The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-04-17
BY TALCOTT POWELL
Editor of The Times

BY TALCOIT POWELL
Editor of The Times
THE Tennessee Valley
Authority plan for an
economy of abundance
starts literally at the grass
roots.
Land, says the IVA, is
the one natural resource
that the United States has
which can not be exhaust
ed, providing it has proper
care.
All the food that America eats
comes from the land and 80 per
cent of the raw material going
into this country's manufactured
goods springs from agriculture.
The waters of the Tennessee
River once were clear. Today
they are unspeakably filthy. The
mud which makes this river dirty
is not merely an offense to the
esthetic sense but represents an
enormous dollars and cents loss.
Take the case of Howard Nor
gan, whose family has owned a
farm just outside of Knoxville,
Tenn, for a century. He inherited
the land from his father. 1t was
originally good land. Every year
some 5000 tons of water fall upon
each acre of his farm which is
situated on a hillside. The rich
top soil he owns averages per-
haps 1000 tons ain acre. To make
a living for his family, he has
put his farm into corn during
the last 10 years.
The heavy annual rains, aver
aging from 40 to so inches a year,
have hit the exposed soil and what
was once a rich farm is now
series of gullieS. 1t is as though
two invading armies had fought
over the Morgan farm and left
nothing behind but pitted DESC
1ation with which only the shell
holes OF the Western front in
1918 would compare.
MORGAN is a ruined man.
4fA His land is worthless because
the top soil has disappeared. He
had to stand by helplessly and
watch this happen. In the first
place, he did not know what to
do about it. In the second place,
had he known, he could not have
afforded the necessary labor,
equipment and fertilizer to have
saved himself.
Today, Farmer Morgan is on
the relief rolls. The taxpayers
must support him or his family,
else they starve. His property, no
matter who owns it, can not be
taxed because it is worthless.
Let us trace that top soil Of
Farmer Morgan's and see what
has happened tc it. The rain
washed it into the Tennessee
River. Part of it was carried
downstream to New Orleans,
where that community had to
spend hundreds of thousands of
dollars to keep it from lodging
on the bottom of the Mississippi
River, raising the river bottom
and thus causing the Mississippi
to flood over the delta.
The taxpayers in New Orleans
spent last year many thousands
of dollars constructing jettieS and
leveeS to make sure that Farmer
Morgan'S top soil was carried out
in the Gulf of Mexico, where it
would be of no value to anybody
but where it would not create a
flood problem.
The top soil which did not
travel TO New Orleans from Nor
CAMS farm settled in the bed of
the Tennessee and Mississippi
Rivers and the government had
to send dredgeS at enormous ex-
penSe to suck it up from the river
bottom in ort.er to keep the
stream open for navigation. Some
of it lodged behind the dam at
Muscle Shoals and is there busily
filling up the power reservoir so
that in period of years the
storage capacity of the reservoir
will be useless. because the area
of the dam will be filed and it
will have become a mere water
fall.
Farmer Morgan's top soil is an
asset to the United States only so
long as it remains on his farm.
1t is liability when it washes
down the river.
TvA proposes TO keep that soil
l. where it belongs and where
il can be of value.
The iva looks upon the land
as public trust.
I'VE seek To make 1t possible fog