The TNT Story

THE RAPE OF

HOWELL AND HAMBURG, MISSOURI

(An American Tragedy)

Donald K. Muschany

3. THE LANDOWNERS PROTEST

The voice of protest from the landowners was then loud and clear. No one could imagine that the U. S. Government would abrogate its own duly authorized contracts. Bitter residents called it “welshing.” I called it “rape.”

On March 12th, 1941, a land owners meeting was held and I quote the news article from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch under dateline of March 13, 1941:

     “Descendants of pioneers who had tilled the soil of St. Charles County since the days of the American revolution, and others who settled there in later years, filled the Evangelical Church Hall at Weldon Springs last night to petition President Roosevelt asking that they be paid now for their land which the Government took many weeks ago for the TNT plant site.

     It was an earnest gathering, undemonstrative but grimly serious. The 94 men who signed the petition sat in a front section reserved for landowners. They were plainly dressed, some in overalls, and most had the wind-whipped faces of outdoor men. In the seats behind them, and standing about the walls, were their wives and children, in all about 850 persons.

—Plea to President.

     They told the President, in their petition, of the shock with which they learned last October that the Government needed their land for a munitions plant. But they had given up their homes, farms, schools and churches in a spirit of loyalty and patriotism, the petition added. They had signed options offered by an agent for the War Department; the options had been accepted for the War Department by Col. R. D. Valliant. But now the War Department had repudiated the options and was seeking to get the land at a lesser price by condemnation.

     The solemn tone of the meeting, set when they raised their voices at the start to sing ‘America,’ was not broken by applause or laughter until near the end, when the petition had been signed and there was discussion of sending copies to others besides the President. Senator Bennett Champ Clark’s name was mentioned in this connection.

    ‘Wasn’t it Bennett Clark who started all this delay in the first place?’ asked one of those present. The tension broke, then, and there was both laughter and applause.

     ‘I think he did,’ replied Dr. O. L. Snyder, a retired physician who had been named chairman of a committee of five to represent the landowners in any further proceedings, ‘but it might be a good idea to send him one anyway, so that he will know what we are thinking about.’

—Clark’s Complaint.

     Senator Clark had touched off the controversy, two months ago, with complaints to the War Department that the 5 per cent commission it allowed to its agents in obtaining the options, R. Newton McDowell, a Kansas City contractor, was excessive. He had complained, too, that excessive prices were offered in some instances. Under the options, the 16,000-acre site which the Government had expected to acquire for about $1,000,000 would cost about $3,000,000.

     But Fred C. Hollenbeck, who used to be superintendent of schools at Howell, before that community was absorbed into the TNT plant site, argued that the Government had bought more than so many acres of land. Hollenbeck, now superintendent of the newly formed Consolidated School District No. 2 west of the munitions plant site, presided when the meeting opened.

     ‘I know many strong men who had tears in their eyes when they left their homes here for the last time,’ he said. ‘You people gave up the scenes of your childhood, your farms, your crops, the land your forefathers had tilled, your churches, schools, and well-kept towns. If, perhaps, the value set was more than the price of your land, those tears had to be paid for. Those other things had to be taken into consideration.’

—Telegram to Cannon.

     Hollenbeck encouraged those present to believe that their darkest days had passed, because the community had friends. Here he introduced Donald Muschany, son of Morris Muschany, undertaker at New Melle, to read a telegram from Congressman Clarence Cannon. The telegram was addressed to the elder Muschany, one of the committee who had organized the meeting, but he was unable to read it because he had become hoarse in talking to so many persons while making arrangements for the meeting.

     The Congressman’s telegram said he regarded the War Department’s action in delaying payments under the options as an outrage and violation of contract. It said he had just returned from the War Department, ‘and while its decision is still unfavorable,’ he was working on the matter from another angle and hoped to get results.

     In their petition the landowners said many of their number had contracted new obligations after surrendering their homes and were in danger of losing their earnest money deposits because they had not been paid by the Government; that others were embarrassed financially, and some in dire need. The petition pointed out that spring planting time was rapidly approaching, and that the farmers, if not paid soon, would suffer further loss.

—Chester C. Davis Quoted.

     Former Circuit Judge B. H. Dyer told the gathering of the conference he and others had with Chester C. Davis, new president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank and chairman of the agricultural division of the National Defense Advisory Commission, who promised to recommend immediate payment under the options. Davis, he mentioned, had shown his interest by visiting St. Charles County yesterday and talking with many of those who attended the meeting.

     Dyer offered his opinion that the options, having been accepted by the War Department, had become binding contracts, which might be enforced in the courts.

     ‘But it ought not to be necessary for you to resort to the courts,’ he added. ‘The Government ought to deal with its citizens as to be an example to the citizens themselves.

     ‘I would never have believed that this Government of ours would make refugees of its people, but that is what many of you have become.’

     Named with Dr. Snyder to the committee to look after the landowners’ interests in further proceedings were Morris Muschany, Eltin Pitman, a well driller; George Hackman, a farmer, and Earl Sutton, Circuit Clerk of St. Charles County.

     The petition to President Roosevelt was sent to him by mail. Copies went to Congressman Cannon, Davis and Senators Truman and Clark.”

Under the dateline of March 17, 1941, The Associated Press carried the following news article under title “‘Vicious Contracts’ Used for TNT Plant Land, Says Clark:

     ‘‘Senator Clark (Dem.), Missouri, contended today that the War Department had used a ‘vicious form of contract’ in procuring land for the construction of a TNT plant from a group of St. Charles County, Mo., farmers.

     Clark told the Senate that the department arranged with a private agent to obtain options on the land and that the agent was to receive 5 per cent of the purchase price.

     Upon examining the options, Clark continued, the department refused to make payment for some of the property even though the owners had moved away. He said he had conferred with Robert Patterson, War Department Undersecretary, and that the latter had voiced sympathy for the farmers’ plight.

     The Senator said he would withhold further discussion in order to ascertain whether the War Department could work out some adjustment. He filed with the Senate a petition for adjustment from some of the farmers involved.

CONDEMNATION LIKELY

     It is expected that condemnation proceedings will be filed to acquire title to 149 parcels of land at the plant site for which funds have not yet been paid.

     United States District Attorney Harry C. Blanton, who was in Washington last week, said today he was ready to proceed with condemnation proceedings if he was so instructed by the Department of Justice, but that no directions for filing the suits have yet been received.

     There is a possibility, it was learned, that suits may be filed to recover alleged excessive amounts paid for some of the property which has already been acquired. There are a total of 270 parcels in the site of which 121 have been bought by the government. Options are held on 146 others while no agreement has been reached on three pieces of property.”

A few days later, Senator Clark was in St. Louis and seemed to be singing a different song. Of course, he was away from Washington D. C., and it was important what he said to the home folks. The following article under the heading, “TNT Landowners Wait. . .”

     “The 148 unpaid landowners who gave up their property to permit the Government to build a TNT plant near Weldon Spring, returned to town yesterday afternoon with their families, 250 persons in all, to enlist the aid of United States Senator Bennett C. Clark in their effort to get the agreed price for their property soon, but the Senator didn’t show up.

     Later, after three hours of milling about on Missouri Highway 94, the town’s main street, they returned to their homes.

     Senator Clark remained in his St. Louis hotel room, he said, on the advice of his physician after he developed a throat infection. A committee of the unpaid landowners, which was unable in time to call off the meeting scheduled for 3 o’clock at Weldon Spring Evangelical Church, called at the hotel to see if the Senator could meet with them today. If he could, the landowners, many of whom had travelled many miles, would have remained overnight at Weldon Spring.

—Sees Committee.

     But the Senator had to return to Washington today. Last night he had to go to Columbia where his son, Champ, a student at the University of Missouri, had been stricken with appendicitis.

     He did give the committee an hour of his time and heard the story of the plight of the landowners. When they sold their property, he was told, many of them purchased other tracts, made down payments and obligated themselves to pay the balance soon. But after four months they are still unpaid and in danger of losing the earnest money payments on the new property.

     Many of them have contracted to buy places valued at what the Government agreed to give them for the old tracts and now the Government has announced that the prices were excessive and that it would condemn all property on which it had not exercised its options.

     The Senator repeated the statement he made in the Senate that he thought the War Department for whom the land was purchased, was committing an outrage against the landowners, that he thought the options were binding contracts, and that the department was hedging on its agreements to correct an “improvident Contract” it made to give R. Newton McDowell, Kansas City contractor, 5 per cent for procuring the options.

—Petition Presented.

     He told the committee he had taken the matter up with Undersecretary of War Robert M. Patterson and had given Patterson a copy of the petition the landowners drew up March 12.

     ‘Patterson was impressed by the facts in the petition and told me he would take it up with the Secretary of War,’ Clark said. ‘I’ll call him again tomorrow when I return to Washington.’

     While the Senator spoke, however, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson was filing notice of taking of the property of five of the unpaid landowners in the United States District Court at St. Louis. Checks representing what the War Department believed was ‘just compensation’ for the land were deposited with the Court.

     The deposits were $1875 for the 10 acres of Grover Cleveland Silvey; $7604 for the 170 acres of Dr. and Mrs. Oscar L. Snyder; $3860 for the 94 acres of Merita Callaway; $9120 for the 161 acres of Tarlton Woodson, and $5100 for the 52 acres of Mrs. and Mrs. George C. Willson.

     The Government had options to purchase for $109,768 the five tracts for which it deposited the $27,559 with the court. Individual option prices were: Silvey, $5000; Snyder, $30,395; Callaway, $10,888; Woodson, $31,485, and Willson, $32,000.

—‘People Getting Hostile.’

     Members of the committee stressed the need for speed. ‘People out there are getting riled up and down-right hostile,’ Morris Muschany, formerly an undertaker at Howell, told the Senator. ‘They’ve all been law-abiding citizens, but things are getting serious. They’ve lost their homes once and may lose them again if they don’t get paid soon.’

     ‘When McDowell came out there,’ he explained, ‘the people were afraid to deal with him and they wired the War Department which informed them they had to deal with him. Many of them signed options under threats of condemnation. Now, after taking their homes, the Government won’t pay the agreed price. They’re getting worked up, I tell you.’

     Eltin Pitman, a well driller, said to the Senator, that ‘it all has me puzzled.’

     ‘It just doesn’t look like our Government at all to come in, put our people out, take away our schools and our churches and then refuse to pay us the agreed price for them,’ he said, ‘We’re in bad shape. We can’t borrow money on the land and the banks won’t recognize the options as collateral.’

     Clark promised to do all he could and the committee left. Members were frankly displeased with the outcome, but said ‘it was about what we expected.’

     The committee has no immediate plans and would await further developments, Dr. O. L. Snyder, chairman, said. In the meantime he said he would communicate again with Congressman Clarence Cannon who ‘seems to be working hard in our behalf.’”

On the day of March 17, 1941, my father, Morris I. Muschany, received the following telegram from Congressman Clarence Cannon:

“HAVE JUST HAD FINAL CONFERENCE WITH WAR DEPARTMENT AND REGRET TO SAY ROUTINE CONDEMNATION PROCEEDINGS WILL BE STARTED IMMEDIATELY STOP HOWEVER MONEY WILL BE PAID INTO THE COURT IN A FEW DAYS AND AS RAPIDLY AS THE SEPARATE TRACTS CAN BE APPRAISED THE OWNER MAY COME INTO COURT AND DRAW 100 PERCENT OF THE APPRAISED VALUE AND THE REMAINDER OF THE PRICE AGREED UPON WITH MCDOWELL WILL BE NEGOTIATED PERSONALLY OR ADJUDICATED IN COURT STOP THE WAR DEPARTMENT TELLS ME THEY HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO BRING CONDEMNATION PROCEEDINGS UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES BUT APPRAISERS WILL BE INSTRUCTED TO MAKE AS LIBERAL AN APPRAISAL AS POSSIBLE STOP HOWEVER IT IS MY BELIEF THAT ALL LANDOWNERS WITH WHOM THE GOVERNMENT HAS ACTUALLY ENTERED INTO CONTRACT WILL BE AWARDED FULL AMOUNT OF THE CONTRACT BY THE COURT STOP I DO NOT SEE HOW THE COURT COULD POSSIBLY DETERMINE OTHERWISE STOP IN SUCH EVENT THE OWNER WHO DRAWS THE MONEY NOW FOR THE CONCEDED VALUE OF HIS FARM WOULD RECEIVE THE REMAINDER DUE UNDER THE CONTRACT AS SOON AS THE COURT COULD PASS UPON IT STOP BUT THOSE WHO HAVE NO CONTRACT AS YET WILL BE IN A POSITION WHERE THE PRICE PAID FOR THE FARM WILL DEPEND ON THE RESULT OF THE USUAL CONDEMNATION PROCEEDINGS STOP AM KEEPING IN TOUCH WITH THE MATTER AND WISH THE LAND OWNERS WOULD LET ME KNOW IF THEY HAVE ANY FURTHER SUGGESTIONS AT ANY TIME=

CLARENCE CANNON MC.”

My father responded with the following telegram on March 18, 1941 to Congressman Cannon and received the following reply:

“REGARDING YOUR WIRE MARCH SEVENTEENTH WHY IS IT NECESSARY TO CONDEMN LAND IF THE GOVERNMENT IS GOING TO PAY ONE HUNDRED PERCENT OF CONTRACT PRICE STOP WE FARMERS FEEL THAT ANOTHER APPRAISAL WILL NECESSITATE WEEKS AND MAYBE MONTHS OF TIME NOT TO MENTION THE ADDED EXPENSE TO US AND THE GOVERNMENT STOP ARE YOU BEING CONSISTENT IN YOUR APPROPRIATIONS IF YOU APPROPRIATE SEVEN BILLION DOLLARS FOR THE WAR DEPARTMENT WHEN THEY WONT APPROVE A TWO MILLION DOLLAR LAND TRANSACTION STOP WE FEEL IT IS JUST AS IMPORTANT TO PAY US FOR OUR HOMES WE HAVE HAD TO VACATE AS IT IS TO PAY ENGLANDS WAR EXPENSE

               MORRIS MUSCHANY              GEORGE HACKMAN

               NEW MELLE MISSOURI”

     “IN REPLY TO YOUR TELEGRAM IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO CONDEMN THIS LAND AND I AM OPPOSING ALL CONDEMNATION PROCEEDINGS AND HAVE OPPOSED THEM FROM BEGINNING STOP I HAVE INSISTED FROM THE FIRST AND AM STILL INSISTING THAT THE GOVERNMENT HAS ENTERED INTO CONTRACT FOR THE PURCHASE OF THIS LAND AT A STATED PRICE AND MUST CARRY OUT ITS CONTRACT STOP MY TELEGRAM TO YOU WAS TO INFORM YOU WHAT THE WAR DEPARTMENT IS DOING. IN MY LAST CONFERENCE WITH THEM I DEMANDED EXECUTION OF THEIR CONTRACTS AND PAYMENT IN FULL FOR ALL LAND IN THE WELDON SPRINGS AREA AND THIS IS WHAT THEY ARE SAYING AND WHAT THEY WERE EXPECTING TO DO STOP SO FAR AS THE APPROPRIATION IS CONCERNED MY COMMITTEE HAS ALREADY APPROPRIATED MONEY FROM WHICH TO PAY THE FULL PRICE AGREED UPON BY THE GOVERNMENT FOR EVERY ACRE OF LAND IN THE AREA STOP IT IS NOT A QUESTION OF MONEY, IT IS A QUESTION OF OUTSIDERS BUTTED IN AND TELLING THE DEPARTMENT THE LAND IS NOT WORTH WHAT THE GOVERNMENT AGREED TO PAY STOP IT IS A BUSINESS MATTER AND NOT A POLITICAL MATTER AND I AM DOING EVERYTHING I CAN FOR THE FARMERS WHOSE MONEY IS BEING HELD UP

               CLARENCE CANNON. 1045A.

I assume the heat was being placed on Mr. R. Newton McDowell. You may begin to realize this is like a Laurel & Hardy drama of who is on first, second and third. In order to clarify Mr. McDowell’s position, he wrote the following letter:

“R. Newton McDowell

Home Office

Midland Building

Kansas City, Missouri.

March 22, 1941.

Mr. John J. O’Brien

Chief of Real Estate Section

Quartermaster Corps, War Dept.

Railroad Retirement Building

Washington, D. C.

Dear Mr. O’Brien:

     I am enclosing mimeographed communications I have mailed to all the unpaid landowners in the Weldon Springs Ordnance Area.

     This wire refers to ‘widespread criticism of War Department.’ This criticism originated from Senator Bennett Clark who was fed information from two men who, to say the least, are mentally confused. I would gladly give you their names but I do not wish to hurt their families who are fully aware of these communications to Senator Clark. Later on I am going to have a great deal to say on this score. Perhaps Clark’s criticism was sour grapes as his own statement suggests, ‘Why did they pick a Kansas City man when there were plenty available in St. Louis?’

     The wire mentions lack of appraisals. To have stopped and had detailed appraisals made of 300 tracts and buildings would have required so much time the war would have been over before they were finished. Further, I thought that was my job—that was why I was hired. I made a most thorough and detailed investigation of values in that area and my whole organization has had wide experience with farms and farmers, most of them own farms themselves, and I myself own four farms. It so happens in the last fifteen years we have done a lot of work in St. Charles County, in fact at one time we operated a quarry in St. Charles County. All of my men are on an annual salary and most of them have been with me for fifteen years or longer. I had one man on a weekly salary on leave from the Federal Land Bank and one on leave from the Agricultural Conservation Association who had accumulated a number of farms for the Department of Agriculture.

     You do not know whether my prices are excessive or not because you have not been furnished with any intelligent information on the subject. Let me remind you the exact sum total of your information on values and how it was secured. Ewing Wright, political lawyer from southern Indiana, who has some connection, I don’t know what, with the Department of Justice walked on this project and in the first five minutes stated these prices are too high and started preaching condemnation proceedings and he did not know a damned thing about it. My man Bolton told him that condemnation proceedings would cause a riot and we had been instructed not to condemn but to negotiate fair prices and to allow something for the tenants, cost of moving, cost of crops and take into account disturbance values and that we had written instructions from Secretary of War Stimson and Under Secretary Patterson laying down the method of our procedure and among other things ‘to maintain maximum goodwill in the area.’ Mr. Wright’s philosophy was to condemn the farms and as he put it, make them like it, for the Government takes men and puts them in the Army and makes them like it. That may be the correct policy, I have my own views on that, but that decidedly was not the policy under which we were instructed to acquire this land.

     On some of the buildings in the two small towns we acquired I used the chief appraiser for HOLC in St. Louis. In the case of orchards, about which we knew nothing, we called the Stark Nurseries of Louisiana, Missouri, one of the outstanding authorities of the country. In regard to the bluff land overlooking the Missouri River of which there is about 1,000 acres within the site area, I personally, spent four days checking prices on bluff lands from a point far south of St. Louis on the Mississippi River up to Alton, Illinois, and around on the Missouri River. I could write a small-sized book on this subject. I was amazed to find bluff land overlooking the rivers actually selling for $1,000 per acre. I paid $200 per acre for all bluff land excepting one parcel and if you take this bluff land to condemnation I would say it is a cinch bet that these owners could parade dozens and dozens of expert witnesses which would cause any jury to allow upward of $500 per acre for the land. Only in one case I allowed $300 per acre and that was to George Willson one of the outstanding lawyers of St. Louis who had built a country home there.

     The rough wooded land in this area commands the highest prices from St. Louisans who have just begun to build in that area. You must remember since the completion of the new Daniel Boone Bridge across the Missouri River right at this T.N.T. site, it has placed this property forty-five minutes from St. Louis on a super-highway.

     My men would argue about prices and take options at the lowest possible figure. Each night I would go over each option with the men and I rejected thousands of acres and had the men go back again and again. Many of these options I would reject three or four times and frequently switched men until an option was brought in at a figure I could conscientiously recommend to the War Department. If necessary, in the last analysis, I would call on the party myself. I was the most despised man in St. Charles County and was put down as an extremely hard-boiled individual.

     I understand some agents in other parts of the country who handle similar contracts to mine merely went out and hired brokers who paid their own expenses and worked on a commission and more or less lined up the farmers and signed at any figure—My God, we worked like Trojans.

     Wright then picked up three appraisers who were about as qualified to do the job as I am to judge guinea pigs. He then chose ten tracts, nine of which were the most expensive parcels in the area, and these three alleged appraisers, one a filling station operator in St. Charles, another a farm machinery salesman from Old Orchard, Missouri, and the other a farmer from Matson, Missouri, and they prepared the figures that were handed to you after requiring fourteen days to appraise these ten tracts and in some cases they had to use their imaginations as some of the buildings had been demolished. Therefore, on this report, which is entirely valueless, you announce to the world that I allowed excessive values.

     Wright said he would not admit the property had any suburban value although it is forty-five minutes from St. Louis and I can show you where St. Louis people have paid from $250 to $350 for land in that site area which agriculturally speaking is not worth $75.

     The Missouri State Highway Department, a few years ago when they were acquiring a 200′ right-of-way for Route 61 which is now the eastern boundary of the T.N.T. site, paid an average price of $112 for sixteen parcels of land and went to condemnation on five parcels and took a terrific licking. Witnesses were brought before the jury to show that land similarly located near St. Louis had a value of $250 to $350 per acre and the courts allowed under condemnation proceedings an average price for these five parcels of $177 per acre and the balance of these farms (these 21 tracts) are now owned by the Government. Our average price on agricultural land including total cost to the Government average $114 per acre and our over-all price for the entire site including all costs to the Government, including business houses, homes, churches in two small towns and one small settlement and $100,000 paid for schools, was $159 per acre. Therefore you can sit in Washington and decide that $114 per acre including all costs to the Government for any old farm land located forty-five minutes from St. Louis on a super-highway and know that the Government could not have been stung very much. Therefore, I make the statement that you are acting on rank misinformation and I firmly believe that under condemnation proceedings the Government would get stung one million dollars more than my option prices. Of course there are some poor farmers who are in a pitiful financial condition as a result of this long delay who could be brow beaten under the threat of a long drawn out legal battle into accepting almost any sum in cash.

     However, all of the above at this stage is totally unimportant for the all important question is this: Is the United States Government going to stand on a policy of repudiating its written obligations with its own citizens? That policy is far-reaching and transcends everything else.

     All of these transactions did not come to light within the last few days or weeks. The Department of Justice knew all about my contract and what was going on in Weldon Springs as last October I requested that the Department of Justice send out a man to be kept on the job for the entire period of acquisition and I got out a letter to the farmers advising them of this.

     In November the Department of Justice did send out one of its men from Washington who stayed in St. Charles about two weeks and aided in closing the first options. He then said we knew all about it and there was no use of his remaining any longer.

     I understand you agreed to pay the farmers in full on the seventy tracts of land at Burlington, Iowa, which had been officially accepted by the War Department which I think you should have done. I understand there are about $3,000,000 of officially accepted options at Wilmington, Illinois, and that you have held up payment of this project. According to the testimony you gave before the Military Affairs Committee as quoted in the Chicago Tribune you state that these values are excessive. Are you proposing to heap more criticism on the War Department by repudiating these contracts in Illinois by announcing condemnation proceedings? I hope not.

     Mr. O’Brien, you have been dumped into a hot spot—I perhaps do not have to tell you of that—I think you have been fed with a lot of misinformation and bum advice and if you had the time, which you have not, to go into these things yourself in detail you would find that I am correct. Anyone can be stubborn but it takes a good sized individual to reverse himself. I definitely feel that the right and proper thing for you to do in all fairness to these farmers, a great many of whom are in a tragic condition, would be to withdraw your recommendation that the Government repudiate its obligations and pay in full all officially signed agreements, whether at Burlington, Wilmington or Weldon Springs, and reserve for yourself the right to run the Department from now on out under any policy you choose.

Yours very truly,

(Signed) R. NEWTON McDOWELL.”

On March 25, 1941, the Post-Dispatch carried the following news article, entitled “Cannon Pleads for Full Price for TNT Sites:”

     “Congressman Clarence Cannon of Missouri appeared before the House Military Affairs Committee today to plead the cause of St. Charles County farmers who have been dispossessed of their land, on which the Government is building the Weldon Spring TNT plant, but have not yet been paid for their property.

     Cannon explained that the farmers had been dispossessed at the time the War Department abrogated its contract with R. Newton McDowell, Kansas City contractor employed to get options, on the ground that the prices McDowell had agreed to pay were too high.

     ‘Apparently the only excuse of the War Department for abrogating the contract,’ remarked Representative Dow W. Harter of Ohio, ‘is that they made a mistake and set land prices too high.’ Harter is acting chairman of the committee.

     ‘That’s exactly it,’ Cannon replied. ‘They propose to remedy one mistake by another mistake at the expense of those least able to pay.’

     Cannon declined to say under questioning that the prices under the options were too high. He said the average price for farm land in the options was $114 an acre and the average price for town property was $185 an acre. He added that he thought farm land in the vicinity had previously sold for as high as $200 an acre.

     ‘I do not want to pass on the question of fair prices,’ Cannon added. ‘The thing that concerns me is that the Government agreed to pay stipulated prices and they are now refusing to pay those prices.’ He said ‘wealthy St. Louisans’ who had recently bought property in the county had been paid because they had new abstracts, while farmers whose titles went back to Spanish grants had not been paid when the options were abrogated.

     Under the contract, McDowell would receive a total fee of about $150,000, Cannon estimated.

     Just what the Military Affairs Committee could do to resolve the Weldon Springs controversy was not apparent, except that it could recommend passage of a law forbidding contracts such as given to McDowell.”

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