The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1912-06-14
ABOUT EVERGLADES DRAINAGE

| gineer of the United States drainage
| investigation service, and who held
that position when the Everglades re-
port was faxed, has a letter in the
current issue of the Engineering
News, the foremost technical Journal
/ of the country He says that in 1909
congress wished a report on the feas-
| Utility of drainage of the Everglades
and the nature of the soil there. G..
! G.. Elliott, chief engineer of the drain
age investigation, assigned the work
of making the report to subordinate
| in which he had confidence. The re-
port was given to the printers before
Mr.. Elliott had seen it. He later eX-
tamined the report and found many
changes to make, but it was then al
ready printed. Congress, being ap-
prised of the erroneous report, later
ordered another, which Mr.. Elliott
made This report was not favorable
to the land grabbers in the Ever
glades, and it was somehow spirited
away and sent to Florida and later re-
turned to Washington after it had
been censored and amended by the
land interests. j. o. Wright, engineer
of the Everglades drainage, recon-
mended Mr.. Elliott's dismissal among
others.
| Mr.. Morgan severely criticizes
Wright's plan of drainage. This is
probably the first instance in engi-
neering history where a great work
was planned on only one mans say
i so. Mr. Wright is, apparently, not
much of an engineer, but before he
undertook the work made up his mind
| that draining the Everglades was as
easy as falling off a log then made
some figures to satisfy those who
wanted to be shown" He bases his
plans on the assumption that the re-
corded rainfall will average so much
! per day, and that the evaporation dur
| ing the summer months is three
tenths inch per day. If the evapora-
ton should be only half that much,
which is very probable, then his ca
mails would have to be seven times
the contemplated capacity to carry
away the rainfall. But should it real
ly be three-tenths of an inch, and
the summer months should be rather
dry, then the canals would be empty
and no water left for irrigation when
most needed. Again, if the canals
We're capacious enough to remove an
equally distributed rainfall at three
twentieths inch evaporation per day,
heavy precipitations, amounting to 6
or inches per day some days, as
sometimes take place, would fail en-
tirely to remove the water in any rea-
sonable length of time. The above
remarks are only few to those made
by Mr. Morgan, and he claims to have
mentioned only a few of the criti-
cisms that he could have made.
The editor of the Engineering
! News, commenting on Mr.. Morgan's
letter, begins by saying that Mr..
| Wright's assertion, before the begin
ming of the drainage, that rock could
be excavated at 8 cents, and earth
at cents per cubic yard, was ridicu-
lous, and cheaper than could be done
any where, and that. in fact 200 cents
is being paid for the cubic yard of
rock, and cents for muck, in the
Everglades. He ends by saying that
the state of Florida should stop her
drainage work at once and have a
commission of competent engineers
to inquire into the matter and draw
land is worth it.-Starke Telegraph
Labor union leaders in New York
are urging the members of congress
to pass the Brantley workmen's COM
pensation bin, which has been enact
ed by the senate. The bill will pro-
vide automatically definite amounts
of compensation for injured railroad
men. Under the employers liability
act, they must sue for damages. In
few instances, large amounts are
awarded in case of death or injury
from accident, but in the majority of
cases the injured man does not get
anything through such litigation.
Even when he gets a verdict for a
large sum, he must pay out of it at
torney's fees and other large expens-
es. Frequently the cases are appeal
ed from court to court, and while
litigation is pending the workers re-
main in uncertainty and distress. I'm
der the Sutherland-Brantley bill there
need be no litigation, as the law spe-
cifically obligates the employer-the
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