The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1946-09-13
Eastern Magazine
Continued from Page One)


The Missouri would not wait. 1t
flooded in 1912, 1943 and 1914. Dam
age totaled $149,O00000 Vital war fac
tories were swamped, thousands of
tons of foodstuffs were destroyed and
2,25O,O0O acres were covered with
brown water.
Drenched and indignant, the people
of the lower valley demanded action
from Washington. Congress directed
the Army's Corps of Engineers TO
study the flood problem. The job was
given to the Armys division engineer
at Omaha, at that time Colonel Lewis
A. Pick, who has since become
major general, famed for building the
Ledo Road into China.
Pick submitted his report in less
than three months. The Pick plan
called for leyees on both sides of the
main stem of the Missouri from Sioux
City to the mouth and % reservoirs,
Congress had asked for flood control.
The Pick plan went further 1t sug-
gested multiple-purpose dams to pro-
vide navigation, irrigation and hydro
electric power
The upper, western end of the valley
was not satisfied with Picks CHEEKY
nod to irrigation. In the arid plains of
Wyoming and Montana, they put their
trust in the Bureau of Reclamation.
Suspicious of the western irriga-
tionists we're inflamed when they dis
covered another bill in committee,
besides the Pick plan. This one pro-
posed deepening the six-foot naviga-
ton channel to nine feet from Sioux
City down. Political leaders in the
irrigation states roared like wounded
tigers. The deep channel would call
for more water downstream, they
said, and vital irrigation projects
would be drained dry.
Bureaus Fight Start
Next the Bureau of Reclamation
finally came through with its long
delayed plan, shaped by an assistant
regional director, w. G. Sloan, OF Bill
ings, Mont. The Sloan plan called for
80 dams, and proposed spending ST.
257. 700. 00O-almost twice the army's
estimated 1861, 100000.
The army didn't want its plan modi-
led by reclamationsts. Upper valley
leaders insisted on amending army
flood-control and navigation bills to
guarantee irrigation first call on the
water The dispute became heated.
But, after a time, partisans came to
realize that here was battle both
sides could lose. Urgent pleas for a
compromise poured into Washington
from state governors and civic leaders.
In 1914 bill to create Missouri
Valley Authority was introduced by
Senator James e. Murray of Montana.
The threat of an authority abruptly
cooled the irrigation-versus-navi
ton quarrel Reclamation and army
engineers met and announced agree
ment. Congress wrote compromises
into the Flood Control Act and the
Rivers and Harbors Act, whereby the |
army got its nine-foot channel and re-
characteristics got special proviso |
putting irrigation first, navigation
last, in use of water arising west of
the 98th meridian.
The Missouri Valley now had big
plan, written into law, and its spon-
sors hoped that the authority idea
would expire for lack of nourishment.
And so it might have, if the contend
ers had settled their differences
sooner But the pickering had obscur-
ed merits of the Pick and Sloan plans,
called attention to defects, and left
an impression that some one agency, II
an authority perhaps, would do a
no f1I. %, fIn Mffr-
ray daubed a new coat of paint on his
MVA bill and reintroduced 1t in Feb
ruary, 1915.
Organization for MvA II
Farmers associations and labor II
unions, both ALL and CLIO, got be- II
hind the MVA This labor-farm-liberal II
coalition has weight and power, but H
the opposition is even stronger. Farm '
Bureau organizations and stockmen Z;
are anti-MVA. So are most of the
governors and Legislators in the basin,
and most of the newspapers.
Cheap and plentiful power is held
out as a major inducement by MVA
propagandists. If MVA sold power at
IVA rates, they say, the people of the
Missouri Valley would save more
than $100,OO0,000 year on their cleo
trio bill. But there is disagreement
over the Missouri Valleys power
needs. Private companies report that
their installed capacity in the area
can generate more power than the
market can take.
Already the government is produc-
ing 20 percent of the nations power.
If the American people want to place
the generation of power in government
hands, it is their right to order that
this be done, but they should under )
stand the issue clearly. There can be
no sidestepping of this ultimate mean
ing of the move to blanket the coun- 4