The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1897-06-26
THE MlsslsslPPrs BANKS.
Tro sNle over the Levecs Along thu
Great River.


trip along the Mississippi river from
Cairo to Vicksburg from steamboat.
men, planters, residents of river cities,
river prophets and the oldest and young
est inhabitants of the districts which
are in or contiguous to the flooded dis
tricts. Probably the only class of peo-
pie who do not concur in this assertion
are the government engineers and mefn-
bers of the leyee boards in the different
states. Even they admit that the levce
system has proved a failure this year,
so far as giving protection to the lands
behind them is concerned, and the only
defense they can offer is that the high
that no calculations based on conditions
of previous years could be taken into ac-
tount in coping with the floods. To this
argument the disgruntled populace re-
ply: ''What has brought about the UNI
precedented high water but the extern
sion of levee system to keep the water
pent up in narrow channel, contrary
to the intent of nature?" Year after
year the broad bottom lands into which
the river had found access have been shut
off from the Mississippi, periodically it
has broken from the restraint put upon
/. and entered the forbidden lands.
A system of outlets has been tried.
but found wanting, and now the people
along the river declare that the same is
true of the big levee system. These peo-
pie are not skilled in the science of en-
cheering, but they appear to compose
a majority of the better class of citizens,
and base their conclusions on their OBJ
servations in years of previous over
flows. They are the class who place
notches on the corners of houses and in
tree trunks to mark the extreme height
of the water, and who are familiar with
every crook and bend in the river, its
tributaries and lakes and bayous.
And what do they offer.as substi-
tute for the great embankments which
a liberal government has helped to
create? They have many things to
offer, but few subscribe to any substi-
tute for the levees. On the contrary,
they say that they welcome the over
flow, with its resultant rich deposit of
silt on their impoverished land. The
horrors of the crevasse, the resistless
current which uproots trees and sweeps
houses from their foundations are not
characteristics of an overflow, but are
the creatures of the levees, produced
only when the big entertainments fail to
hold the river in its course, and, having
increased its pent-up fury, finally allow
it to wreak death and devastation with
the force which the levees alone Gre
ated. 'Let the periodical overfows
come" they say, "and we will welcome
their calm approach and permit them to
enter our fields and plantations unre-
strained"
Then they point to the great mounds
which a prehistoric race have erected
on both sides of the river commonly
called "Indian mounds" and declare
that this was a method former race
had of meeting the waters. Many of
these mounds have been taken. posses
sion of by the planters, and where they
do net ,cxist.the planters have already
begun their erection. On these houses
and, barns are built, cattle pens are
erected, and they serve as most effective
Ravens during the time Of overflow.
Another method which IS already EN-
pleyed, even behind some of the largest
ana strongest levees, in which the peo-
pie lave sa6sccnfidence,s as a result of
ykafs Of experience, Is that.of building
smalFprivate levees about the few acres
included in their orchards, gardens
and plots of ground surrounding their
homes and those of the hundreds of en-
ployes on every great plantation.
Some OF the people who are opposed
to the continuation of the levee system
are advocates of the STRENGTHENING OF
the river" theory. This class declares
that the money now being expended
by the government in levees could be
applied to much better advantage in
Strengthening out the crooks and bends
which the erratic Mississippi takes, and
materially decreasing the distance be-
tween Cairo and New Orleans, deepen
ing the channel and allowing a freer
access to the gulf. But here the OPP
ponents of the levees lose the support of
their adherents, the steamboatmen,
who say that such stream would
have so swift a current as to render
navigation practically impossible.
Much of the dissatisfaction which ex-
lists among the people where the levees
are not under the control of the gov
eminent is due to their belief that the
state boards are honeycombed with cor
ruption,. and that the funds appropri-
ated by the states serve as a grabbing
for those intrnsted with their distribu-
ton in the form of high official salaries,
expensive clerical forces, exorbitant ex-
pense accounts and open connivance
with the contractors who work and bid
under their direction and approval.
Hardly town of any size can be visited
between Cairo and vicksburg where
such accusations are not made openly,