Catastrophe

...The community is always taut as a tennis string against these last...

...One is not afraid to predict that this spirit of generosity will grow stronger as the need is seen more clearly...

...Perhaps a half century of experience challenges the army principle to an extent which renders imperative a thorough, impartial study of the whole flood question...

...It points out, relying upon the testimony of numerous investigators, that these twin endeavors are not only desirable in themselves but calculated to retard the movement of water...

...The walled-up violence of the water, lashed into foam by winds and eddying currents, is as terrible to the imagination as some fancied mammoth dragon, wriggling ahead to its mission of destruction, ghastly with death and poverty, irresistible and menacing...

...One should weigh these queries with a complete perspective of what they involve...

...General Jadwin, chief of the army en^neers, believes that a minimum expenditure of $10,000,000 a year over a period of ten years is required to construct levees haining a safety margin of five feet above the present flood level...

...If they were nomadic, If their interests were readily transferable elsewhere, it would be easier to view dispassionately what has happened to them...

...If ten years from date does not find us masters of the flood peril in the Mississippi valley, the victims to be will have a pretty definite idea of whom is to blame...

...But there are occasions when great disasters overtake large sections of the country in which immediate action by Congress is imperative...

...We do not know at present what ought to be done...

...The military seem to agree that an adequate system of levees could be built...

...It creates destitution which cannot adequately be dealt with through private benevolence...

...Finally, it would be hazardous to expend too much thought on these things just now, when other important steps must be taken at great cost of money and energy...

...Meanwhile it is a pleasure to praise the sound sense with which Mr...

...So far the people of the United States have made a generous response to the call for help...

...In a very real sense the conservation of rural energy, the development of agricultural life toward a worthy social ideal, depends upon the prevalence of good humor in this sense...

...Those who go to It searching for romance and light-hearted gayety are always bitterly disappointed...

...and the levees have certainly not been inexpensive...

...Hoover's advice, has refused to call a special session of both Houses...

...At the time of writing nearly thirteen million dollars has been collected by the Red Cross for relief purposes...

...But the economic loss is and will be appallingly heavy, particularly because the industrial means by which reconstruction could be accomplished are themselves destroyed...

...Who is to take up and consider the various programs of prevention which those familiar with the scene have outlined...

...There has been no human holocaust to challenge the grim records of San Francisco's earthquake and certain southern hurricanes...

...What is it going to do about the first...

...The suggestion is in order to provide relief for those on an ample scale, so that the task of rehabilitation in so far as they are concerned may be carried out promptly...

...We are not prepared to accept as national duties the expensive developments that may be required...

...It is therefore more than usually Imperative that everything possible be done to save these people for agriculture...

...This conviction is in accord with the opinions arrived ati by practically all official students of the problem...

...It must be thought of in terms of half a century, and protection is needed right now...

...On the face of things, granting that newspaper reports are only 50 percent true, a prima facie case seems to have been made out for a conference between the President and the Congressional leaders as to whether or not this is an emergency that requires the calling of an extra session...

...When one has glanced at some of the suggestions put forward, one realizes that the scope of activity is tremendous...

...Nevertheless no one, so far as we are aware, has ever estimated the cost...

...The loss of capital—of machinery, means of transportation, buildings and livestock—is reinforced by the crumbling of a link in the productive cycle...

...Hoover has built up a relief organization out of local groups in the areas affected, and to affirm that this success amply confirms one's hope that the whold problem can soon be solved...

...In the first place, there seems to be no definite agreement as to what ought to be done...

...If ever in our country a population has been wedded to the earth, it is here in this Acadian land...

...Crops and the soil prepared to receive them, the regular movement of produce upon which numberless small-town businesses depend—these have gone irrevocably...

...It could be put into effect only in the upper reaches of the river, which in the present situation are unimportant as causes of the flood...

...Now, when public opinion is alertly considering the issue, is an excellent time to settle upon a business that needs to be carried through promptly and efficiently, frankly and above board...

...Fortunately the Atchafalaya River district, where the river's worst ravages have been done, is settled by sturdy Creoles who cling to their houses with the firmness of French peasants...

...To this debit sheet, already staggering in its cumulative effect, one must add the moral consequences of disaster...

...Franklin D. Roosevelt: "I am not one of those who believe in rushing to Congress with every problem that arises...

...Viewed as a collection of private individuals, this nation is anything but stingy...

...But nobody has ever been able to suggest what this means to the aggregate of human beings affected, for whom that sound heralds not only danger but also irreparable loSs and often life-long destitution...

...Similarly the military engineers have steadily opposed the construction of storage reservoirs, arguing that to be effective these would have to be so vast in size that the cost would be prohibitive...

...To this the army engineers respond that this program is neither practicable nor immediately advantageous...

...Incidentally it may be remarked that the losses to churches and religious institutions will be enormous...

...But what is to be done about the situation as a whole...

...Good humor," says Dr...

...Plainly, however, a disaster of such magnitude counsels provision for the future...

...Will those who have carried on a tenacious battle with the soil go back with their old readiness to work which seems to invite the sullen jests of nature...

...So far the President, acting on Mr...

...I say both parties, because any other course will lay the blight of politics on every succeeding move...

...If "the greatest disaster our country has ever known" does not rouse us to intelligent and concerted action, there is little reason for believing that we shall successfully conduct any of the major business of democracy...

...Government officials and army forces have done heroic rescue work...

...The thing that matters In this thrifty rural hive is the day's work and the soil...

...Roosevelt's words would be worth considering if no other question had been raised than the proper method of prevention...

...Already in 1879, the Mississippi River Commission dedded that only solid embankments could hold the river in check and that all other expedients were of little use...

...So long as the Middle-West and the South are not free of the menace of the Mississippi, we have in our midst a source of disaster in comparison with which all communistic threats and tendencies to revolution are mere details...

...Many have tried to describe those terrible moments when the roar of floods tumbling through a crevasse first speeds over the lowlands...

...During the past month hundreds of towns, a myriad farmhouses, have looked toward the trembling levees with heartrending anxiety...

...The Department of Agriculture, as we noticed last week, recommends reforestration and conservation of the soil...

...Johnson, "may be defined as the habit of being pleased...

...It has been felt that the situation is only temporary, and that the existing organization can cope with the work of relief...

...This study, together with a thousand tangent points of view bearing directly upon the problem, can only be undertaken at the behest of Congress...

...In view of these circumstances, we quote with hearty approval these earnest words by Mr...

...Owing to the energy with which rescuing operations have been conducted, the loss of life has, it is true, been comparatively small...

...In accordance with this principle, nearly two hundred million dollars have been expended...