Watauga Democrat. [volume] (Boone, Watauga County, N.C.) 1888-current, 1927-04-28
Father of Waters on
Mad Rampage
Famine, Pestilence and Death Threat.
en- $4,000 Flood Victims in
Mississippi Valley

The Mississippi valley region is one
vast valley of desolation.
Beneath the sodden rain clouds
that driving wind whips low over
the great waste of waters, more than
$4,000 people are homeless and one
who is so minded can hear the ghost
ly hoof-beats of three of the Four
Horsemen of legend, riding on a mis-
sion of famine, pest'ilence and death
down a thousand-mile pathway that
cuts through the heart of the conti-
ncnt, writes Bruce Cotton, correspon-
dent of the NEA, from Memphis,
Tenn.
For mile on uncountcd mile the
horizon has dissolved in gray waste
of water. The Mississippi has be-
come an ocean; its tributaries have
burst their bonds and towns, villages.
plantations and homesteads are dis
solving before their waves by whole
sale.
The rest of the country does not
grasp the extent of the floods de-
vastation and the imperative need
for real relief work.
1t does not realize that southern
tinanciers estimate it will take at
least five years for the south to re-
cover from this blow; that the flood
probably will be the greatest in his
tory; that the reconstruction problem
the valley will face when the flood
subsides-and bear in mind that the
waters have not yet reached their
crest-will be as serious as anything
the south has faced since the recon-
struction days following the Civil
War. Dire poverty for several years
faces thousands who have lost every
thing in the swirling flood waters.
Fully 100000 acres are under
water The property damage probab-
ly will be at least $100,000,OOO The
death toll of storms and floods al
ready is close to $50 (This was writ
ten Saturday..
Five states lie directly in the path
of the ghostly riders of desolation.
The Mississippi and its tributaries
have inundated western Kentucky,
southeastern Missouri, the eastern
hall of Arkansas, western Tennessee
and western Mississippi.
In most of these states the flooded
area extends 25 miles inland for the
full length of the Mississippi. In
Arkansas, strip of so square miles
known as the st. Francis basin is un-
der water
The Mississippi in it's wild rise has
abandoned its old channel in many
p aces and is ruthlessly cutting out
new one, miles removed. 1t is MAX
ing islands of whole cities. 1t is cut
ting some towns in half. 1t is trans
ferring farms and plantations from
one state to another.
Lands prepared for spring planting
are under water. Thousands of farms
will be totally unproductive this year
and next. A huge section of the
south will have to live on credit for
many, many months-possibly a few
years.
But the credit machinery too is
being swept away on the raging flood
tides, carried down stream with the
more tangible assets such as barns
and houses and corn cribs. The bad
cotton year had already taxed banks
in this region to the utmost Nearly
every farmer in the affected neigh
borhood was already in debt, either
to the village store or to his bank,
before the flood came.
Fifty years of progress have been
knocked out by the rising waters.
Charity is needed badly; but more
than charity will be required in the
Mississippi valley this summer. Out
side capital must pour in if the whole
region is not to sink into one of the
worst slumps in history.
when the flood goes down"-that
is the phrase on everyone's lips. But
the crest has not even been reached
yet; and one gets the impression, in
going through the devastated region,
that the waters, somehow are not 60
ing to recede.
1t seems as if nature dissatisfied
with the Mississippi valley, had under
taken to make it over completely,
turning valleys into lakes and hills
into islands, and wiping out the re-
suits of decades of slow toll.
One wonders, too, what the coun-
try at large would do if it could be
made to realize the extent of the
damage.
In China American lives and prop
erty were menaced by civil warfare