Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1874-06-20

levees, and in the reclamation of her
soil, E300, 600, 900, sum, allowing for the
difference In the value Of the money in
former days and now larger than our
national debt. And all Holland, its
highlands as well as its lOwlands, the
whole Kingdom OF the Netherlands, in
fact, is not one-hundredth part as large
as the valley of the Mississippi, and
I only one-third the size of its delta. 1t
Is the manly qualities Of her people that
constitute her greatness, not the extent
! OF her territory. She has suffered floods
far more terrible than any our country
has ever known, but sbe has conquered
them. One Of them, four and a half
centuries ago, drowned one hundred
thousand persons in a single night, bot
still she was undismayed. Each hour
she Is at work driving back the sea, and
every day she adds seven more acres to
her fands, year after year. II little Hol-
land, mere speck ON the worlds map,
land poor and desolate by nature, with |
out bed Of coal, without a quarry of
stone, without q single mine, without
forests, without the rich staples of the
| commerce Of the world on her own soil,
| could achieve results so gigantic |
and so stupendous, the American must
have but the soul of mouse who cries
out that our country, with its vast ex-
tent OF most valuable territory, with its
rich mines OF every mineral, and richer
soil, reaching from ocean to ocean and
grasping the unlimited wealth of half
continent, with all it's grand and mag
nificent resources, cannot do the little
that is needed for the drowning delta of
the Mississippi. Have We sunk SO low
as that?
CONsTITUTIoNAJITY OF RECLAIIING
THE DELTA.
| Occasionally faint suggestion is ven
tured that the action proposed is uncOn-
stitutional, but surely the objection can
not be made in earnest. Floods in the
| great delta not only desolate that p0r-
| ton OF our land, paralyZing its indus
tres, blighting all its prospects, and ut
terly running its people, but they infict
vast injuries upon the whole country.
Every section and every State feels IL
/ shock. The farmers of the west lose by
/ it valuable customer for their crops.
Every man in the nation will pay more
/ for his sugar and his cotton in conse-
| quence. The floods for long period
break up the railroads and the post
routes over the vast and valuable region
| of our country, and make it worse than
wilderness. Postoffiees fail to receive
their mails for weeks. Communication
4 by land ceases. No railroad there can
/ ever be success so long as its bridges
and its track can be washed away by
every flood. The postoffice department
of the nation is drowned out in that
region by every great overflow, and yet
! gentlemen tell US that it is uncOnstitu-
tional for the government to stay the
floods and save its own mails, its own
postoffices, and postroads.
DIRECTORS INCONSISTENCIES!
These gentlemen find no constitu-
tional difficulty in sending learned scien-
tific commissions all over the world to
observe the transits of Venus and the
eclipses Of the sun; but then they are
more deeply interested perhaps in Venus
than they are in their own country.
They did not object to Wilkes's explor-
ing expedition to investigate at an ex-
pense of millions antsrtic icebergs and
the cannibals of the, Pacific, but possibly
they felt warmer sympathy for them
than for their brethren in the valley of
the Mississippi. They seem to think
that our government should be a Mrs.
Jellaby, her eyes gazing afar off, forever
weeping over Borriboola Cha, but for
getting and negleeting her own family.
Lynch and his costly expedition might
be sent six thousand miles away to ex-
plore the Jordan and Dead sea. Are
those objects mere national that the
Mississippi and the millions of citizens
VINO I'VE it5 bu.Iahsq
THE AMERICAN EAGLE.
Sir, I am tired of hearing the doctrine
that our national government can do
nothing at home, but only abroad. If
American citizens suffer or are wronged
on foreign soil, in Cuba or Mexico, in
| China or Japan, in England or Austria,
the national arm is uplifted at once.
The treasure of the nation is poured
! forth, fleets and armaments are created,
armies crowd the astonished land, five
millions of indignant patriots volunteer
as officers, the American eagle screams
angrily and fearfnlly; every man is
ready to sacrifice everything but himself
and his for his country's honor and
| glory. But here, in our own land, when
| a hundred thousand homes are desolated
| by the floods ten years out of every
thirty or forty, aud hundreds of thou
/ sands of our own citizens reduced to
| starvation and ruin, we are told that the
| government cannot interfere, cannot
stretch forth its powerful arm to prevent
| in future the enormous sutferings of his
] own people, who are Indifferent This
| cannot be. 1t would be a disgrace and
an infamy, making every true Ameri-
! can hang his head with shame, if the
| government of this great country were
| indeed the only one on esrth that could
not protect and rescue its own people at
home from ever-recuring calamity and
| ruin.
GREAT NATIONAL INTERESTS.
/ Itisanational work that is to be done.
| 1t is the great engineering problem of
| the age. Shall the one vast inland sea
of our nation, as Mr.. Calhoun rightly
called it, be regulated and restrained for
| the common good of all, or shall it be
| allowed to continue to desolate and blast
with ruin the fairest portion of our COM
mon country ? The Investigations to be
made and permanent plans to be decided
| on require the studies aud counsels Of
the ablest engineers in the world. 1t is
work that should be perfected if possi-
| bic. A complete success would benefit
| and enrich the whole nation graDdly
and immensely. Ii it is-only restored
/ and reinvigorated the sugar-planting
| interests of the delta it would keep at
home the $50, ,O00, 600 in gold we send
abroad annually for sugar, and and in
time enable US to resume specie
payments and become financially
respectable once more. 1t would
give us an absolute supremacy in the
cotton market of the world. 1t would
speed the wings of commerce and
quicken the plow, the reaper, and the
mower on millions Of fields and farms.
1t would enable the south to buy of the
northwest flour, grain, and provisions
to the amount Of $l00, 100000 to $780,
600 600 every year; and also to buy and
pay for twice SIS much or thrice as much
as heretofore Of the goods and manufac-
lures of the north and east. 1t would
wake up our whole country to new life
and energy and enterprise. AS an in
stance of what it would do 1 may mem
ton that the cotton trade of Memphis,
now some six hundred thousand bales
per snnum, would soon grow up to three
or four million bales, and somewhat
similar impulse would be given to the
great business interests Of the whele ma
tion.
CANCELLATION; RECOGNITION OF
RIGHTS.
say frankly that $4,000 is too small
a sum for the purposes proposed. 1t is
unworthy the grave importance of this
| commission, and do not believe that
any member wishes to cut US down to so
small 8 sum. | trust that more will be
cheerfully granted. The thorough pro-
lection and reclamation of the great
delta would be everywhere regarded at