The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-05-19
(NEA Service Writer)

NANAIAA MI NhNG w E1NCHJ
 Washington.--Old MT Riker was carried down from his home in a tree on an isolated Virginia hilltop and died two or three days later.
 A few persons gathered for his funeral at small undertaking par Tor here. They included an eleva- tor man at the senate office build- ing. several other employees from Capitol Hill. man from the Amer ican Engineering council and a congressman.
 That was the end of Carroll Liv- ingston Riker, who- may have beer one of the great geniuses of his originator of stupendous projects such as other engineers may be de- veloping hundred years hence. He proposed to change the climate ot a hemisphere by harnessing the mightiest ocean currents; he as- pired to alter the future of the great Mississippi valley. His breath-taking programs were so simple and SC carefully planned that they often fascinated the sanest and soundest of men.
 Built Mississippi Model
 MT Riker was the white haired Drowned but fragile gentleman, of ten seen standing by that enormous model of his Mississippi river flood control plan in the senate office building basement. There the water flows down from Cairo and Cape Girardeaus through a miniature of mile long Riker spillway and into | <1u< xs,vf f. QtLnrsc hr~uiv1 T,n noA Ia he Father of Waters a. canal. His tow CTS, red stoplights, water gates power houses. levees, conduits, res ervoirs, highways along. leyee, tops with toy motor cars and great ocean liners plying up to5St Louis for two or three years have enchanted the guests and denizens of the capitol.
 Bent by age but lucid in mind and speech, he operated his model and explained everything to every. body in minutest detail. Quite 8 few capitol folk developed deel affection for him. Since 1914 when he assured congress that terri ble catastrophe". on the, Mississippi was certain unless the government ''ievees only" flood control. policy was abandoned, this man had per. sistently denouncedssthe army engi. neers in masterpieces of invectfve fit to delight any lover of words.
 Foresaw Huge Profit
 Riker- explained to all-comer, how his spiilway would run ths river in a new straight line through swamps and cheap land, how grea' i, power dams would be built, lock- installed to permitFocean commerce <,Sk AaI fn kov Ia. <xx,1f the historic peak of the rivers wa. ters, muddy banks replaced by site. | for docks and warehouses;. leveei built 70 feet high with l00-foot tor lwidth and 300-foot base from eartf removed in digging drainage canali on each side of the spillway. how the cost would be two billion dollars but how the first five years would show 10 billion dollars of prof through enhanced land values, pow. CT development, prevention of fioot loss, highway and railroad beds ana \ so on. W NT y g The old man spent his last year. working night and day to promote the plan. Senator Frazier of Nortf Dakota gave himself, Whole-h hearted. ly to Riker's fight for q full investi. gation of the plan by n commission of civilian engineers Riker had large house near Falls Church, Va But alongside he built himself 1 pretty little green dwelling held 2' feet in the air by, a tall tree-stump It was his home for three years a place with a bedroom-sunparlpr electricity and electric heat. HI
 heart trouble was increasing ant Frazier. perhaps his best friend sometimes drove out and besough him to move into town. At last th' old mans condition became desper ate; friends brought physician persuaded him to let himself b
 moved down the ladder and carrie' into civilization to de. IA .a
 An afnasing life was over. A
 Designed 8hIp Hull at f7
 Born on staten Island in 1854 well uttered, Riker studied curren land wave action in oceans m riverh as .a hoy. At f7 he designe' the hull Of the steamer Caetiodon around Nov York harbor. AZ g
 Do designed and built the first rs
 frieerating wnrohouses then Co etalied the first trans.Atlantie re
 frigeretiof and mado lots Of mono in the enterprise until the paeker drove hini out. in ie5b he made jet ties at narrannuilia. qoionba which saved the town,
 in 1881 Do had devised co
 worlds mott poNfrful I'!'inpln dfeNfei H4fHInI0out feuQf11 I<1 Iu# I& mid IU. HI&0Ua WE*z X1/u