The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1892-09-11

in Persia every tree and herb of Greece. and
that 1t was great source OF lamentation TO
him that he could not make the Greek ivy
grow on the tower Of Babel. 1t is high time
to put away from our literature
that fiction about this great man
sitting down by the seabeach and weeping
that there were no more worlds to conquer.
There is no foundation for it. He never
came to the sea in all that mad march from
Siberia to India and although his journal, of
which Plutarch often speaks is entirely lost
to US, we know, as well as we can
know anything in ancient history, that he
mourned not that lie could not destroy, but
that he could not restore. He was the first
great tree planter. And it may interest
some of our veterans to know that he was
the first man who pensioned his soldiers.
He was truly Alexander the Great; not
great because he conquered Persia, but be-
cause he planted Persia.
When | lived in Washington. trying In my
feeble fashion to induce tree planting
there and up and down the worn-out and
barren banks of the Potomac, | used to see
In the Senate and other high places of the
nation big. coarse lumber barons from the
great Northwest These lumber barons had
moved down miles and hundreds of miles
of forests, woods that held back the waters
that are now drowning cut the fertile States
on the Lower Mississippi. They had made
their millions, paved their ruthless way TO
prominence. and so sat serenely at the
head of the nation while the South was
devastated by food and the great North
west was swept by flames.
Who does not recall the time when John
Hay, the poet, true and truthful man. was
sent by the New York Tribune to report
the fearful facts about the burning towns?
How many bodies In a single well?
Old men. young men, maidens, mothers,
with babes in their arms, all leaping in
together. 1t is too terrible to repeatl And
the great lumber barons sitting serenely
in the Senate. And no paper, no person
daring to point finger or say one word OF
rebuke.
But let us get away from this de-
struction of the world as fast ss pos
sible and turn 10 the plan of helping
to restore it. Only you must read
columns, chapters.yolumes between thu lines
along here. Understand, these resinons pine
tops tossed by millions and billions along
the ground and left to parch in the sun made
a flame that burned the very earth not even
a shrub or root left alive. And SO when
the rains fell and the SHOWS melted, then
mud. ashes and all things swept seward,
filed rivers covered fields, buried and made
desolate hundred thousand hearthstones.
Talk about the slickens and debris
of California; why that was child's
work in the Sierras COMPARED TO the ruin
and the destruction at the head of the Mis-
sissippi and at The mouth OF the Mississippi.
Anu Tic pOMEOuS lGLlUtT DdTOHS SlttIUS
serenely in the Senate year after year,
year after year. And the floods and the
fires aud the fires and the floods year after
year and year after year. And nobody dar-
ing to point finger.
True, there had been bills in Congress.
appropriations. and great engineer, Cap
tain Eads, the man to first span the great
river with iron, had been set to work.
Jetties, dikes, dams and all that at the
mouth of the river; but this was rather to
keep the river open to navigation and did
little good for the drawing States in the
South and no good al allfor the burning ones
in the North. You see he dared say nothing
to or about the lumber barops, for it was
they who employed and paid him; and
they, or rather their influence, could dis
miss or beggar him. Again let me beg you
read lots between the lines here.
was sent by the Independent to report
on these jetties at the mouth of the river at
the time OF one of the great floods. l went
from New Orleans to the jetties as the guest
of Captain Eads. Breckenridge of Ar
kansas, then in Congress, and, | think,
Congressman Sumner Of California and a
Captain Eads, on that OCCASION, that |
learned so much Of the importance Of trees
to man.
What a strange sight You view the
Mississippi as IL riding horse down hill
The land is below you. You look down
IutO Tic DcIuS huQ Ills Vu citucl oiuc Va
the river. You see children down there
playing In the road az the base of the
mighty dikes OF earth, twenty, forty. fifty
feet below you. These dikes or levees
have been raised year after year by each
State; each parish has its task, Its watch
men, trained levee men.
The cost has been hundreds of millions,
and each year 1t is coming TO be more costly
TO keep the mighty river in its place. Some
day soon, II things go Oh in the way they
have been going at the other end of the
river, all this Southern side of the Union
will be lost entirely to the civilized world,
and where New Orleans stands only q
church spire will point, like reproving fin-
ger. to the serene lumber baroEs in the
Senate.
And what singular sights and sounds on
the mighty delta! A vast, drear level Of sea
| grass, and the river booming through the
reeds, mass of mud and slime, in dozen
branches to the gulf. At night you see
little hills OF fire; you hear the
splntter and Rurgle Of mud and water,
and flames shoot UP like rockets
| from the water. -Four great mud-tugs
are constantly on hand to remove these
| little mud volcanoes that spring up in ;ght
and mpede navigation. l marvel that the
world knows so little about the mouth Of
| the Mississippi. 1t is very sickly place.
| You see it is all In state OF fermen-
| tation here. The leaves, logs, sickens,
| debris, soil, the very soil and fertility
| OF fourteen States, are fermenting here The
| warm waters OF the gulf here under the
! path Of the sun convert all this into vast
| yeast-pot. Sometimes even while the men
| are at work on one of these little mud
mountains that rose up In night vomiting
| FIRE from the top it suddenly sinks, taking
| men back with 1t. And the lumber barons
| sitting serenely In the Senatel
| ut Is no use. We are working at the
| wrong end" These were the constant words
Of Captain Eads to me. His last words