Dear Milton: I am delighted to know that you expect to be in Washington this week; I am even more delighted that the doctors give you encouraging predictions in Helen's case.1
Your arrangements for the ninth are perfectly fine with me. In fact, if you want to get in eighteen holes of golf in the morning, I will be quite ready to start off here by six or six-thirty, whatever would be agreeable to you. As I remember, Mamie is going to drive up in the car on the evening of the eighth.2
As for your concern about the St. Lawrence Seaway, I have heard it discussed pro and con, both inside and outside the Administration, so much that I am almost sorry I ever heard the project mentioned.3 In the early days I realized that I was hearing only the pro side of the argument, so one day I sent for Bill Faricy and invited him to bring to see me two or three of the prominent railroad men in the country.4 He came in one Sunday afternoon with several friends, and we had a two or three hour talk on the matter. After that he provided me with a long memorandum on the proposal by the Chicago Chamber of Commerce, and I required that memorandum to be studied by every Department of the government that has an interest in the matter.5
The opponents of the project place the approximate cost to the United States as something over two billion dollars; some of its enthusiastic supporters estimate the federal government expenditure at five million.6 In such a confused situation, you have to dig pretty deep to find out what the facts really are because each allegation is presented with a very large share of emotionalism and prejudice.
All that the Administration has done is to state that the matter does have certain security angles which make the construction of the Seaway reasonably desirable. The Administration believes also that the federal government (through the Federal Power Commission) should give New York State the authority to develop, in conjunction with the Province of Ontario, the power project involved in the Seaway construction.
After you get this far, you have the next fact that Canada is going to construct the Seaway whether or not the United States participates. The next question that arises is whether or not the United States could limit its direct expenditures to a reasonable sum, or whether it would just be led on and on and on into unconscionable costs. With respect to this one point, I can guarantee you what will happen during the next four years--if I live that long--but after that I would expect to have nothing to say about it.
This noon I had lunch with Senator Duff and two of his good friends from Pennsylvania. I found that one of these gentlemen was a very strong proponent, one was a strong opponent, and one seemed to be enough of a politician that he could roll with the punch.7
Give Helen my love, and, of course, all the best to yourself. As ever
I am attaching two documents, both of which came to my attention this morning. The first is the lead editorial from the Washington Post. It is, to my mind, a typically academic and theoretical criticism of activities of which they know very little. If ever you get a chance, you may straighten out your friend Wiggins on the matter.8
The other is a "Weekly Staff Report" of one of the investment research corporations. I have never before heard of this particular service. In any event, the writer has come closer than anyone else to expressing the real joint philosophy of the new Executive group in government, and, in the main, of the Republican Congressional leaders with whom we meet regularly.9
