STATEMENT OF COL. WILLIAM LIVINGSTONE,
OF DETROIT, MICH.,
PRESIDENT LAKE CARRIERS’ ASSOCIATION.
Mr. Livingstone. I do not think I have anything to present different from what I stated to the commission before. I stated that so far as our Lake Carriers’ Association was concerned we would gladly cooperate with you in carrying out the objects by every means in our power, and at that time, in the course of the long discussion that ensued, I stated that I would be glad to put a boat or two, or more boats, as the case might be, at your disposal, to test any plan which the health board wanted to try out. Mr. Frank went over the ground. It is useless for me to repeat that. He came to me and I arranged to put a boat at his disposal. He has the apparatus installed, and he can have the use of her for testing as long as he pleases. Our thought about the matter summed up is this: We are willing to cooperate with you in any way in our power, but we have this feeling about it decidedly, that, whatever apparatus is adopted we feel that it ought to be thoroughly tested and carried beyond the experimental stage, so to speak, and that the experts should be satisfied that the plants installed will accomplish the purpose for which they are installed, because otherwise, if we were to adopt a mechanical device to accomplish this purpose and to put it on board our boats costing a great many thousand dollars and then found after we had installed them that they would not work properly and had to tear them out, the result would be a loss of time and money, and no possible good would result. We have some 16 steamers, and naturally the cost would be great. We feel now that it is just in the experimental stage. We do not feel that the time has arrived at which the health bureau are prepared to say, “If you install this device it will be satisfactory and accomplish the result”; but as soon as they are prepared to say, “We have tested this out; we have given it a thorough test; and we are satisfied in our minds that it will accomplish the purpose set forth,” then we will say, “Go ahead.”
May I add one thing? I want it to be clearly understood that I am not asking that our boats be exempt from any part of their duty to be performed to the general public, but it seems to me the matter has been overstated, to some extent. I am not putting it in by way of defense or expiation. I may say that we have in our employ approximately 17,000 people. If you take all the men employed on all the boats on the Great Lakes—call it 25,000, if you please—we employ the majority of them, and it must be remembered that they are not depositing their sewage or excretion into the water at any one point, and the idea that they can pollute and contaminate the waters to the same extent that this great city of 700,000 inhabitants can, with the sewers flowing into the river, is simply impossible.
Mr. Tawney. It is not only the sewage deposited by the employees of the vessels you speak of, but the steamboat population of the Great Lakes in 1913 was 50,000,000 souls.
Mr. Livingstone. I know that; we carried nearly 14,000,000 out of Detroit. I am not making any defense. I am not asking that they be treated differently from any other citizens of the United States. We do not ask for one blessed thing in the way of exemption. We stand up and try to do our full share as citizens of the country. I have lived in Detroit all my life, nearly, and have a large family, and am just as much interested in Detroit as any man living here can possibly be, and just as anxious we should get pure water to drink as any man living. I am not putting it upon the ground of cost either. It is not a question of dollars and cents. I want that understood. The point we want to be satisfied on is that it will work efficiently.
I have been connected entirely with freight boats. The average crew is about 25. The passenger boats carry a larger complement. Unless I misunderstood him, Mr. Sloman said that the water board sent me a letter, I think, nearly, if not quite, two years ago and asked that on account of the intake pipe near Detroit, which is up at the head of Belle Isle on the American side, we should make some arrangement that for several miles above that we would have our closets closed until we had passed that intake pipe. We complied with it, and I am not sure whether all the passenger lines complied with it. I know I personally asked them all, and I am reasonably sure the request was complied with. Nothing was deposited anywhere near the intake pipe. I went into this matter fully and exhaustively at the last meeting of the commission, and we stand now just where we did then. Anything you gentlemen decide, after giving it careful and exhaustive study, we stand ready to abide by, but we think it has not yet been tested out sufficiently, and I think Prof. Phelps will agree with me that they have not yet got to the point where they will say it will do the work.
Mr. Magrath. Mr. Sloman made quite a point about the garbage from steamers as being an injury to property. There must be a tremendous amount of garbage where there is such a heavy passenger traffic each season.
Mr. Livingstone. That is true. Where do you live, Mr. Sloman?
Mr. Sloman. Up at Sans Souci.
Mr. Livingstone. On Harrisons Island?