RISING HOPE

The hopes of the people began to rise as they learned that the entire Mississippi levee system was to be made two feet higher than the record of the flood last year. It was expected the work would be completed before the crest of the Ohio River flood reached the lower Mississippi Valley.

On receipt of reports that two hundred families had been driven from their homes in the lowlands of the Atchafalaya River, near Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, owing to high water, and were in a destitute condition, local relief committees from New Orleans rushed a large quantity of supplies to that section.

The appeal said if immediate aid was not received it was feared many would die of starvation. Inhabitants of the district were principally foreigners, who had reclaimed a part of their truck farms, which were destroyed by last year's flood. Their newly planted crops were abandoned.

A NATIONAL PROBLEM

It is a curious fact that the Mississippi has done as much to kill the old doctrine of states' rights as any other influence. For instance, Louisiana, after spending thirty millions of dollars on river problems, was quite willing to concede that the Mississippi was a national affair and that Federal aid was altogether desirable. But it is plain that the resources of the individual states as well as of the nation must be utilized for the prevention of floods. This is a task so vast that a united effort is required.



CHAPTER XXX

DAMAGE TO TRANSPORTATION, MAIL AND TELEGRAPH FACILITIES

GREAT DAMAGE AND WASHOUTS—TICKETS SOLD SUBJECT TO DELAY—REPORTS OF TRACKS GONE—PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD A HEAVY SUFFERER—HEAVY LOSS ON BALTIMORE AND OHIO—ESTIMATED DAMAGE—FLOOD PLAYED HAVOC WITH MAILS—GENERAL PROSTRATION OF TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE WIRES.

Only one railroad was working between New York and Chicago on the night of Wednesday, March 26th. That was the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern. Over the line were speeding the trains of the New York Central and allied lines, the Pennsylvania, the Baltimore and Ohio, and the Erie, passenger and freight service combined. Many trains were derailed in flooded territories.

The following bulletin was given out at the office of W. C. Brown, president of the New York Central Railroad:

"The main line of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway to Chicago is not affected to any extent by the heavy rains, and trains are departing practically on schedule between New York and Chicago.

"The situation south of the Lake Shore line, however, is serious and no trains are being started out of Cleveland for Indianapolis, St. Louis, Dayton, Cincinnati and intermediate points. Through passengers for Columbus are being transferred at New London, Ohio, and handled through to destination."

TICKETS SOLD SUBJECT TO DELAY

Trains went out of the Grand Central Station of New York just the same, but no through western ticket was sold unless the purchaser was informed that it must be accepted subject to delay. When the Southwestern Limited left at four o'clock its ordinary Cincinnati sleeper had been renamed the Columbus sleeper and the Cincinnati man had to take a chance. When its other western expresses went forth the other Ohio, St. Louis and southern sleepers were all running on conditions.

REPORTS OF TRACKS GONE

The Erie Railroad west of Olean, the main line, was out of commission. According to reports received, there were at least one hundred and twenty washouts along that line farther west, with many bridges gone. Some of the washouts were a mile in length and with the tracks had gone the roadbed. Twenty trains bound west were stalled at various points, but all were in big towns, so the passengers did not suffer.

PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD A HEAVY SUFFERER

The Pennsylvania Railroad suffered more damage than any other. The service west of Pittsburgh was badly crippled. All through trains from the East to points on the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway west of Pittsburgh were temporarily discontinued.



On the lines East, in the vicinity of Pittsburgh, Oil City, Erie and Buffalo, serious washouts developed, aggregating in length on the Allegheny Division, about two thousand five hundred feet of main track.

Benjamin McKeen, general manager of the Pennsylvania Railroad's lines, west of Pittsburgh, informed Broad Street Station, Philadelphia, on Thursday, that all lines were blocked on both passenger and freight service, except between Pittsburgh and Cleveland by way of Alliance.

"We are gradually getting our lines of communication established so that our information seems a little more definite, although the lines are working very unsatisfactorily yet at many points.

"We have now gotten the Fort Wayne road open from Chicago to Mansfield with single track over the points where the breaks were, and we are actively at work, both east and west, for a distance of about seventy miles between Canton and Mansfield, where there are four bridges gone and quite a number of washouts, and the best figures we have now are that we will probably get the Fort Wayne line open by Monday morning.

"We have found out definitely that our bridge at Piqua is still standing, although there are vast washouts at each side of it. We also know definitely that our bridge at Dayton is gone; also the four-span bridge over the Muskingum River at Zanesville is gone and there is some question as to whether our bridge over the Scioto River at Circleville is gone or not, as we have no definite information on this.

"We have men and material all assembled and starting actively at work here and there wherever the water has receded sufficiently to permit us."

On the Pennsylvania Railroad alone the loss amounted to millions of dollars. There was not only the tremendous loss due to the loss of tracks, roadbed and bridges, but also the loss of passenger and freight revenues. Everywhere it was conceded that the tie-up was the most serious and extensive in the history of the road.



HEAVY LOSS ON BALTIMORE AND OHIO

The financial loss to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad aggregated millions of dollars in the destruction of property alone.

President Willard was asked on Thursday for an estimate of the damage wrought by the floods. His reply was:

"I cannot tell. I haven't an idea. I wish I could say that it would be $2,000,000, but I cannot.

"I know that half a dozen bridges on the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton have been destroyed and bridges on the Baltimore and Ohio have been washed away. We have lost one of our largest bridges on the main road to Chicago, at Zanesville, Ohio, and it will probably be six months before we will have another completed bridge there, although we will have some bridge there soon. We hope to have our main line to Chicago open in twenty-four hours, and our main line to Cincinnati open in the same time. We cannot tell when we will have our line to St. Louis open."

ESTIMATED DAMAGE

Conservative estimates of the damage to railroad property in the flooded Middle West, plus the loss entailed by the suspension of traffic, ranged from $10,000,000 to $15,000,000.

The entire railway system of Ohio and Indiana was practically put out of business for five days by the floods in the Middle West. To repair and replace the railways affected by this disaster, railway officials stated, would practically wipe out the surplus earnings of many railroads. In other cases dividends were threatened. The reason was, they said, that all such damage must be retrieved out of current earnings and could not be charged to capital.

As an illustration of how the railroads spend money in such an emergency, it may be said that the Pennsylvania sent one hundred and fifty expert bridge builders out West from New York in one day soon after the flood. These men received record wages; they traveled in sleepers, with special dining cars. The company was sending steam-shovels and pile-drivers on limited trains and a first-class laborer could get a private compartment quicker than could a financier.

"There will be improvements in railroading through all the districts every day from now on, but there will not be anything like a restoration of former conditions for months," said one railroad official. "It takes time to rebuild steel bridges, especially as the big steel plants have been experiencing a little trouble of their own."

FLOOD PLAYED HAVOC WITH MAILS

Storm, flood and fire in the Middle West played havoc with the United States mails. Postmaster-General Burleson announced on March 26th that the destruction wrought by the floods in Ohio and Indiana was so serious that it would be ten or twelve days before a regular mail service could be resumed with the remote districts.

Reports showed that never before in the history of the service had there been such a serious interruption to the mails on account of floods. There was practically no local service on the railroads in the territory bounded by Cleveland, Toledo, Columbus, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Terre Haute and the Ohio River.

Mails to New York from points in Kentucky and Tennessee, from Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, Ohio, and all points south of the Ohio River came by way of Washington and were from five to seven hours late. The Arkansas and Oklahoma mails traveled by way of Chattanooga and Memphis.

The representatives in the field were directed to be in constant communication with the department at Washington and to make every effort to supply the people in the flood districts with mail as rapidly as arrangements could be completed. Mails for distant points which regularly passed through the flooded sections were detoured north and south, resulting in unavoidable delay.

GENERAL PROSTRATION OF TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE WIRES

Never before in the history of the United States was there such a general prostration of telegraph and telephone wires as during the great flood. Chicago was "lost" to the East for part of a day, and it was found impossible to reach that city via the South. Throughout eastern Ohio service was paralyzed, and such few wires as could be obtained were flickering and often going down.

The Western Union and Postal Telegraph Companies in New York announced on March 26th that they did not have a wire working in the thousands of square miles roughly marked by Indianapolis on the west, Pittsburgh on the east, Cleveland on the north and the Ohio River on the south. The Postal had but two wires working between New York and Chicago and these were routed by way of Buffalo. None of its wires south of Washington was working.

An army of 10,000 men was sent into the region to repair the wires, but their work was almost impossible because of the inability of the railroads to transport their equipment.

The American Telephone and Telegraph Company had the only facilities in the stricken sections and turned them over without reserve to the press associations, believing that in this manner the public could best be served.

At the offices of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company and the Union Telegraph Company in New York, on March 28th, joint announcement was made as follows:

"In the use of the necessarily limited wire facilities reaching the flooded districts of Ohio and neighboring states due importance is being given to messages to and from public officials, relief associations, the press and to such urgent messages as have to do with measures of relief, believing that thus the public will be best served until full service can be restored.

"There has been no time during the past week when the combined facilities of the two companies have not afforded communication with the larger cities and towns, but local conditions render it impossible in many cases to deliver telegrams or to make local connections by telephone."



CHAPTER XXXI

THE WORK OF RELIEF

PRESIDENT WILSON PROMPTLY IN DIRECTION—WASHINGTON ASTIR AS IN TIME OF WAR—BACKING OF CONGRESS PLEDGED—AMERICAN RED CROSS TO THE RESCUE—RAILROADS BRAVELY HELPING—RELIEF FROM STATES AND INDIVIDUALS—AN ARMY OF PEACE.

The sympathetic response of the American people never fails to measure up to the summons of any calamity. Relief is plentiful and prompt. The awful story of the flood and tornado was no sooner told than the machinery of government, the organized forces of the Red Cross and individual efforts in every city within reach were co-operating to provide succor and supplies to the sufferers. Tents for shelter, cots, food by the trainload, hospital and medical supplies, were almost immediately on their way to the stricken district.

WASHINGTON ASTIR AS IN TIME OF WAR

The Federal Government was alive to the needs of the flooded districts of the Middle West with activity that almost surpassed the hustle and bustle of war times. Every department from the White House down, directed its energies toward the relief of distress and suffering in Ohio and Indiana. As the result of appeals from Governor Cox, the American Red Cross and others, President Wilson issued an appeal to the nation at large to help the sufferers.

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President Wilson's Messages For the Relief of the Stricken States

To Mayor Dahlman, of Omaha:

"I am deeply distressed at the news received from Nebraska. Can we help you in any way?

"WOODROW WILSON."

To Governor Ralston, of Indiana, and Governor Cox, of Ohio:

"I deeply sympathize with the people of your state in the terrible disaster that has come upon them. Can the Federal Government assist in any way?

"WOODROW WILSON."

To the Nation:

"The terrible floods in Ohio and Indiana have assumed the proportions of a national calamity. The loss of life and the infinite suffering involved prompt me to issue an earnest appeal to all who are able in however small a way to assist the labors of the American Red Cross to send contributions at once to the Red Cross at Washington or to the local treasurers of the society.

"We should make this a common cause. The needs of those upon whom this sudden and overwhelming disaster has come should quicken everyone capable of sympathy and compassion to give immediate aid to those who are laboring to rescue and relieve.

"WOODROW WILSON."

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Indicating the gravity of the situation in Ohio, a telegram from Governor Cox was received by Secretary of War Garrison asking for food and medical supplies and tents for the sufferers.

Secretary Garrison promptly took steps to meet the emergency, and the supplies requested were sent by express to Columbus. The two experienced officers who handled the Mississippi flood situation, Majors Normoyle and Logan, were also ordered to proceed to Columbus to aid Governor Cox.

All troops in Western New York and all available troops in the Central Department were ordered to hold themselves in readiness to proceed to relief work in Ohio and Indiana, if needed.

President Wilson issued his appeal for funds for the Red Cross following a conference with Miss Mabel Boardman, chairman of the relief board of the organization.

The Secretary of the Treasury enlisted promptly in the relief movement, and the public health service and the life-saving service and marine hospital surgeons available were placed at the command of the state authorities. The public health hospitals at Detroit, Cleveland, Louisville, Cairo, Evansville and St. Louis were thrown open for the care of the flood victims. Surgeons P. W. Wille, of the Marine Hospital at Cleveland, was instructed to go to Columbus to co-operate with the state board of health. Dr. J. O. Cobb, of the Chicago Marine Hospital, was ordered to Indianapolis.

BACKING OF CONGRESS PLEDGED

The President was in his office all day Wednesday, March 26th, in close touch with the situation. He apprised the chairmen of the Senate and House appropriations committees that the government was going ahead with emergency expenditures on the assumption that Congress would back up the administration later. Both promised hearty support, and orders went out on every side for a gigantic work of relief.

Major P. C. Fauntleroy was sent to Columbus to handle the medical supplies. Nine medical officers and fifty-four hospital corps men went from the Department of the East carrying a big supply of surgical dressings, anti-typhoid prophylactics and the complete "reserve medical supply" comprising hundreds of drugs sufficient to treat 20,000 patients for one month. Precautions against the spread of disease were to be handled by sanitation experts.

Life-saving crews were ordered from Louisville to Dayton and from Lorain, Ohio, to Delaware, Ohio, and the public health service distributed its agents over the afflicted districts.

SUPPLIES ON THE WAY

By Friday more than double the apparently necessary medical supplies for the flood sufferers were on their way to Ohio and Indiana, a full quota of supplies having been started from the army supply warehouses at St. Louis and a second consignment from Washington.

From the naval stores a huge consignment of wearing apparel and bedding for the sufferers was sent to Columbus. These supplies were started from the naval stores at New York. Paymaster-General Cowie made the arrangements under orders from Secretary of the Navy Daniels. The shipment included 12,000 blankets, 7,000 watch caps, 50,000 pairs of light weight drawers, 80,000 light weight undershirts, 30,000 heavy weight drawers, 30,000 heavy weight shirts, 4,200 navy jerseys, 15,000 khaki jumpers, 24,000 pairs of dungaree trousers, 8,000 overcoats, 24,000 pairs of shoes and 15,000 pairs of woolen socks.

In addition to the clothing supply the Navy sent also 300,000 rations on the way to Columbus and Dayton. Paymaster Nesbit and Paymaster's Clerk Conell were in charge of the distribution. Assistant Secretary Roosevelt supplied them with $25,000 in currency with full authority to expend it for such supplies and services as they might find necessary.

For a time President Wilson considered going himself to the flood districts; but reports from Secretary Garrison and others were so encouraging that he decided it was unnecessary.

"Refreshed by the tears of the American people, Ohio stands ready from today to meet the crisis alone," wrote Governor Cox of Ohio on March 31st.

After seeing the situation well in hand in Dayton, Secretary Garrison returned to Cincinnati and then proceeded to Columbus. By April 2d he was able to return to Washington.

AMERICAN RED CROSS TO THE RESCUE

From the first day when Miss Mabel T. Boardman conferred with President Wilson, the American Red Cross and the government worked hand in hand. At headquarters of the National Red Cross funds from all quarters of the Union rained in on the officials. Friday night the Red Cross headquarters had received more than $190,000 in cash and drafts, and basing their estimates on telegraphic advices from other points, they were assured that their total already exceeded $350,000. Boston sent in $32,000, Cleveland $33,000 subject to call. Baltimore notified Miss Boardman to draw on the local chapter of the order for $7,000. New York reported $75,000 in hand and the District of Columbia chapter had more than $25,000 ready for instant use. Henry C. Frick sent a check for $10,000 and John D. Rockefeller $5,000, with the suggestion that more was ready when needed.

With Miss Boardman at the head of the party the Red Cross relief train left Washington Friday over the Chesapeake and Ohio, bound for Columbus.

The train comprised six express coaches, two of which were loaded with steel cots for use of the homeless. Two others were loaded with bedding and clothing supplies and two with foodstuffs of all sorts.

Hurrying to Omaha to assist in relief work in that city, Ernest P. Bicknell, of the American National Red Cross, halted in Chicago. Informed of the serious situation in Indiana and Ohio, he telegraphed to Omaha and received word that the relief work was well in hand. He then decided to go to the flood-stricken districts in Indiana and Ohio. Reaching Columbus, Mr. Bicknell had soon established Red Cross headquarters and the corps under his direction was working in closest harmony with the state flood relief committee, the Governor of Ohio and the United States army and navy relief officials.

The disaster in the Middle West was the greatest the Red Cross Society was ever called upon to deal with. The amount of suffering entailed by the flood far exceeded that of the San Francisco earthquake and fire.

RAILROADS BRAVELY HELPING

Bravely the railroads worked their way into the stricken territory. While a blizzard raged in Ohio from Cleveland to Cincinnati, with the temperature down to twenty-eight degrees above zero, the railroads—which means all the railroads in every section, the New York Central, the Pennsylvania, the Erie, the Baltimore and Ohio, and their allied lines—threw into the battle thousands upon thousands of men, trainload after trainload of machinery, and money rewards as a stimulus for the repair of miles of washed-out tracks and shattered bridges. Every division superintendent of every line in the district, his assistants, usually with some high executive officer of the system in control; every man and boy able to handle a pick or shovel or crowbar, to carry his end of a girder or drag a coil of rope, was out on the job.

It was not for any selfish purpose that the roads threw this immense power into the work. Their object was to open up rail communication with the desolated cities, towns and villages and send relief trains with bread, with blankets, with medicines, doctors and nurses. It was not a race for money.

"We will carry every pound of supplies for the devastated district free over any lines" announced the Pennsylvania, and it added free passage for doctors, nurses and every other good Samaritan.

"No charge," was the echo of the New York Central, and that order went to every freight and passenger agent of the big system everywhere. The Baltimore and Ohio, the Erie, and every other line followed in an instant. The railroads helped all they could.

RELIEF FROM STATES AND INDIVIDUALS

If the nation was generous and prompt in its relief, neighboring states and individuals were not less so. Governors in many states and mayors of many cities, following the noble example of the President, issued appeals for help. Mayor Dahlman of Omaha and Governor Morehead of Nebraska bravely declined the help offered by President Wilson and others for sufferers from the tornado; but the flood-stricken districts, for whom recovery was far less easy, in many cases were obliged to appeal for aid. From towns throughout Ohio and Indiana came desperate cries for help, and to all of them a sympathetic nation listened and responded.

AN ARMY OF PEACE

If the great calamity stirred the hearts of the nation with pity, so did the prompt and splendid relief inspire enthusiasm. Even though the despatch of United States troops to the scene of devastation in the West lacked legal sanction the whole country unanimously approved the movement which thus itself becomes a signal to all nations, and a corroboration of the truth that the American is not hidebound by fantastic traditions when some serious achievement is to be done. Our soldiers in this case for the nonce became missionaries. Under the leadership of the Secretary of War, the troops carried clothes, food, medicaments, tents, blankets, and in short all the paraphernalia necessary to succor the distressed, assuage the pangs of suffering and restore normal conditions within the wide areas battered by the destructive elements.

This peaceful use of our fighting men brings into realization the vision so strongly cherished by John Ruskin—the vision of the time when soldiership should develop into a form of modern knight-errantry, and the "passion to bless and save" should inspire those who were formerly drilled only in the exercises of conquest and slaughter. Americans may well be proud to reflect that this era, which a few decades ago seemed but the chimerical dream of a doctrinaire, has found its pledge and promise in the generous endeavors of our standing army.

"Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war."

In narrowing the dimension of suffering, and lending a strong hand to those overwhelmed by calamity, our soldiers raised up the defeated from the sore battle of life.



CHAPTER XXXII

PREVIOUS GREAT FLOODS AND TORNADOES

THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR—THE GALVESTON TRAGEDY—THE MISSISSIPPI ON A RAMPAGE—DESTRUCTION IN LOUISVILLE—THE ST. LOUIS TORNADO.

Floods are not usually so dramatic and awe-inspiring as tornadoes, but they are even more destructive of life. The Johnstown flood of 1889, however, was dramatic and even spectacular—so swiftly did it come and so certainly could it have been avoided. It destroyed 2,235 lives, swept away ten millions of dollars worth of property, and carried unutterable grief into countless happy homes.

Lying in a narrow valley were eight villages, aggregating 50,000 to 80,000 inhabitants, the largest of the eight being situated at the lower end, with about 25,000 inhabitants.

Far up in the mountain, 300 feet above the chief village of the valley, hung a huge body of water. As nature had designed it, this had been a small lake with natural outlets, which prevented it from being a menace to the valley below. But the hand of man sought to improve the work of nature. An immense dam, 110 feet in height, held back the water till the lake was more than quadrupled in size.

THE SWOLLEN WATERS

These were the conditions on May 31, 1889. There had been heavy rains for several days. The artificially enlarged lake was really a receiving reservoir of the water-shed of the Alleghany Mountains. Every little stream running into it was swollen to a torrent. The lake, which in ordinary times was three and a half miles long, with an average width of over a mile, and a depth in some portions of 100 feet, was swollen into a volume of water of enormous proportions. Between it and the valley below there was a dam nearly 1,000 feet wide, 100 feet high, ninety feet thick at the base and twenty at the top. This barrier gave way and the water rushed into the valley in a solid wave with a perpendicular front of forty feet.

It swept away the seven smaller villages like straw, hurled them, together with uncounted thousands of their inhabitants, upon the larger village, and then, with the accumulated ruin of the whole eight, dashed upon the stone bridge at the bottom of the valley. The bridge withstood the shock, and a new dam, as fateful with horror as the first had been, was formed. It held back the water so that the whole valley was a lake from twenty to forty feet in depth, with the remains of its villages beneath its surface. The wreckage of the ruined villages, piled from forty to sixty feet high, against the bridge, spread over a vast area, with countless bodies of the living and the dead crushed within it and struggling for life upon it, caught fire, and burned to the water's edge.

When the flood came—a terrific punishment for the carelessness of the past—the doubters saw their homes washed away, their dear ones drowned; in some cases they did not even live to see the extent of the havoc wrought. Whole families were drowned like rats; houses were shattered to pieces or floated about on the water like wrecked ships.

Intolerable was the suffering that followed—grief for the loss of dear ones, actual physical hurt, hunger and want. The problem for many in the eight towns was to begin life all over—and that without hope. Immediate suffering was in some measure prevented by the speedy help rendered by neighboring towns, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the entire nation. But nothing could undo the fearful damage of the past.

THE GALVESTON TRAGEDY

Great as was the Johnstown flood, it shrinks into insignificance before the appalling hurricane-brought flood of Galveston, which devastated the city and swept thousands of its inhabitants to their death. There is little in the new city which arose to remind one of the awful tragedy—unless it be the strong sea-walls constructed to keep out future floods.

The storm came over the bay from the gulf before daylight Saturday morning, September 8, 1900. At 10 A. M. the inundation from the bay began, but even then no alarm was felt. The wind took on new strength and the waters were carried four blocks through the business section into Market Street. Ocean freighters dragged anchors in the channel and were soon crashing against the wharves. The wind reached the hurricane stage, blowing at something like one hundred and twenty miles an hour, and buildings began to crumble. By this time the bay water had reached a high point on Tremont Street. The gulf, however, was quiet.

Then a remarkable thing happened. The wind suddenly shifted from the north to the southeast, the hurricane increased in fury, and, picking up the waters of the gulf, hurled them with crushing force against the four miles of residences stretched along the beach. There was nothing in the way of protection, and houses were knocked over like so many toy structures.

By three o'clock the gulf had spread over the city and mingled in the streets with the waters of the bay. The violence of the wind continued. Higher and higher rose the water. Buildings began to collapse. Shrieks of agony were heard. One family of five took refuge in four different houses, abandoning each in turn just in time to save themselves. Hundreds, struck by the flying wreckage, fell unconscious in the water.

SCENES OF HORROR

When night settled down over the city the whole bay side was in process of destruction. Wreckage was thrown with the force of a catapult against houses which still offered resistance. Electric light and gas plants were flooded and the city was in darkness.

In the cemeteries the dead of years were washed from their graves and carried across to the mainland. A tramp steamer was carried over to Virginia Point, then sent like a shot through three bridges. The steamers "Alamo" and "Red Cross" were dropped upon Pelican Flats, and when the waves retreated were left high and dry upon the sand. Yachts and sailboats were driven over the mainland and could be seen in the grass far beyond Texas City. Railroad cars loaded and empty were carried into the bay, and miles of track torn up and washed away.

THE RECEDING WATERS

Between ten and eleven the wind fell and the water began to recede, almost as rapidly as it had come. Before daylight the streets were clear of water, but covered with slime and choked with wreckage. It was not necessary to go to the beach to find the dead. They lay thick along the streets.

A Committee of Public Safety was organized, and all men, white and black, were asked to assist in the removal of the dead. The superstitious negroes refused, but were finally compelled at the muzzle of guns to gather in the bodies. It was suggested that the burials be made at sea. Society men, clubmen, millionaires, longshoremen and negroes took up the work, loading the bodies on drays and conveying them to barges. The dreadful procession lasted all of Sunday and Monday. Three barge loads of dead were taken out to sea and given back to the waves. The weights, however, were not properly attached, and soon the corpses were back in the surf, washing on the beach.

After the storm the weather turned milder. By Monday the city reeked with the smell of a charnel house and pestilence was in the air. The bodies of dead animals lay in the streets; the waters of the bay and gulf were thick with the dead. All the disinfectants in the city were quickly consumed. An earnest appeal for more was sent to Houston and other places. Tuesday a general cremation of the dead began. Trenches were dug and lined with wood. The corpses were tossed in, covered with more wood, saturated with oil, and set on fire. Later, bodies were collected and placed in piles of wreckage, and the whole then given to the flames. Men engaged in this horrible task frequently found relatives and friends among the dead. The men wore camphor bags under their noses, but frequently became so nauseated that they were forced to stop work. The fire purified the air, however, and disinfectants began to come in in answer to the appeal. The streets were covered with a solution of lime, and carbolic acid was showered everywhere.

GALVESTON NOT THE ONLY SUFFERER

And not only Galveston was a sufferer in this storm. For fifty miles along the coast, on both sides of the city, the storm found victims. The waters of the sea were carried inland ten miles all along the coast. The total loss of life in Galveston and near-by places amounted to 9,000; the property damage to $30,000,000.

THE MISSISSIPPI ON A RAMPAGE

"The Mississippi River in flood," says a recent writer, "takes everything with it. To watch the endless procession which the swift current carries by is to see all the properties of tragedies. The Mississippi in flood is the despoiler of homes. Houses come floating down the stream, outbuildings, furniture and myriads of smaller things, tossed by waves in the 'runs' or sailing on serenely in the broader stretches. Great trees go by. They are evidence that the Mississippi has asserted its majesty somewhere and has cut a new channel to please itself, eating away bank, growth, and all. Carcasses of cows and horses and dogs float down the stream, carrying a pair of buzzards, those scavengers who have so much work to do after the floods have receded. It is a terrible and a melancholy sight."

THE FLOOD OF 1912

In April and May, 1912, the Mississippi reached a height never before equaled, and the great river went tearing through levee after levee on its resolute course to the sea. The river reached a maximum width of sixty miles, killed 1,000 persons, rendered 30,000 homeless, and caused damage to the amount of $50,000,000.

By April 2d, Columbus, Missouri, was buried under fifteen feet of water, and in some parts of the town residences were wholly submerged. New Madrid was not much better off, and Hickman, Kentucky, looked like a small city of Venice. President Taft sent a hurry call to Congress for half a million dollars, and within fifteen minutes after his message was read, the lower house had passed an appropriation bill and sent it to the Senate, which laid everything else aside to give it right of way. By April 5th, the Reelfoot Lake district, covering 150 square miles of Kentucky farm land, was an inland lake and the river at Cairo, Illinois, had risen to nearly fifty-four feet, the average depth from St. Louis to New Orleans being ordinarily but nine feet. Cairo was for days surrounded by the torrents from the Ohio and the Mississippi beating at the levees, while to the north of the city factory buildings were immersed to their roofs or even entirely covered. By April 7th, the levee in Arkansas, seven miles south of Memphis, had a gap a mile long and Lake County, Tennessee, had no ground above water but a strip six miles long by four wide. By the middle of the month, the levees at Panther Forest, Arkansas; Alsatia, Louisiana; and Roosevelt, Louisiana, had succumbed, and a thousand square miles of fertile plantations were from five to seven feet under water.

FARMS AND PLANTATIONS SUBMERGED

Rain-storm after rain-storm caused the stream to swell, undermined dikes, and broke new crevasses all the way from Vicksburg to New Orleans. Hundred of farmers and their families, a majority of them negroes, were cut off and overwhelmed by the flood. For several weeks the people of New Orleans were under the fear that a large part of the city might be submerged and ruined. Near by vast sugar plantations were under water, while the prosperous town of Moreauville was inundated. Refugees' camps were established and relief work began. Many vessels assisted the army. Pitiful stories of famished and suffering victims of the flood were told, and the miles and miles of desolated country struck horror to the heart. They have a pregnant saying down there: "Come hell and high water." Some day, it is to be hoped, we are going to take the force out of that expression.

DESTRUCTION IN LOUISVILLE

Disaster by tornado is not so easy to avoid as disaster by flood. One of the most destructive storms of recent years was that which swept over Louisville, Kentucky, in the evening of March 27, 1890, killing 113 persons, injuring 200, and destroying property to the amount of $2,500,000. The storm came from the southwest and cut a path through the heart of the city three miles long and nearly a half mile wide. Nearly every building in its course was leveled to the ground or otherwise damaged. Outlying towns were also devastated by the storm, and flood calamities occurred simultaneously along the Mississippi.

About eight o'clock the storm was raging with tremendous force. The rain fell in sheets, the lightning was constant and vivid, the wind blew ominously. The streets were soon miniature rivers, and telegraph and telephone poles began to snap. By 8.30 there was alarm all over the city, but before any measure of safety could be adopted the body of the mighty tempest dashed itself on the houses along Fifteenth Street and tore itself diagonally across the city, leaping the river at Front Street to Jeffersonville.

The passage across the city was not continuous and in uniform direction, but the storm lifted itself up, fell with furious force on a block, then rolled over into adjacent blocks, when it rested a moment, then dashed furiously up and forward again, launching to the right and left with demoniacal whimsicality.

Everything it touched suffered. Church steeples fell, crushing beneath their weight the buildings over which they had stood guard. Wrenching warehouses to fragments the tornado passed to the river front, leaving a broad swath of wreckage and dead bodies. The belt of destruction extended from the west side of Seventh Street as far as Ninth and Main Streets, and an equal width across to the point where the city was first touched. Along this path were demolished homes and wrecked business houses—the annihilated work of years. On the river the storm found full sway. The tawny water of the swollen Ohio became a lake of seething foam. Steamboat after steamboat was driven from its moorings and tossed like a drop of spray in the boiling stream.

CITIZENS MADDENED WITH GRIEF

Almost immediately after the storm had passed thousands crowded into the distressed district; maddened men and women fought and struggled through the debris trying to find some loved relative or friend. From every side arose the groans of the wounded and dying. About the Falls City Hotel groups thronged waiting for news.

Fires burning in several places added to the horror, though no great damage was done by these. Crushed and blackened ruins marked the spot of the Union Depot, which collapsed during the storm, crushing a train which was just ready to depart. Every building, tree and telegraph pole in the district struck was leveled, and almost all the railroads entering the city were obliged to suspend all passenger and freight traffic.

RESCUE, RELIEF AND RECONSTRUCTION

The work of rescuing the mangled dead was bravely carried on the following day and before many hours the American genius for organization, order and action had met the demands of the overwhelming disaster. While the dead were still lying awaiting burial, plans were made to rebuild and resume again the work of life.

The local police and militia kept order. The city authorities and board of trade organized relief corps. The brave spirit of self-reliance triumphed over the appalling calamity. Money for relief was sent to the city from many sources, and it is interesting to note that the citizens of Johnstown, who had suffered from the great catastrophe of the previous year, were among the first to offer help. They knew what desolation meant.

THE ST. LOUIS TORNADO

A far more terrible story of death and destruction is that of the St. Louis tornado of May 27, 1896, which lasted but half an hour, killed 306 persons and destroyed property to the amount of $12,000,000.

The same tornado visited many places in Missouri and Illinois, causing an additional property loss of $1,000,000.

The sky grew black at 4 P. M., the sun was eclipsed in the whirl of driving dust and dirt, mingled with the branches and leaves of trees, the boards of buildings and other loose material torn off by the wind. At times the wind blew eighty miles an hour. In that mad half hour, while property was crumbling and hundreds of human lives being snuffed out, thousands of maimed and bleeding persons were added to the awful harvest of devastation.

FREAK DESTRUCTION

Over in East St. Louis, where the houses were all frail structures, the destruction was greatest. The great Eads Bridge was twisted all out of shape, and freight cars were tossed to and fro, tumbled into ditches and driven sometimes into the fields many yards from where they had stood. The great Vandalia freight house fell in a heap of utter ruin, burying beneath it thirty-five men who had there sought refuge.

The swath cut was three blocks wide and four miles long. The top of the bridge was knocked off as well as the big abutment. The Martell House was blown into the Cokokia Creek and many were buried in the ruins.

To add to the horrors of the night the electric-light plants were rendered incapable of service, and the gas lamps were also shut off, leaving the city in utter darkness. Fire broke out in several portions of the city, and the fire department was unable to make an effective fight because of the choked condition of the streets and the large number of firemen who were engaged in the imperative work of rescuing the dead and wounded.

ANNIHILATION

The City Hospital, which fortunately survived the storm, was filled to overflowing with the injured. In addition to those who were killed in their houses and in the streets, scores of dead were carried away by the waters of the Mississippi River. Many steamers on the levee went down in the storm. From the "Great Republic," one of the largest steamers on the lower river, not a man escaped. The word "annihilation" is perhaps the only one that can adequately describe the awful work of the tornado.

The rising of the sun in the morning revealed a scene of indescribable horror. The work of carrying out the maimed and dead immediately began, but it was a task of big proportions, as many bodies were totally buried under the debris. Hundreds of families were rendered homeless, and the business portion of the community was almost in absolute ruin.

Lack of food added to the misery. Bread sold for fifteen cents a loaf. A large number of military tents were shipped into the city and many families found shelter in freight yards. The Ohio and Mississippi railroad companies issued permits for the use of their empty cars. Contributions to aid in the work of rebuilding and relief were received and the city council voted $100,000.

It was several weeks before the city began to resume a normal existence. The presence of armed men and endless piles of debris, the suspension of traffic, the grief for departed dear ones, and the sight of the many injured, all contributed to a condition of solemnity and sorrow. "The memory of the strange and awful scenes that have been presented by East St. Louis for the past three days," said one clergyman of the city, "will live in the minds of its inhabitants for years. But our people are too courageous and energetic to be deterred from repairing the physical havoc wrought."

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PREVIOUS GREAT DISASTERS

FLOODS

Johnstown, Pa., breaking of the Conemaugh dam, May 31, 1889; 2,235 killed.

Galveston, Tex., tidal wave, September 8, 1900; 9,000 killed.

Mississippi Valley, May, 1912; 1,000 killed.

WIND STORMS

Adams County, Miss., May 7, 1840; 317 killed. Same county, June, 1842; 500 killed.

Louisville, Ky., March 27, 1890; 113 killed, 200 injured; property loss, $2,500,000.

Cherokee, Buena Vista and Pocahontas Counties, Iowa, July 6, 1893, 89 killed; property loss, $250,000.

Little Rock, Ark., October 2, 1894; 4 killed; property loss, $500,000.

Denton and Grayson Counties, Tex., May 15, 1896; 78 killed and 150 injured; property loss, $165,000.

St. Louis and East St. Louis, Mo., May 27, 1896; 306 identified killed; property loss, $12,000,000. Same tornado visited many places in Missouri and Illinois, causing an additional property loss of $1,000,000.

West India hurricane, September 29 and 30, 1896, covering Florida, Georgia, South and North Carolina, Virginia, District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York; 114 killed; property loss, $7,000,000.

Eastern Michigan, May 25, 1897; 47 killed, 100 injured; property loss, $400,000.

Galveston hurricane, September 8, 1900; 9,000 killed; property loss, $30,000,000; estimated wind velocity, 120 miles an hour.

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CHAPTER XXXIII

LESSONS OF THE CATACLYSM AND PRECAUTIONARY MEASURES

NOT A VISITATION OF PUNISHMENT—THE HELPLESSNESS OF MAN BEFORE NATURE—THE KINSHIP OF HUMANITY—INCENTIVE TO ENTERPRISE—THE GREATEST LESSON—MEASURES AGAINST REPETITION OF DISASTER—UTILIZING NATURAL RESERVOIRS—PROMOTION OF FORESTRY—CONSTRUCTION OF DAMS—SECRETARY LANE'S PLAN—A PROBLEM FOR THE PANAMA ENGINEERS.

With each succeeding dispatch from the districts stricken by flood and tornado it became clearer that the first impressions of the disaster, shocking as they were, fell not far beneath the dreadful reality.

Hundreds overwhelmed in the rushing floods, hundreds of thousands spared from sudden death only to suffer hunger and thirst and hardship and the perils of fire, cities submerged, villages swept away, countless homes and vast industries destroyed, miles upon miles of populous land drowned under turbulent waters, and over all the grim shadows of starvation and disease—this catastrophe defies picture and parallel to express its desolating horror.

The widespread calamity, which smote with its cruelest force the beautiful city of Dayton, is one of those for which no personal responsibility can be placed. Like the tidal flood which devastated Galveston and the earth upheaval which laid San Francisco in ruins, it is a convulsion which could not have been foreseen or stayed.

NOT A VISITATION OF PUNISHMENT

In the presence of such a fearful disaster there are few persons who will say, but there are some who will think, that this is in some manner a visitation decreed upon the communities which suffer. The very magnitude and superhuman force of it will suggest to many minds the thought of an ordered punishment and warning for offenses against a higher power.

Such a concept, happily more rarely held than in earlier times, is, of course, revolting to sober judgment and to the instincts of religious reverence. For it would imply that multitudes of the innocent should suffer indescribable cruelty; it would attempt the impossible feat of justifying the smiting of Dayton, where the inhabitants lived lives of peaceful, helpful industry, and the sparing of communities where men serve the gods of dishonest wealth and vicious idleness.

This was no vengeance decreed for human shortcomings. It was superhuman, but not supernatural. It was but a manifestation of the unchangeable, irresistible forces of nature, governed by physical laws which are inexorable. Nature knows neither revenge nor pity. She does not select her victims, nor does she turn aside to save the good who may be in her path. As her concern is not with individuals, but with the race, so she is moved not by mercy, but by law.

To the limited vision of man, with his brief life, nature seems incredibly cruel and wasteful. Her teachings must be learned at fearful cost. Men will ask themselves what lessons are taught by this overwhelming sacrifice.

THE HELPLESSNESS OF MAN BEFORE NATURE

There is made plain, first, the utter powerlessness of man when he pits his strength against the full demonstration of the laws of nature. It is revealed, again, that there are forces which before all the might of human intellect remain unconquerable. The same grim lesson confronts the scientist whose babe is snatched from him by death; it confronts the millionaire who feels the chill of age creeping upon the frame that has upheld the finances of a nation and has made and unmade panics with the crooking of a finger.

THE KINSHIP OF HUMANITY

But there flows from such a catastrophe a brighter and better influence than this. With all its horror and shock, there comes inevitably a great joining of minds and hearts. The whole world feels the thrill of kinship and a common humanity. For the time being all conceptions of social caste and class distinction, the most unworthy thoughts of beings fashioned all in the image of their Maker, are leveled and forgotten. Indifference and selfishness disappear. Throughout the nation, throughout the world, there thrills the uplifting current of brotherhood, the consciousness that "we be of one blood."

Wherever civilization has exercised its beneficent influence upon the minds of men there is felt, for a little time at least, the sense that all humanity is one; that the strife of man against man and nation against nation is but a pitiful thing, and that we may better concern ourselves with trying to make the common lot brighter and so soften the rigors of the existence we all must face.

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF WEALTH

Specifically does not such an appalling event serve to awaken responsibility among the wealthy and powerful toward the poor and the weak? When all goes well, when there are no thunderous warnings such as this of the helplessness of man against the forces arrayed against him, the fortunate do not realize that for millions mere existence is a poignant struggle; that hunger and cold and disease prevail even when there are no ghastly floods to make them vivid and picturesque. We do not doubt that there are many who will be stirred by the shock of this dreadful story to a deeper and more sympathetic understanding with the conditions that surround them on every side.

INCENTIVE TO ENTERPRISE

If any further good can come from a catastrophe so cruel, it may be in the stimulating pride of race which it engenders. Such experiences have a unique effect upon the American nature. The greater the calamity which falls upon a community the greater seems to be the rebound. Destruction and hardship seem to open great reservoirs of latent energy, inventiveness and enterprise.

Galveston, suddenly overwhelmed by a convulsion of nature, apparently was doomed to molder away in forgotten ruins; but her people cleared the wreck and built a greater city than before. Before the ashes of the old San Francisco had cooled the vision of a better community rose before her inhabitants, and they made it real.

Calamity sets free such a flow of creative power that destruction itself makes for progress. These disasters concentrate upon constructive enterprise stories of emotional energy that in other times are expended in the fierce struggle of competitive existence.

THE GREATEST LESSON

But the great hidden teaching of disaster is that the laws of nature are eternal and inexorable; that they move with unerring precision and resistless force. And this truth applies not only to the tremendous powers of the hurricane, the flood and the earthquake, but to economic principles, which are simply a translation into human terms of the laws manifested in inanimate nature.

The woman whose health is wrecked by overwork, the child whose body and mind are stunted by early labor, the tenement dweller who falls victim to disease because of unwholesome conditions of living—these are sacrifices to natural laws as much as are the thousands swept away in the floods. But, while the flood deaths are due to an outburst of the elements which man cannot control, these others are the result of his defiance of the laws of nature.

There is another difference: The victims of economic wrongs due to cupidity and indifference outnumber a thousand to one the victims of natural causes beyond control. All the deaths in these fearful floods are less than those caused every year in a single large city by conditions that might be remedied.

Nature decrees that those who do not have certain amounts of fresh air and food and rest shall die; the law is inexorable. But it is civilization which defies it and brings down the penalty.

THE AWAKENING TO OTHER LAWS OF NATURE

A stranger thought is that many whose hearts are melted by this disaster and whose checkbooks open to the suffering survivors are habitually indifferent to the more deadly conditions existing on all sides of their homes. Men contribute generously to the relief funds who, if asked to surrender a fractional part of their dividends in order to make work safer and more healthful and more humane for employees, would berate the suggestion as anarchistic.

This is not due to hardness of heart; it is due to faults of vision. Men display such sympathy in one case and such ruthlessness in another simply because civilization has not yet advanced far enough to create generally the sense of responsibility which is called social consciousness.

There are those who believe that the good impulses aroused by such events as now appeal to us tend to awaken this consciousness; on the other hand, a $5,000 contribution to a flood relief fund may, by salving the conscience of the giver, close his mind to the need for changing industrial conditions or expending some of his tenement rents for decent sanitation.

Our own belief is that each calamity brings the minds of the nation into closer sympathy and hastens the day when all men will understand that the society they have builded is guilty of causing miseries just as great as those we are now witnessing, the defying the laws of nature because of indifference and greed.

THE NEED FOR ACTION

This country has suffered from many great floods in past years, but none so awful in its scope and terrible consequences. The present calamity must bring the country to its sober senses and make us see the positive necessity—the inevitable MUST—of taking immediate and adequate measures to guard against the repetition of such a disaster. "Strike while the iron is hot," has been the battle-cry of men of action throughout the world! And today, while the iron of adversity is hot in the bosom of the Republic, is the time to strike upon the ideas that are to make the heroic surgery of healing.

What is the remedy for these mighty floods that are sweeping and ruining the interior country? Beyond the supreme consideration of the loss of life they are the financial tragedies of the century. They occur at rare intervals in Ohio and Indiana and in New York. But in the valley of the Mississippi and in the Ohio Valley they are almost an annual or bi-annual scourge of waters, terrific in suffering and appalling in cost.

NOT A QUESTION OF COST

No expenditure of public money is too great that will strengthen the defenses of the people against the giant forces of destruction in the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. No cost in national expenditure for permanent defense against such catastrophes would approximate the cost in a single decade to the pockets of the people, not to speak of the uncountable value of human life. Governor Cox, of Ohio, estimated that the damage in Ohio alone by the recent floods was more than $300,000,000—nearly as much as the cost of the Panama Canal. The total cost of the recent flood is vastly greater than that of the Panama Canal!

The American Government can no longer stop to consider money in dealing with the problems of internal economy and of elemental humanity. The floods create an emergency as definite and imperative as war. It is time now to start some movement for the preservation of life and property against such occurrences.

MEASURES AGAINST REPETITION OF DISASTER

It is not the mission of this book to prescribe plans for meeting the situation. That must be the work of a corps of trained engineers who shall study the whole problem comprehensively and in detail. Rather it is our purpose here to bring home the overwhelming need for prompt action. We may be permitted, however, to point in a general way, and on high authority, the general lines that the necessary remedies must take.

The river problems in the great central valleys present certain difficulties which engineers have been unable to overcome. If levees are constructed, it is found that the bed of the stream rises also, so that the situation is not materially changed. If channels are deepened, the fury of the floods is increased. If the construction of reservoirs is proposed, there are very important questions of location and danger.

UTILIZING NATURAL RESERVOIRS

In many places the Mississippi River, closely diked, flows high above the lands adjacent. Even at New Orleans, 107 miles from the Gulf, it is during high water ten to fifteen feet above the level of the city. Obviously the levee system, while useful everywhere and in some localities adequate, is not a universal remedy. Reservoirs properly constructed should be of service in storing the waters of many such rivers as those that have caused the havoc in Ohio and Indiana, but to meet the requirements they would have to be of enormous size, very numerous and costly, as Professor Willis S. Moore, chief of the Weather Bureau, points out.

Nature itself has provided in lowlands throughout all of these valleys receptacles which, before men came, took up the surplus waters. We have reclaimed millions of acres of these lands on the theory that we could confine the rivers which once overflowed them, but thus far we have failed to establish the theory.

It is probable that any successful national work for the control of rivers will have to start with the idea of utilizing some of these natural reservoirs. The lands would not be habitable of course, but for agriculture they would be enriched instead of, as now, devastated. To depopulate some such tracts would not be as costly or as terrible as to leave them to the sweep of irresistible torrents, repeated year after year.

PROMOTION OF FORESTRY

Despite Professor Moore's very positive denial of the value of reforestation as a preventive of floods, it is claimed by many authorities that much of the destruction is due to the fact that the states of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois have been almost denuded of such forests as originally stood there. No impediment is offered to the flow of water and disastrous results follow. But in any event there would have been great floods because of the location of the rainstorms as noted.

CONSTRUCTION OF DAMS

The topography of the country must be taken into account. Both valleys, the Miami particularly, are veined with streams tributary to the rivers, and in times of flood the water rises with amazing rapidity and spreads far and wide over the valley floor. The level character of the region in which Dayton itself lies and the fact that there is not enough pitch to the land below to carry off the water accounts for the depth and extent of the floods. Dayton has had many of them. What Congress can do to prevent or minimize them in future by putting the army engineers at work to construct dams for the collection and restraint of waters in the valleys north of the threatened cities must be done, whatever the cost.

SECRETARY LANE'S PLAN

Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior, has outlined a plan for preventing such floods as devastated Ohio and Indiana. The plan hinges on the deepening and widening of the channels of all streams that are liable to flood conditions. Mr. Lane hopes to see the idea carried out through the cooperation of the Federal Government, with the aid of the states immediately endangered.

Aside from the perpetual protection against flood, which he believes his plan would give to settlers in low regions, there are widespread districts along the Mississippi and many other rivers that would be thrown open to settlement. The land thus reclaimed from the swamps might go a long way, in Mr. Lane's opinion, to reimburse the states for the appropriations they would be called upon to make. Mr. Lane says:

"The rainstorm, I know, was phenomenal, and even with the system I have suggested would have doubtless resulted in material damage and the loss of some lives. But flood conditions reappear every spring in some noticeable way, and my plan would obviate most of the resulting damage.

"It will not do for Ohio or Indiana or even the two states together to spend their money generously in clearing the beds of the streams within their boundaries. That would merely carry the flood more swiftly to the state lines to the south, and the water would back more angrily than ever into what would quickly be great lakes. The thing is too large for the states alone. A harmonious, scientific system must be worked out by the federal authorities, and the states must then make their contributions in the way that will do the most good to the whole valley affected."

SENATOR NEWLAND'S PLAN

Senator Francis G. Newlands, of Nevada, who has made a long study of the whole subject of reclamation and conservation, and who speaks with authority on the subject says:

"The appalling disasters in Ohio and Indiana bring home more forcibly than ever the conviction that our present method of dredging, levees and bank revetment in limited districts is fundamentally inadequate. These things will not protect dwellers on the lower reaches of our rivers so long as there is no control of the headwaters.

"We must adopt an adequate system for the control of the run-off at the headwaters of the tributaries of the Mississippi. The people of Pittsburgh and Dayton are entitled to this, no less than the people of lower Mississippi are entitled to levees. I trust these floods will rouse the American conscience in these matters."

Senator Newlands has urged that $50,000,000 a year be used for the next ten years to develop a comprehensive scheme of storing the excess flood waters at the heads of rivers.

The Democratic platform contained a plank which promised the support of the party to a national scheme of river control. This has already been brought to the attention of President Wilson. With the horrible scenes of the inundated towns of Ohio and Indiana before them, this pledge is likely to become a living promise to the party in power.

A PROBLEM FOR THE PANAMA ENGINEERS

There is one thing to remember. Our stupendous enterprise of the Panama Canal will soon be completed. Its vast equipment of the world's newest and best machinery for digging and filling will be unemployed. The world's greatest engineer, Colonel Goethals, will also be at leisure. Why not then provide for the transfer of all the wonderful machinery at Panama, under personal charge and direction of Colonel Goethals, to the supreme necessities of the Mississippi and Ohio valleys? The whole American people would applaud and approve this disposition of our great engineer and his great equipment.

This new national necessity is as vital and even more pressing than the Panama Canal. It is worthy of the great Republic and of the great engineer—an achievement if successful which would twin with Panama and make Colonel Goethals immortal and our country's beneficence and enterprise famous through all time.

We have no force and no leader in this tragic emergency more potent for the defense of the Mississippi and Ohio valleys than Colonel Goethals and his Panama machinery. Let us send cheer to the flood-ravaged regions of our country by the assurance that this great man and this incomparable equipment will soon be consecrated to their relief.

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[Transcriber's Note: The following statement was a footnote against the page number, page 352, on this, the last page. The page number on the preceeding page was 319, requiring the following edxplanation.]

The 32 pages of illustrations contained in this book are not included in the paging. Adding these 32 pages to the 320 pages of text makes a total of 352 pages.

THE END