Evening star., 1937-02-09
ICLARK H|TSP
|. IN FLOOD CONTROL
Stupendous National Folly,
Missourian Declares
in Radio Forum.

Assailing as "stupendous national
folly" the policy that this country
has followed with regard to flood con-
troll, Senator Clark, Democrat, of Mis-
souri, last night called for long
term consistent effort" to avert re-
currence of the Mississippi-Oh VAL
ley catastrophe.
Clark spoke in the National Radio
Forum, arranged by The Star and
broadcast over national network
Of the National Broadcasting Co.
The Missouri Senator outlined the
steps that have been attempted since
1928 to deal with flood control, as
serting that cries of pork barrel"
have precluded a program based on
prospective needs. The result is, he
continued, that the Government again
must spend millions for relief, with
the realization I'VE are once again
merely locking the stable door after
the horse is stolen"
This problem of flood control"
he emphasized, "canot be dealt with
either with regard to State or local
lines, or within narrow limits deal
ing with the discharge of water from
particular streams. 1t must be real
ized and it is now full late in the
day for the realization to come, that
1t must be fundamentally considered
in relation to the whole problem of
our national resources"
Text of Address.
The text of Senator Clark's address
follows:
The appalling disaster of the de-
struction by floods of hundreds of lives
and hundreds of millions of our ma
tional wealth in the Ohio and Missis-
sippi Valleys has once again fixed the
attention of the Nation, for the time
being at least, upon the vital necessity
Tor comprehensive and adequate meas
ures for the permanent control of this
great menace to our national life.
The pity is that such disasters are
always necessary to arouse national
interest in what should be a subject of
pre-eminent national concern until it
Is successfully and permanently dealt
with in all its ramifications of refores-
tation, forest preservation and soil ero-
sion prevention as well as the ultimate
accomplishment of flood control,
At present our Government is ex-
pending millions upon millions of pub
lie funds in the alienation of suffering
and the relief of those rendered home
less by this latest catastrophe. And
this is entirely proper and necessary
In all probability not one member of
the House or Senate of the United
States will oppose appropriation to
meet these vital expenditures for pur-
poses of mercy. But this necessity for
this relief and the unanimity of senti-
ment with which it is being extended
should not becloud the essential fact
that in the most accurate and most
tragic sense we are once again merely
locking the stable door after the horse
has been stolen. We are pouring out,
from year to year, to soften the
harsher and more immediate effects of
recurring disaster, money which if in
telligently expended in years gone by
for the support of sound measures for
flood control would have gone far to
prevent the occurrence of those very
considered as an example of stupen-
dous national folly.
To be sure, millions of dollars have
been expended by the Federal Govern
ment on the problem of flood control,
but until the most recent years these
were all upon the main stem of the
Mississippi, or upon one lake in Flor
ida, except such works as we're incl
dental to other purposes, such as navi-
cation or power. The great bulk of
the vast expenditures which have been
made for food control have been by
the States or by local subdivisions of
the States, such as counties, cities,
townships or levy districts. BY reason
of the essentially interstate character
of the flood problem, such improve
ment have been piecemeal and incom-
plete in character, o-ordinated and
completely lacking continuity. More
over. the fact that when such local
improvements are destroyed or i'm
paired by flood. the local community
which constructed them originally is
likely to be so Frustrated and impov-
erished by the disaster as to lack the
means to repair the damage makes
such a system uncertain and ineffect-
i've, as has been many times demon
strated
Cry of "Pork BarrelT Raised.
Not for many years, in fact, not
until after the terrific floods Of 1927,
with loss Of hundreds of millions of
dollars, was the principle that flood
control on the main stem of the Mis-
sissippi is national problem and ma
tional responsibility established and
then only after a terrific fight and
over most virulent opposition And
still it was denied that floods on the
tributary streams of the Mississippi or
upon other great streams in the coun-
try such as the Columbia, the Con-
necticut, the Merrimac, the Susque-
hanna, the Sacramento and many
others afford national problem and
any efforts to have the subject dealt
with in comprehensive way were be-
rated, ridiculed, abused and thwarted.
. Shouts of pork barrel" went up in
House and Senate and in the press
and in magazines at any attempt to
secure action to meet the situation.
What bitter irony do these cries seem
today and how remorseful should these
cynics feel as they contemplate the
wreckage of the extraordinary floods
Of 1886 and 1897 with their loss, direct
and indirect. of probably billion and
q half of our national wealth, with
pestilence following in their train and
with known deaths already far into
the hundreds.
The fact that the control of floods
Is a major national responsibility
seems so obvious that it is difficult to
understand how it could ever have
been disputed Denuding of timber
lands at the headwaters of the Ohio