The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1933-10-07
Conservation
CONTROL
PROPOSAL AID
is STATE need
Support of Plan Should Be
Stressed During Year,
Expert Says.
BY WILLIAM It. COLLINS
Times Special Writer

W
Times Special Writer
There are $4,000 acres of land in
the flood plain of the Wabash and
Whittier rivers in the state down
and over which rampaging waters
rush with distressing frequency.
Within this area alone the annual
crop of foodstuffs is estimated to be
worth $1,250,0O0 in which the
farmer profits more than 40 per
cent.
Within this flood plain area lie
farmlands and building valued at
more than $11,000,000. Do not con-
fuse this flood plan with the vast
ly greater area drained by these
two rivers in which is 80 per cent
of the farming land in the state
and in which the land and building
values approach, even under pres
ent market conditions, 1925, 100000.
Within this greater area, things
that the public has bought and
paid for in the way of bridges and
roadways are destroyed at the rate
of more than $2,250,0000 a year.
This destruction is caused by Hood
water.
Forty-tWo dollars minute is
considerable item of expense, but
that is just the states share Of the
burnt offering to satisfy this great
god, Flood"
What the people pay out annual
ly, daily or by the minute is some
thing else. You may rest assured
the amount is very large and is
growing larger with each succeed
ing year.
Citizens Aid Needed
I know this article would be read
with better understanding if we
now were confronted with one Of
our annual floods. Americans find
| it difficult to concentrate on any
thing unless we are standing in it
and that applies to floods, as we'll as
depressions.
Writing flood articles at the end
of the dry season with the world
series competing for attention is not
so hot but you can not fight the
floods of next spring or the spring
after that with loud clamOr raised
on the spur of the moment. Some
one has to pioneer any project.
Representative Virginia Jenckes has
been pioneering flood control for
eight years, and now, with her lead
ership, it behooves the people of this
state to line up behind her and push
this business of flood control to a
successful conclusion.
The opportunity to obtain federal
aid in controlling the Wabash and
White rivers may not be presented
again within the lifetime of the
reader, your failure to write to her
and tell her how you stand on this
question counts you out when the
rain starts falling and the snow be-
gins melting in 1884.
Floods Are Costly
The conservationists of this state
are not asking for just another ap-
preparation of federal funds to &C
complish a theoretical and hair
Drained experiment. Any wild
scheme that contemplates the use
of tax money just because it hap
pens to be available should be
jumped on with both feet. Flood
control is not an ephemeral fan
tasy.
Flood control is a hard-bitten fact
and, like poor relations, always is
close at hand. Flood control is
self-liquidating project if ever there
was one.
From the standpoint of govern
ment the control of flood waters in
such highly populated area as
Indiana makes it easier for the in
habitants to pay taxes and from
that point of vantage the govern
ment should be interested in what
we have to say.
was one Of the thousands in this
state who lost money in the spring
flood this year. I felt the dig of
that loss wher I paid my spring
taxes and I still feel it. Half of
the amount lost would have paid
my fall taxes and 1 could have used
the other half very nicely to make
down payment on a gasoline
chariot I admire so the government
could collect another 500 by the
federal tax on automobiles.
Governments Job
Being federal rivers under the
control of the war department, both
the Wabash and the White flood
problem very properly should have
the attention of the government.
There is too much at stake, there
are too many human lives en-
dangered each year and there is by
far too much property damage to
permit this project die for lack of
interest on your part.
We spent 10000, 100000 to make
the world theoretically safe for
democracy, it will take only one
sixteen hundredth part of that
amount to make Indiana actually
safe for her inhabitants and those
are the people in whom We are in