Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1913-04-11
ROOSEVELT ON FLOOD.


The following letter, written by Col.
Roosevelt to John M. Parker of New
Orleans, La, regarding the flood stu
alton in the West, is of intense interest
at the present time.
The letter was forwarded to The
Boston Journal by Mr.. Parker and, in
full is as follows:
My Dear Mr.. Parker:
have just been looking over the
photographs which tell of the misery,
the terrific loss, the ruin wrought on
the plantations of the rich Mississippi
Delta by the recent floods. You citi-
zens of the lower Mississippi Valley
have fought to the limit of your ability,
and to the verge of financial ruin, to
protect yourself from overflow. Yet
not a drop of the water which menaces
you originates within your own borders.
Tile drainage, improved drainage, and
criminally wasteful deforestation hurl
annually, with almost irresistible force,
the waters flowing from the Allie
ghanies and the Rockies upon the farms
and homes of the men who dwell along
the lower course of the Mississippi. 1t
is not too much to say that one great
producing section of this country is
being terribly harmed by the improve
ment of other sections. | speak as one
who knows the fertility of your soil,
and the unlimited agricultural and stock
possibilities of your country, if pro-
tected from overflow. The American
people are fair and patriotic. | cannot
believe that when they realize the stu
alton they will permit it to continue.
The people of Arkansas and Tennessee,
Louisiana and Mississippi cannot do the
work, and are well nigh helpless unless
the nation does its duty and undertakes
the work as whole. Mind you, it is
no question of charity on the part of the
nation; it is a question of performance
of duty. The States have named are
harmed because of what happens in
numerous other States hundreds or
/
duty of the nation to act, and facts are
really before them.
The richest nation on earth should
not hesitate or haggle over the adop-
ton of policy, adequate in every way,
to put an end to the waste of waters,
to the sitting up of the river beds
through soil erosion, to the denudaton
of the mountain sides through forest
destruction without replanting, and to
the periodical flooding of fertile farms
by uncontrolled freshets which form in
ever-increasing volume as a result of
the changes made in the upper water
sheds by man in the name of progress
and Development
During the spring and summer of
1912 hundreds of farms along the Mis-
sissippi river, from Cairo to the Gulf,
were flooded because of the inadequacy
OF levee system, unsupplemented by
source-stream control, to keep great
floods within the channel of the river.
More than 100, 600 persons were driven
from their homes, and some were
drowned. Homes, buildings, agricu-
tural implements, corn, forage crops,
cattle, horses and hogs were destroyed
in large numbers, and the wild animal
life taken by the floods cannot be COM
puted. Health problems of dangerous
Importance were created and the injury
to business and commerce aggregated
hundreds of millions of dollars. In
order that the suffering by human be-
ings might be reduced the federal
government promptly appropriated &c.
600, 600 for the purchase of food and
for the repair of the broken levees.
But not one cent was appropriated for
the solution of the monster economic
problem involved or for the correction
of the fundamental evil that has been
created through the changes wrought
by man in the watershed of the nations
greatest drainage system.
In January, 1913, single tributary,
the Ohio, rose, and floods in the valley
of that river did great damage between
Pittsburg and Cairo, and so swelled the
waters of the Mississippi between Cairo
and the Gulf as to cause the breaking
of the Beulah levee in the State of
Mississippi, a second time within twelve