-canal proposition. In this matter, as in all other practical problems, we may safely take the business point of view, and calculate without bias or prejudice the respective advantages and disadvantages; and the more thorough the method of reasoning and logic applied to the canal problem the more emphatic and incontrovertible the conclusion that the Congress should decide in favor of a plan which will give us a navigable waterway across the Isthmus within a measurable distance of time and with a reasonable expenditure of money, as opposed to a visionary theory of an ideal canal which may ultimately be constructed, possibly for the exclusive benefit of future generations, but at an enormous waste of money, time, and opportunity. I do not think we want to repeat at this late stage of the canal problem the fatal error of De Lesseps, who, when he had the opportunity in 1879 to make a choice of a practical waterway, being influenced by his great success at Suez, upon the most fragmentary evidence and in the absence of definite knowledge of actual conditions, decided beforehand in favor of a sea-level canal. It was largely his bias and prejudice which proved fatal to the enterprise and to himself.