Arizona republican., 1913-04-20

ed and the injury to business and commerce aggregated hundreds of millions of dollars. In order that the suffering by human beings might be reduced, the federal government promptly appropriated $6,00O, 900 for the purchase of food and for the re- pair of broken levees But not one cent was appropriated for the solu- tiOn of the monster economic prob lem involved, nor 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 sys- tenn.
 In January, 1913, a single tributary the Ohio, rose. and floods in the val ley 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 caues the breaking of the Buelah le- vee, in the state of Mississippi. a second time within twelve months. thereby flooding the cotton planta- tions of four most fertile counties
 Levees built on the lower Missis- sippi will not prevent great and des- tructiVe floods in the Onion and Missouri rivers, and these floods forming without check as a result of accelerated run-Off from denuded mountain sides. tile drained farms, and generally improved drainage. gather enough force by the time they reach the Mississippi river to des- troy the levees and turn farms into o1 uable water is wasted. and all be- cause the nation has been so poor in purpose that it has not seen fit to turn a national agency or waste and destruction into national agen- cy of prosperity.
 The valleys of the Mississippi ri- yer and it's tributaries cannot be permanently protected from flooGs unless four things be done: FIRST-The Mississippi river must be treated as a unit, with all it's tributaries. from source to mouth. Second-The levee system must be brought up to standard for it's entire length, and thereafter maintained by | the federal government.
 Third-The leVee system must be supplemented by adequate revet- ments that will protect caving banks and
 Fourth-The levee system must be 1 further supplemented by source stream control which will lower tie crest of the floods in the Missis- sippi valley, and thereby relieve the pressure on the levees
 Source stream control will mean CT ;,, the irrigation of dry lands fnr the development cf hydro electric pow CT, and for the supplementing of the dry season flow for the purposes of navigation.
 Bank revetments will mean pre- vention of soil erosion of soil waste, and of the formation of navigation impeding sand bars.
 The building of standard levees by the federal government, fully justified by the fact that the neces- sity therefor arises from the increas- ing volume of flood flow in the drainage of many states, will mean uniformity, economy and systematic protection in so far as leVeeS can be made to protect the low coun- try
 The treating of the Mississippi watershed as a unit from the mouths of streams to their sources will mean the coordination of the work of the federal engineers, of the re- clamation service of the forestry bureau, of the division of soils, of the geodetic survey, of the Missssip- pi river commission, and of the na- tional effort to turn floods into pow CT, arid regions into gardens, anu marshes into farms. All this will be done by one act of the federal con- gross. We can lift the rivers out of politics by enacting a single ad- euuate measure. establishing pol icy and providing continuing funds. exactly as was done in the case of the Panama Canal
 Faithfully Yours,
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT Jno. M Parker, Esq, S1i Union
 Street, New Orleans. La.