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Shrewd Illinois congressmen, chiefly Representative Martin Madden, put the Chicago project into the Rivers and Harbors Appropriations Act of the 69th Congress. It called for only $3,500,000 but if passed it would establish the principle of diversion. But there the provision stuck, a contributing factor to the whole bill's long delay. Only last week was it pried loose, and then by a former enemy, Senator Willis of Ohio. Coached by sage Representative Theodore Burton of Ohio, Senator Willis proposed an amendment, "That nothing in this act shall be construed as authorizing any diversion of water from Lake Michigan." This amendment the midwesterners, who had sought a version reading ". . . does not affect in any way the question of diversion . . ." were obliged to accept in a compromise conference. The Senate adopted the Willis phrase; in other words, passed the question of diversion along to the Supreme Court to decide. The House, aligned by Representatives Dempsey of New York and Burton of Ohio was ready to do the same.
Chicago thus had authority for its ditch 9 feet deep and 200 feet wide from Utica, Ill., to Grafton, Ill.—but no authority to fill it with lake water. Army officials, uninterested in sectionalism but keen for a central U. S. waterway, believed that the Secretary of War could furnish the necessary authority. That, said Ohioans and others, remains to be adjudicated.