The Electric Boat Company makes the allegation in their last bill of complaint that by threatening to discharge me from their employ and break their contract with me and stop my salary, that I agreed to a contract which prevents me from using my brains and inventive talent in building submarine boats for the balance of my life. This allegation is absolutely false, even though under affidavit by Mr. Rice, and would be, if true, most inequitable on account of duress and on account of want of consideration. This alleged agreement was not reduced to writing; the only evidence the Court has is the sworn statement of Mr. Rice; and when the fact is considered that Mr. Rice, formerly a professor of law at Columbia University, and having the assistance of Mr. Frost, also a lawyer, failed to have such an important agreement reduced to writing and signed by me, the whole proposition appears ridiculous and silly. The further fact that this bill of complaint containing these allegations, has been printed and distributed at the Capitol would seem to indicate that the principal object of this suit is to frighten away the capital I had enlisted, and prevent the consideration of my new patents and claims by your honorable committee. My attention has been called to the bill (H.R. 10070), entitled "A Bill to Increase the Efficiency of the Navy." It must be apparent to every member of your committee that this bill is drawn solely in the interest of the Electric Boat Company monopoly. The clause in it that "The Secretary of the Navy shall purchase or contract for said submarine boats within four months of the completion of the contract trials of the submarine boats now building for the Navy" is against all public interest, and is something extremely unusual. If the Electric Boat Company should not complete its contract for a year or two years or never, the whole business of the Navy Department in this line would be held up. The bill excludes me, the inventor of the Holland boats and who constructed and built the original _Holland_, which is now in the service of the Navy, from submitting my plans and models to the Navy Department for consideration, for it would be useless to do so if the Secretary is deprived, by the proposed law suggested by the Electric Boat Company, from adopting them, though considering them superior in efficiency and economy to the plans upon which the present boats are being built. I have recently had my models tested in the government tanks at the Navy Yard in Washington by the United States officers in charge, and their official reports will show that I can get a guaranteed speed of 22 knots per hour submerged, and the same speed on the surface, and this speed can be obtained in vessels of the same or greater tonnage as those now being built by the Electric Boat Company.