The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-05-19


an amendment to its appropriation
bill a measure sponsored by Senator
Francis G. Newlands, of Nevada,
providing $25O,OOO for an investiga-
ton of the issue of flood control
methods by an Independent COM
mission. A year later he died and
the gang promptly put an end to the
investigation by repeating the pro-
vision in their new handout bill.
Since that time there have been
two great floods, one greater than
the previous, and still the stolid army
engineers under the careful manage
ment and guidance of crooked poll
ticians, big and little, have gone on
building higher and higher levees,
only to see them overtopped,, under
mined at each succeeding flood; or
where they did hold to have been
compelled to blow them up so as to
provide outlets for the raging waters.
Hoover Backs Gang.
When the subject is gone into, the
Investigator doubts his own observa-
tions. The facts seem so palpably
impossible. And yet, not only are
they actually realities, but the Holy
Bull of Business, Herbert Hoover.
Secretary of Commerce, alleged en-
cheering authority, has issued a
ukase lauding the 'levees only" idea
unto the skies and deriding and de-
nouncing as visionary" all other
plans, including the independent COM
mission investigation proposal.
The reason, politics. And this time,
national politics. Mr.. Hoover knows
better, but the political fate of his
good friend and chief, Mr.. Coolidge
may be involved and the Republican
politicians are taking no chances on
further scandals-they have had
enough.
The first federal appropriation for
ievees in the Mississippi River Valley
came in 1889 following the then
ord-breaking flood. Since that
time the United States government
has laid cut $S60OO,OOO, local COM
munities S15,000,000 in cash and
right of ways, and states and coun-
ties along the river over 100000
600. All this money has gone into
building a long line of levees from
Cairo, Illinois to the Gulf of Mexico.
And every few years or so, the
mighty Mississippi, gorged by spring
rains and SHOWS from its hundreds
Of tributaries, has risen and crumbled
these walls. In places where they
held, the implacable river has gone
over them. For. as a matter of fact,
the higher the levees go the higher
the bed of the stream rises.
The Mississippi is an alluvial river.
It's water carries billions of tons Of
sediment. 1t is a sluggish stream.
1t takes weeks for the rest of flood
to reach given point. So that If
the stream is confined within two
walls, then these walls have to be
raised continually. The stream does
not bore a channel, it drops its load
of mud and rises on it.
DOM W ant TO Learn
And yet this simple, obvious fact
seems to have been totally disre-
garded by the all-wise engineers and
the mighty Mr.. Hoover who have adj
vocated the "levees only" system and
are now so excitedly defending it.
The Ievees only" or as it is designa-
ted by engineers, the confinement"
system as a matter Of fact seems to
fly in the face Of all reason. II calls
for a damning up all auxiliary mouths
Of the river, combining it to a long
line of levees, all on the theory that
the stream will enlargen and deepen
it's channel sufficiently to carry the
burden Of flood. The fact that as
long as man knows it has not done
50, and that despite the most scien-
tific levee building in the past AZ
years and the expenditure of hun
dreds Of millions Of dollats the river
has not been persuaded to do so, has
had no effect on Mr. Hoover or his