In other words, should tude of its obvious advantages, to say the least? $100,000,000 or twice that amount between Cairo and the Gulf stop the consideration of such expenditure for such a purpose for a single minute?

The Newlands bill contemplates the expenditure of $500,000,000, which, if placed in the shape of bonds, when added to the present debt of a country whose wealth is said to be some $120,000,000,000, and whose present debt is only $200,000,000 more than that of the city of New York, could hardly be felt, particularly when the tremendously increased earning capacity of these improved highways of commerce is considered. The question therefore presents itself as to whether the vastly larger amount contemplated by the Newlands bill, which would be expended all over the country, on all of our rivers, would not more likely appeal to the people of the Nation who could probably see the incalculable advantages of connecting our rivers in one grand system than would the smaller sum suggested by Mr. Ransdell, which would be spent mostly in this southern section on the lower Mississippi alone.

PETER S. LAWTON.

The Nashville (Tenn.) Banner of July 8, 1912, prints this editorial comment : "Estimates of engineers made to the National Reclamation Association of the cost of adequate protection from Mississippi River floods is $500,000,000, and the association is to ask Congress to spend that sum in strengthening the levees and building dams to hold back freshets in the tributaries. That is an enormous expenditure, more money, perhaps, than the Government can find for that purpose, but unless the work is undertaken on some such scale and planned for permanency, the Government will have spent, at the end of a generation, an even larger sum in making repairs and guarding against breaks in time of flood."

The Bangor (Me.) Commercial of July S, 1912, says:

"The terrible losses of life and property resulting from the Mississippi floods having called the attention of the Nation to the need of steps to prevent or minimize the same, the request of the National Reclamation Association that Congress appropriate $500,000,000 to strengthen levees and build dams for regulating the freshets will not create the smiles that might have greeted such a request in times when the existent danger was not as fully appreciated. The task is no light one nor can it be done in a moment. But the investment is one that must ultimately be made, although the expenditure must, of necessity, be extended over a term of years."

[From the Chicago Tribune, July 12, 1912.]

The delegations in Congress of every Mississippi Valley State, from Pennsylvania to the Rockies, and from Minnesota to Mississippi, should insist that the problem of the Mississippi River system, including all the tributary systems of the Father of Waters, shall be attacked without delay.

Col. Roosevelt already has declared for this great task, and the necessity for a broad solution has never been more apparent than now in the wake of the devastation of 1912. Discussion is general on this topic and public opinion ready to be crystallized.

A compact statement of the situation and its possibilities, written by Mr. Walter Parker, of the Louisiana Reclamation Club, gives one of the best

summaries.

"Four hundred million tons of silt, the surface soil, is washed from the lands of the Mississippi watershed into the Gulf of Mexico each and every year," writes Mr. Parker. This is wast in so far as everybody now living is concerned, and the farmers and landowners of the Ohio and Missouri Valleys are paying the bill. Water enough passes down the Missouri when in flood stage to irrigate 15,000,000 or 20,000,000 acres of the dry plains or bench lands in the upper watershed of that river. More than enough water goes to waste down the Ohio River each flood season to supply dry-season navigation and millions of electrical horsepower units. The same thing is true of the upper Mississippi

River."

Here is conservation whose benefits are for the present generation. "Conserve the freshet wat

Harness the source streams," urges Mr. Parker.

ers for dry-season navigation. Draw power from dams and reservoirs.

Turn

the floods of the upper Missouri out over the dry bench lands. Build strong levees from Cairo to the Gulf that will hold the partially controlled floods in the lower river. And what will be the result?

"The reservoirs will supplement the summer flow and thereby provide at all times an adequate supply for the system of locks and dams so that there will always be a navigable stage in the Ohio on which to float out to tidewater the coal, the iron, the steel, and the manufactured products of that portion of the country, while the power developed will go a long way toward increasing the economy of manufacture.

"In the upper Missouri River country hay will grow on millions of acres of land now devoted to grazing, and the production of cattle that will then thrive on that land will be increased tenfold. In addition, summer seepage will return enough water to the river to supply a navigable stage throughout the dry season. "The upper Mississippi will enjoy all-the-year navigation and an abundance of power.

"From Cairo to the Gulf the floods will not then climb anywhere near so high as they have done in the spring of 1912, and with a complete and well-constructed levee system on both sides of the river the farmers and planters will no longer fear crevasses and overflows, and limit their investments for improvements accordingly.

"The silt waste will be checked because no adequate system of flood control can ignore soil erosion. Then the farms of the North and Middle West will not annually lose in fertility, and there will be fewer bars and mud lumps in the lower river to check the flow and obstruct navigation."

No nation has had a greater engineering problem than this, and the hopes of enthusiasts are to be discounted. Yet the problem should be attacked with breadth and foresight, and penny-wise caution or shortsighted fear of expenditure should not prevent careful expert consideration of the tremendous possibilities, to say nothing of the urgent necessities of the improvement.

The Houston (Tex.) Chronicle, of July 15, 1912, says:

66

The Louisiana Reclamation Club, affiliated with the National Reclamation Association, advocates Federal action looking to the permanent prevention of floods. The Chronicle unhesitatingly indorses the broad principle of adequate Mississippi flood prevention, because it is necessary to national prosperity." The Pittsburg Chronicle-Telegraph of Saturday, July 20, 1912, says: "The tremendous damage caused by recent floods in the Mississippi Valley has moved the Louisiana Reclamation Club to make a strenuous appeal for action by the Federal Government toward the execution of the plans advanced under successive administrations for the prevention of floods and the conversion to useful purposes of the huge surplus of water in the basins of the Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Ohio."

Speaking of the club, Mr. Walter Parker thus summarizes the work of conservation that is deemed possible: "Harness the source streams. Conserve the freshet water for dry-season navigation. Draw power for dams and reservoirs. Turn the floods of the upper Missouri out over the dry bench lands. Build strong levees from Cairo to the Gulf that will hold the partially controlled floods in the lower river.

"Let these measures be taken,” Mr. Parker goes on to say, “and the results will include a permanent navigable stage in the Ohio, the fertilization of millions of acres in the upper Missouri River country, all-the-year-round navigation, and abundance of power in the upper Mississippi region, abatement of floods from Cairo to the Gulf, stoppage of the waste of silt, and an ultimate addition to the value of landed investments that will afford manifold compensation for the outlay involved."

"These suggestions and deductions are not new, but they derive special force from the circumstances whereby they are prompted and whereby an ominous lesson has been given to the country. The conservation problem, in its relation to the rivers, is a pressing one, and it is clear that further postponement of action upon it will be a dereliction of national duty."

[From the Cairo Bulletin, Aug. 21, 1912.]

GET BUSY.

There is no city in the United States more vitally affected by floods than Cairo. With the Nation's two greatest rivers passing its doors, the city is doubly menaced every time the rivers rise, and that it has escaped inundation in the

past doubtless could have been attributed to the fact that when the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers simultaneously reached the flood crest, relief was obtained through the breaking of levees above or below.

Cairo now plans to spend a half million and possibly more in raising and strengthening its levee system, while a movement is on foot to make the levees between the Ohio's mouth and New Orleans impregnable. What assurance has Cairo that posterity will be protected by the system of levees it is now planning to build?

G. H. Maxwell, executive chairman of the National Reclamation Association, which is fighting" tooth and nail" for the Newlands-Bartholdt river regulation bill, which provides for the expenditure of $500,000,000 in a period of 10 consecutive years for the building of source controls, addressed a joint meeting of the three local organizations Monday night. Less than two dozen members of the three organizations attended. Whether this was due to indifference or lack of knowledge of the importance of Mr. Maxwell's visit are matters of conjecture. However, Mr. Maxwell, who has been making a scientific study of the flood problem for a decade, and who is recognized as an authority, solicited an invitation to return to Cairo at a later date and address a larger meeting. The invitation was not extended Monday night, but it is to be hoped that no time will be lost in arranging for another meeting in the early future.

Men who have been studying the flood situation for years virtually agree that the building of an impregnable levee system would give only temporary relief, inasmuch as the rivers flood, the channels would gradually fill up and necessitate the continual raising and strengthening of the levees until the time would arrive when every flood-menaced city in the Mississippi, Ohio, and Missouri Valleys would be surrounded by levees as high as mountains.

There are others, however, who pooh-pooh this idea, but strange as it may seem, they offer no explanation of the fact that the river beds are ever filling, nor do they offer any solution for the correctness of this condition. The main opposition to the reservoir system advanced by the advocates of impregnable levees is the monstrous cost of construction. Five hundred millions of dollars is a vast sum, we will admit, but it is infinitesimal when compared to the vast losses in the past and losses that must be borne by the people of the valleys in the future unless some action is taken to control the floods at the river sources. What is $500,000,000 to this great Nation of ours; the Nation that is building the Panama Canal; the Nation that can build $15,000,000 battleships? If the Government is to permit its rivers to overflow the valleys as it has in the past, it will not be long before the total losses will have passed the $500,000,000 mark. The Mississippi, Ohio, and Missouri Valleys are worth more to the United States than a dozen Panama Canals or a hundred $15,000,000 battleships, and a billion dollars would not be too much to spend to protect the lives and property of the people who live in these sections.

The Newlands-Bartholdt bill does not oppose any other river or levee improvement movements. The people of the valleys can continue to build their levees, and they may need them scores of times before the vast work contemplated in the measure is completed. What is needed for the future is a system of control, and if Cairo is possessed of a particle of good judgment it will lend every effort to the successful passage of the measure.

There is no side-stepping the flood problem. We will have floods so long as man is powerless to prevent the falling of snow and rain. Man can not only control rain and snow after it falls if he will, but can turn it into the arid countries when it is most needed, and also release it at the river sources in such a manner that a navigable channel will be maintained at all seasons of the year. We urge the local organizations to invite Mr. Maxwell to return to Cairo and deliver a second address. The cause he champions seems to be meritorious, and we desire to know more about it.

[From the Duluth News-Tribune, Sept. 19, 1912.]

THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.

The intertrade relations of Minnesota and the rest of the Mississippi Valley are such that the interest and well-being of every part of it are second only in importance to that within our own State limits. The floods of the lower Mississippi this last season caused a loss estimated at from $100,000,000 to $250,000,000. This means that the purchasing power, the investment power, the credit basis, and the property value of that section have been reduced by just

that much.

There is that much less of all these forms of financial power and stability; the whole economic structure of the entire valley has been weakened to just that extent. Every part must feel the results of this. There will be that much less support for all the intertrade and commercial relations.

Minnesota wants waterway channels on the Minnesota and upper Mississippi Rivers that will give it connections with the lower valley. This State would have the Government make these channels and maintain them at very large expense.

Why? Because Minnesota believes that such channels would be of enough benefit to the people of this and the other valley States to warrant this expense; that the traffic between these sections is so large that the lower water-carrying rates would justify the initial cost.

If this is true, or largely true; if it is warranted even by probable development rather than present conditions, it proves conclusively that the prosperity of the lower valley and of the upper valley are completely unified.

What is true of Minnesota is the fact as to every other State along the MisAll of this tremendous sweep of sissippi, the Missouri, and the Ohio Rivers. territory forms the Mississippi Valley, and a loss to one part is a loss to all, a gain to one part is a gain to all, and the interests of every part are woven together in an inseparable whole.

Outside of the motives of patriotism and humanity these are the concrete, the pocketbook reasons that Minnesota should stand with all this vast territory for any definite plan that will certainly prevent the recurrence of floods causing such enormous losses.

The upper and lower valleys have climatic differences that make each the other's market, both by season and by product. The loss of one is instantly the loss of the other; the lessening of the purchasing power of the one instantly acts on the other.

The upper valley can no more afford a $250,000,000 loss to the lower valley than can the lower valley itself. We prove this, as stated, by the very demand for greater and cheaper intertransportation facilities.

It is not, then, for the lower valley alone, but for the entire valley to support a comprehensive and sufficient plan for flood prevention as a national project as essentially national as is the preservation of the Great Lakes as a national highway.

[From the Agricultural Magazine, St. Anthony Park, St. Paul, Minn.]

CONTROLLING THE GREAT RIVERS.

If organized effort, the union of heretofore conflicting interests, and an inspiring leadership can accomplish it, then the improvements of the great rivers of the Mississippi systems along the lines of the broadest statesmanship, the greatest beneficence, and the truest economy seems now for the first time within sight.

The organized effort is seen in the cooperative work now being done by commercial bodies in the great cities all the way up from New Orleans to Pittsburgh. Duluth, the Twin Cities, and Omaha. The union of diverse interests is illus trated in the fact that the irrigationists, the levee builders, and the men who are working mainly for the development of water transportation have now pooled their issues for a common object. The inspiring leadership is found in the person of George H. Maxwell, the author and chief promoter of the national irrigation act, the magnetic orator, and the apostle of the small farm as against the baronial estate. He kindles a flame of enthusiasm for the project wherever he speaks.

All the organizations, all the forces referred to, are to be represented in a grand river-regulation and flood-prevention conference, to be held at New Orleans, January 6 and 7. 1913, to voice what is fast becoming a nation-wide demand for the passage of the Newlands-Bartholdt river-regulation bill.

This bill involves a frank recognition of the principle laid down many years ago by Gen. Haupt, one of the foremost of our Government engineering experts, that the place to begin the work of flood prevention and river im provement is at the headwaters, not on the lower stretches of the rivers. Hold back the floods by storing in great reservoirs along their higher reaches the extra feet of water constituting the crest of the floods and not only will the rivers no longer overflow the country along the lower levels, but the water

thus held back will serve to maintain navigation in seasons of low water. And not only this, but the stored-up water in the reservoirs can be made also to serve at innumerable points the purposes of irrigation and the creation of water powers. The cost of levee building will be much reduced. And thus the water wealth of our great valley becomes one of the grandest of our material assets, whereas now its waste makes it an annual liability.

Minnesota is one of the States which will share most largely in the benefits sure to flow from the passage of this bill, especially in the establishing of It is an American, cheap water transportation for the products of the farm. It plans a vast expenditure-$50,000,000 a year or not a partisan, measure. more. But in carrying forward the work it is proposed to employ the same This is a engineers and the same plant now engaged on the Panama Canal. Therefore it is to be hoped that the guaranty of efficiency and economy. people of Minnesota will urge upon their Congressmen an energetic support of the bill.

[From the Reno (Nev.) Journal, Oct. 5, 1912.1

CURBING THE MISSISSIPPI.

The Democratic plan to harness the Mississippi is in response to a demand that has been made for years. It comes not alone from the people of the South, but the North and West as well. Every year disastrous floods sweep down through the channel, ruining crops worth millions of dollars, devastating the land, and inundating cities. Not infrequently the rush of waters claim a toll of human life.

The people who live on the lands that flank the great stream want the waters curbed.

The people of the West ask that the flood waters be impounded and held to irrigate their lands.

It is simply a question of the people of the South joining hands with those of the West and acting together, each to get what they want.

He is

If the flood waters are held in great reservoirs they will be checked. Woodrow Wilson's ideas meet with those of the people east and west. in accord with the progressive thought of the day. He is a man who responds to the wishes of the people. It is because he catches the drift of public sentiment that he is indorsed by men of all sections. He has enlisted in the movement long ago started by Senator Newlands to save the water for those who need it and from those who do not.

This question of harnessing the waters of the Mississippi has been discussed for half a century. It has been dodged by men and candidates.

Now, after decades of agitation, it would seem that something shall be done by bringing together in a perfectly simple manner the people of the West and the South in an enterprise that will mean the saving of untold millions for each section of the country.

[From the Reno Gazette, Nov. 16, 1912.]

NEWLANDS DEVELOPMENT BILL.

The Newlands bill for the prevention of waste flood waters and the utilization of these surplus waters in the irrigation of millians of acres of highly productive land furnishes one of the most interesting proposals for national development ever suggested. It is practical. The assured beneficial results from it are such as to command widespread enthusiasm.

The resources of the United States are so vast and varied that thus far the country has prospered by gathering up what was lying about in profusion rather than through the thrifty development of less apparent sources of

national wealth.

With millions of acres of the richest virgin soil awaiting the conservation of these waste waters, the duty of Congress is plain. We must have battleships for defense, but an even greater source of national security would be the cost of a few battleships applied to the development of lands capable, under irrigation, of supporting millions of prosperous Americans.

There are fully 10,000,000 acres of land right here in California that could be made productive through the conservation of waste water in the Sacra