Evening star., 1927-05-15
MEN AND AFFAIRS
BY ROBERT T. SMALL.

Here is a statesman" he con
tinues, inviting everybody to con-
template the beauty and majesty of
these levees which have not broken
down, while everybody behind lots of
them Is trying to escape with his life
from the waters tapping upward
from gaps on either side. through
those leyees that have broken down.
You might as well contemplate the
devastation wrought by the explosion
of a ship full of dynamite that had
broken it's hawser chain and drifted
into ship full of gasoline, and then
declaim joyously and jubilantly. An
my countrymen. see what oeauti1ul
chain it is in these lovely links that
did not break"
To appreciate this lively exchange
the reader must understand that
Senator Harrison in the past has been
considered a stalwart opponent OF
the spillway system for New Orleans.
He has feared that permanent cut
in the levees just below the big city
might turn the river in the direction
of the Mississippi coast, destroying
oyster beds and possibly filling in the
Mississippi Sound, and thereby ruin
ing some of the loveliest salt water
resorts in the South. The people OF
New Orleans have contended that
CONTROLLED spillway would do little
or no harm to any one; certainly no
such harm as has come from the
present flood.
Senator Harrison has been known
as q 'levees only" advocate.
Eve need spillways as we'll as
| levees in the lower valley and i'm
pounding basins in the upper valleys,
| slys Mr.. Ballard, stating the case
| for New Orleans. I'VE know this Is
| large order. involving hundreds OF
millions of outlay. When we reflect,
| however, on the excitement which
| overcomes so many of our supposed
| ly enlightened people and upsets our
| best of all possible governments when
somebody in the North Sea, or down
| in Mexico. or over in China. kills one
/ Of our fellow citizens, or robS one OF
| them of little property: when we re-
/ call how everybody is rallied around
the flag by the jingoes and we all
| clamor for wars that cost billions OF
dollars, we begin to suspect our ma
| tional sanity, when we observe the
mental attitude of our people on oc-
| casions like this.
Here we are placidly looking on
| the destruction of more property, the
| infiiction of more misery, the ending
| of more lives, in the heart of our
own happy republic-all the victims
being our own people-here we are
looking placidly on at more havoc and
| devastation than the Mexicans, or the
| Nicaraguans or the Chinese and all
the other peoples of the earth put
| together have done to provoke us to
| action since we became nation. And
all the time the intelligent expenditure
of mere money would put an end
| to this whole periodically recurring
abomination-in far less a sum than
would be required to finance one jerk
water war against an inferior ma.
tion."
| And yet, even in the face of such
calamity as the Mississippi Valley
is suffering. it is impossible to re-
press bubbling youth. At dance a
night or two ago on a New Orleans
| roof garden an exceedingly pretty
| girl was heard to exclaim. II think
| it would be adorable IL the levees
would break, for then, in the moon
| light, our dates could come to see us
in gondolas. Wouldn't it be romantic"
tCopyriKht. 1927,