Rising Tide. Part 13

On April 4, in St. Bernard Parish, twenty-four-hour patrols of the levee by armed guards began. The 1922 creva.s.se at Poydras remained fresh in the minds of everyone in the parish. Meanwhile, the Weather Bureau forecasts of flood stages continued to rise, from 20.8 feet to 21.5 feet, 4 inches below the record.

On April 8, with the flood approaching a record upriver, the New Orleans chapter of the Red Cross began building two hundred boats and setting up forty-one relief stations to be scattered throughout New Orleans to feed and clothe thousands of people, in case of the worst.

No word of this activity appeared in any New Orleans paper. As the Mississippi grew more threatening, New Orleans papers gave it less s.p.a.ce. This lack of news attention was no accident.

THREE MEN determined what went into newspapers in the city. None of them cared about the news per se; they used their papers like artillery, to pound their enemies and advance their own goals. Thomson was one of the three. Robert Ewing, owner of the determined what went into newspapers in the city. None of them cared about the news per se; they used their papers like artillery, to pound their enemies and advance their own goals. Thomson was one of the three. Robert Ewing, owner of the States States and newspapers in Monroe and Shreveport, was another. Unlike Thomson, Ewing had no interest in joining clubs; his interests lay elsewhere. Both a Democratic national committeeman and a ward leader, he had been described by one mayor as "the most insatiable patronage grabber" in New Orleans. and newspapers in Monroe and Shreveport, was another. Unlike Thomson, Ewing had no interest in joining clubs; his interests lay elsewhere. Both a Democratic national committeeman and a ward leader, he had been described by one mayor as "the most insatiable patronage grabber" in New Orleans.

The third man was Esmond Phelps, a member of the Boston and Louisiana Clubs who was rumored to have been Comus. A past president of the Louisiana bar and southern amateur tennis champion, Phelps had red hair, a good-natured disposition that hid his compet.i.tiveness, and a belly just beginning to go to fat. In the city's legal community only Blanc Monroe had more stature. Phelps had led the effort in 1924 to defeat Thomson's wife, Genevieve, when she ran for Congress; Phelps had convinced even society women who were active in politics to oppose her. But his first love was the Times-Picayune Times-Picayune, whose board he controlled. His father, Ashton Phelps, had edited the paper (his great-grandson would be its publisher in the 1990s), and, though nominally Esmond's authority was limited to his board seat, he spent hours at a time at the paper several days a week.

Yet Phelps, Ewing, and Thomson cooperated on one thing: suppressing news unfavorable to the city. In 1924, when a Greek sailor with bubonic plague was cared for in a New Orleans hospital, all the papers helped the New Orleans a.s.sociation of Commerce control the flow of news both within and outside the city. In 1925 the papers helped the a.s.sociation of Commerce circulate seventy-two different articles boosting New Orleans, including one claiming that it was one of the healthiest cities in America. In 1926 the newspapers and the a.s.sociation of Commerce again agreed "to refrain from publis.h.i.+ng anything in connection with" a controversial port policy.

On April 8, as the local Red Cross began building boats, Thomson called a meeting of the Safe River Committee, including Phelps and Ewing, "to avoid the dissemination of incorrect or alarming information." The next day every paper ran a rea.s.suring page-1 story. The headlines in Thomson's own paper read, "River Warning Not Alarming; Levees Can Care for Stage Expected to Exceed 1922 Level." The idea was to calm the city.

The city was not calm. No headline, or lack of one, could hide the Mississippi River. "River rats" had built shacks on stilts on the batture, outside the protection of the levees. The rising water was isolating these shacks, and wakes from barges and s.h.i.+ps threatened to swamp them. In 1922 an anonymous telegram published in the papers had warned, "The next boat that comes down at...high speed will need two pilots, as we intend to kill the first one." This year there were no such warnings. There were simply rifle shots. The boats slowed. Then, on April 13, a sudden rise swept hundreds of shacks away. No word appeared in any paper, yet news, and fear, spread-particularly among the elite, since many river rats worked in the fine homes of St. Charles Avenue.

An exodus began, especially to the Gulf Coast and the high bluffs of Natchez. Business died. Those in power clamped down even tighter control on the news. But the river still rose.

Isaac Cline headed the U.S. Weather Bureau office at New Orleans. A former physician and an art collector who lived in the French Quarter, in 1900 he had run the Weather Bureau office in Galveston, then the largest city in Texas, when a hurricane had swept the sea over it. Estimates of the number of dead ranged from 3,000 to 12,000. Waves had pounded Cline's own home to pieces; he, his wife, and their children were on the second floor when it collapsed. His wife had drowned, but he had kicked his way to the surface gasping for air, and pulled his two young daughters onto his roof. They were washed onto the mainland and survived. Transferred to New Orleans, in 1903 he had issued warnings of a then-record 21-foot river stage. Superiors in Was.h.i.+ngton had ordered him to withdraw his warning. He had refused, insisting that his warning would save lives. The river reached 20.7 feet even with creva.s.ses upstream and he did save lives. Even so, only intervention from Louisiana's congressional delegation prevented his being fired. In 1915 his insistent warnings of another hurricane had saved hundreds more lives, and he had become a local hero.

Now, in early April, Cline began issuing "Flood Bulletins."

The papers did not publish them.

Furious, he called reporters into his office on April 14, even before the terrible Good Friday storm, and demanded to know why. They said they were writing the stories but their editors weren't printing them. Cline called a man involved in the censors.h.i.+p and charged: "You're jeopardizing lives of men, women, and children. You may control the press but we have the mails, the telegraph, the telephone, the radio and you cannot suppress the distribution of flood warnings. We are going to see to it that the people behind the levees are warned that they are threatened with great danger."

Cline was not worried about New Orleans itself. He agreed with Kemper that a great flood-and this already looked like a great flood-would break levees hundreds of miles upriver and relieve the city. But people in vulnerable areas read and relied on New Orleans papers; the lack of warning there would create a false sense of security. His angry protest was conveyed to Thomson, who relented somewhat, printing that afternoon, "Heavy Rains Raise River; Weather Bureau Advises of Rising Stages...The bureau urged 'all persons interested to take necessary precautions against still higher stages during the next two weeks.'"

The story did not satisfy Cline. Late that afternoon he met with business leaders to demand honesty in future stories. They a.s.sured him of it. They were lying. Nor did they tell him that Thomson had already called an emergency meeting about the river. Butler had been out of the city and had sent Ca.n.a.l Bank Vice President Dan Curran, a close friend of LeRoy Percy, as his representative. Hecht and Pool had attended. In that meeting, for the first time, Thomson had talked seriously about dynamiting the levee. If the situation worsened, he said, he would travel to Was.h.i.+ngton and see the president himself.

No one had protested against the enormity of the act Thomson was suggesting. It was illegal, and it would destroy the livelihoods of thousands of people. Nor had anyone questioned the authority, right, or ability of those in the meeting to perform this illegal act. Nor, although they had been discussing the most public business, business that involved federal, state, city, and parish governments, had anyone protested the fact that no public official had been present.

After the meeting, Thomson had informed levee board president Guy Deano, who in turn privately advised Klorer, the city councilman and river engineer, "The Emergency Committee had conferences...and plans have been worked out by them."

That evening it began to rain again. The Good Friday storm had begun.

IN N NEW O ORLEANS rainwater must be pumped rainwater must be pumped up up, over the levees, into either the river or Lake Pontchartrain, both of which are often higher than much of the city. In 1913 an engineer named Albert Baldwin Wood designed and built pumps capable of moving 47,000 cubic feet of water a second, roughly half the low-water flow of the Mississippi itself, through subterranean ca.n.a.ls buried under the "neutral ground," the city's term for the tree-lined islands that transform so many New Orleans streets into boulevards. These remarkable pumps were copied around the world, and still operate today.

But on April 15, Good Friday, lightning temporarily knocked out some of the pumps, and the rains that delivered 14.96 inches of water in eighteen hours put 4 feet of water in part of the city. It was the fifth storm since January more severe than any storm in the preceding ten years. Even after the pumps finally cleared the water, there was chaos. Many streets were paved with wooden blocks; the blocks had floated away, leaving an impa.s.sable checkerboard quagmire. Every bas.e.m.e.nt downtown, including the vaults of every bank, still held several feet of water.

It was only a hint of a real flood, without the roar of a great creva.s.se, without the power of the river undermining buildings and roaring through streets like some nightmarish monster. The city shook with fear.

While the torrents were still falling, Marcel Garsaud, a former Army colonel and levee engineer who was now manager of the Dock Board, called Hecht, the board president, and said they needed to discuss the river situation immediately. Hecht also asked Butler, Pool, who that year headed the New Orleans Clearing House a.s.sociation, several other bank presidents, and General Allison Owen, president of the a.s.sociation of Commerce to come to an emergency meeting.

Thomson was not invited. Possibly Hecht kept him out because he was not a member of the inner sanctum. Possibly Garsaud objected because of Garsaud's bitter feelings toward Kemper, whom Thomson might have brought. Garsaud was p.r.i.c.kly, bristled at any offense, and although the two engineers agreed on policy, Kemper had recently rebuked him for his mistaken calculations on the industrial ca.n.a.l, and for playing "politics" and creating discord, writing, "I have been in this game, Colonel, much longer than you have. For a long time I fought a lone fight.... You have set us back several years."

Those who did belong to the inner sanctum gathered in Hecht's office at the Hibernia Bank. Outside, the rain lashed the windows; the wind shook them. Hecht, a cigar aficionado, lit one. So did several others. The smoke filled the room. The windows were opaque with condensation, isolating them from the world outside.

Garsaud announced that he had just talked to Cline. The rain could continue for hours. "If the levees up river hold, the Mississippi could reach a stage of 24.5 feet here," Garsaud said. "In my opinion a stage above 24 feet could well cause a creva.s.se." Then Garsaud suggested that they could eliminate any doubt about the safety of New Orleans by dynamiting the levee elsewhere, if the men present deemed it wise.

Everyone present knew that Thomson had already begun planning for this eventuality, but it was not his decision. It was theirs. They were bankers, mostly. Bankers had a history of taking charge in city crises. During the 1905 yellow fever epidemic, the U.S. Surgeon General refused to help the city without a guarantee of $250,000. The mayor had lacked the authority to make any such commitment. Charles Janvier, then president of the Ca.n.a.l Bank, a member of the Board of Liquidation, and chairman of the state Democratic Party's Central Committee, had made two telephone calls, then gave the guarantee, and federal resources had poured into the city to fight the outbreak.

Now all of the bankers present had received wires from correspondent banks in New York and elsewhere, inquiring about the city's safety. Implicit in the inquiry was the question of investment risk, a life-and-death question to them.

Butler had replaced Janvier at both the bank and the Board of Liquidation. Nothing could be done if he opposed it. Butler was the key.

IN MANY WAYS James Pierce Butler was the coldest of the men present. He stood six feet five inches tall, with broad gangly shoulders, a balding head, and a deep voice. His size intimidated. He grew up on Ormond, the family plantation in Natchez, Mississippi. Five ancestors had been officers in the Revolutionary War, two of them generals. His mother often attended b.a.l.l.s in New Orleans and took him to the opera there; sometimes they stayed in the city for months. Her brother-in-law was Dr. William Mercer, one of the city's most popular and wealthy citizens. (Before the Civil War, Mercer had routinely paid off the debts of his friend Henry Clay; during the war he used his well-known Union sympathies to s.h.i.+eld his Confederate friends; after the war, in 1872 he helped found the krewe of Rex, when he hosted Grand Duke Alexis of Russia on gold dinner service.) James Pierce Butler was the coldest of the men present. He stood six feet five inches tall, with broad gangly shoulders, a balding head, and a deep voice. His size intimidated. He grew up on Ormond, the family plantation in Natchez, Mississippi. Five ancestors had been officers in the Revolutionary War, two of them generals. His mother often attended b.a.l.l.s in New Orleans and took him to the opera there; sometimes they stayed in the city for months. Her brother-in-law was Dr. William Mercer, one of the city's most popular and wealthy citizens. (Before the Civil War, Mercer had routinely paid off the debts of his friend Henry Clay; during the war he used his well-known Union sympathies to s.h.i.+eld his Confederate friends; after the war, in 1872 he helped found the krewe of Rex, when he hosted Grand Duke Alexis of Russia on gold dinner service.) Butler's upbringing was also earthy. In spring he planted and learned what turned soil smelled like. In summer he walked down rows of shoulder-high cotton through a sea of waving white bolls. In winter he butchered hogs, felt warm blood on his hands, hung the flesh in the smokehouse. He matured early. When he was only thirteen, his father fell ill. His older brother Pierce was away at Tulane. Jim handled the plantation. When Pierce graduated from Tulane and went on to the Sorbonne, Jim said, "You all make a mighty fuss over Brother, and I will do better."

Jim also went to Tulane, then Tulane Law School. But instead of pursuing the law, he went into banking. He did well. While he was rising at the Ca.n.a.l Bank, he also rose socially and inherited Mercer's gleaming white marble mansion on Ca.n.a.l Street. The mansion was thick with rich woods, elegant molding and wainscoting, extravagant sconces, chandeliers, and ceiling medallions. Jim sold it to the Boston Club, which has occupied it ever since. After becoming president of the bank, the largest in the South, he also became president of the Boston Club.

Yet Butler's social position came entirely from his presidency of the bank and his family background, and not from charm or friends.h.i.+ps. He had no intimates and no confidants, male or female, not even his brother, who had become the popular dean of Tulane's Newcomb College. Indeed, before Jim became Boston Club president, Pierce had resigned from the club, calling it "really quite off my beat." Because their wives had genuine contempt for one another, Butler almost never even saw his brother. Nor did Jim confide in his wife, whom he had married when she was in college; he was already successful and considerably older. She liked the security. Her father was an alcoholic who had drunk his way through a fortune, forcing her mother to take in boarders; Butler's wife became a demanding woman, willful, greedy, and grasping.

As a result, Butler lived a lonely existence. His daughter married, leaving him isolated in his home. Even his Boston Club presidency was unpleasant. By tradition, club presidents served two consecutive one-year terms. Butler grew tired of a feud between members a.s.sociated with the Whitney and Ca.n.a.l Banks and, alone in club history, served only one. Herman Kohlmeyer, then a rising New Orleans banker and later president of the New Orleans Cotton Exchange and member of the board of the New York Stock Exchange, recalls: "He was an unattractive man, unattractive mentally. I would take a drink with the other fellows, young as I was, but it was impossible with Butler. He had no fun in him."

Butler filled his time working long hours; when he was home, he ruminated, sitting alone in the solarium of his St. Charles Avenue home, saying little. One thing he did have was a rootedness, a sense of place. Returning from New York on the Crescent Limited once, he sat with a prominent New Orleans architect and told him: "I really want to build a beautiful building before I die. I want it to be the bank's building."

The building was under construction in 1927; it would be his legacy. (Seventy years later the New Orleans Times-Picayune New Orleans Times-Picayune called it "elegant" and "distinguished for its fine construction.") Another legacy would be his decision on dynamiting the levees. called it "elegant" and "distinguished for its fine construction.") Another legacy would be his decision on dynamiting the levees.

BUTLER TURNED to the men in the room and said they needed information on several issues, some legal, some technical. Addressing Garsaud, he said, "You say 'if the levees above us hold.' There is little chance of that, is there?" to the men in the room and said they needed information on several issues, some legal, some technical. Addressing Garsaud, he said, "You say 'if the levees above us hold.' There is little chance of that, is there?"

"They will probably not hold," Garsaud conceded. "But the pressure will be intense here in any event. It is possible that water could flow out through any levee breaks and return to the river."

Hecht raised another point. Even if no river water entered New Orleans, the flood could destroy the city financially. People were building boats, tying them to their porches, stocking groceries. To liquidate inventories, wholesale suppliers were cutting prices in half and begging customers around the country to buy. Daily, hundreds of thousands of dollars were being withdrawn from banks. If the fear grew great enough, if a run developed on a bank, it would hurt, and perhaps even destroy, weaker banks. Short-term credit was disappearing, period. Long term, if the nation's businessmen lost confidence in the safety of New Orleans, serious damage could result. Rival ports were hungry. The Illinois Central recently had-for the first time-s.h.i.+pped a load of mola.s.ses from Gulfport, Mississippi. U.S. Steel was planning to s.h.i.+p exports out of Mobile, Alabama.

Pool's bank was the most vulnerable in the city; he had aggressively loaned money to sugar planters. A creva.s.se on the river's west bank could destroy them, and his bank. Dynamiting the levee on the east bank might also relieve them. Pool argued: "The people of New Orleans are in such a panic that all who can do so are leaving the city. Thousands are leaving daily. Only dynamite will restore confidence."

Butler knew the power of the river. As a boy, he had watched his father cut a ca.n.a.l from St. Catherine's Creek on their property to the Mississippi. It had been a mistake. The creek quickly grew into a powerful river itself and scoured out acres of their plantation. The creek had awed him, and the Mississippi had seemed like G.o.d. He knew what floods were.

Now they were discussing purposefully loosing the Mississippi River on their neighbors. It was a horrible thing, a thing that ran against everything he had been raised to believe. How real was the threat to New Orleans? The threat to its business was real enough, but how real was the threat of the river? Or did it matter?

"I believe," Butler said coolly, not explicitly deciding but allowing momentum to gather more force, "the appropriate step at this point is to involve the authorities."

GARSAUD WENT from his meeting with Butler and Hecht to see Mayor Arthur O'Keefe. O'Keefe had become mayor a year earlier after the death in midterm of Martin Behrman, who had dominated the city for the preceding twenty-four years. O'Keefe, by contrast, was a weak figure, a huge fat man who had triumphed in patronage wars over other ward leaders and would not even seek reelection. The city's elite held him in contempt. Speaking at the dedication of Le Pet.i.t Theater du Vieux Carre, whose creation by society women signaled the beginning of the restoration of the French Quarter, O'Keefe declared, "This is a wonderful thing for New Orleans, the kind of thing we should be proud of, like our new garbage incinerator." He was also, as Behrman had been before him, particularly susceptible to bankers' influence. Though both were products of a city machine called simply "the Ring," Behrman had been a founding member of the a.s.sociation of Commerce and vice president of the American Bank, the most political of all the banks. As soon as O'Keefe became mayor, the same bank immediately named him to a vice presidency. from his meeting with Butler and Hecht to see Mayor Arthur O'Keefe. O'Keefe had become mayor a year earlier after the death in midterm of Martin Behrman, who had dominated the city for the preceding twenty-four years. O'Keefe, by contrast, was a weak figure, a huge fat man who had triumphed in patronage wars over other ward leaders and would not even seek reelection. The city's elite held him in contempt. Speaking at the dedication of Le Pet.i.t Theater du Vieux Carre, whose creation by society women signaled the beginning of the restoration of the French Quarter, O'Keefe declared, "This is a wonderful thing for New Orleans, the kind of thing we should be proud of, like our new garbage incinerator." He was also, as Behrman had been before him, particularly susceptible to bankers' influence. Though both were products of a city machine called simply "the Ring," Behrman had been a founding member of the a.s.sociation of Commerce and vice president of the American Bank, the most political of all the banks. As soon as O'Keefe became mayor, the same bank immediately named him to a vice presidency.

O'Keefe understood the stakes in the flood. Thomson had already spoken to him. Now Garsaud repeated his warning that, if the levees above the city held, the river would exceed a 24-foot stage. O'Keefe called in Klorer, whom the levee board had just given emergency authority over all city levees. Klorer spoke of the panic already flooding the city. Hundreds of families were fleeing to the Gulf Coast. A large Pythian convention was in town. Many conventioneers had arrived in the morning, looked up at the hulls of s.h.i.+ps above the tops of the houses, then taken the next train out.

O'Keefe agreed to do whatever the bankers recommended.

Meanwhile, the New Orleans papers continued trying to keep the city calm, reporting only that "more than five inches" of rain had fallen that Good Friday. Triple that amount had. The papers also quoted George Schoenberger, chief engineer for the state of Louisiana, saying, "I am resting easy tonight."

Far above the city, levees along the Mississippi's tributaries were was.h.i.+ng out one after another, like dominoes. On Sat.u.r.day, April 16, the first mainline levee on the Mississippi yielded, at Dorena, Missouri.

Ironically, that helped to confirm Kemper in his opinion that upriver levees could not hold, and that therefore the city of New Orleans was in no danger. But no one sought Kemper's opinion. Garsaud was a bitter rival and had Hecht's ear. Thomson already knew his opinion and did not find it useful. And even if Kemper was right about the river, that did not answer the bankers' concerns about investor confidence.

On Sunday, April 17, there was another exodus from the city, but this one included some who were not fleeing. Garsaud and O'Keefe got on a train for St. Louis. They would meet with the Mississippi River Commission early Monday morning. Thomson took it upon himself to board a train for Was.h.i.+ngton, to see the president. O'Keefe had asked Butler to go to Was.h.i.+ngton but, hearing that Thomson had gone, "Mr. and Mrs. James P. Butler motored to their country home outside Natchez for the weekend," as one paper reported. It would be Butler's last peace for months.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

DYNAMITING THE LEVEE downriver from New Orleans would turn 10,000 people into refugees; depending on the volume of water that was loosed, it could also destroy all of St. Bernard Parish and all of Plaquemines Parish that lay on the east bank of the river. (Both the city of New Orleans and Plaquemines Parish straddle both sides of the river.) Although only a line on a map-no bayou, no ca.n.a.l, no natural boundary of any kind-separated St. Bernard Parish and New Orleans, they had nothing in common. But the river was now making them as intimate as predator and prey. downriver from New Orleans would turn 10,000 people into refugees; depending on the volume of water that was loosed, it could also destroy all of St. Bernard Parish and all of Plaquemines Parish that lay on the east bank of the river. (Both the city of New Orleans and Plaquemines Parish straddle both sides of the river.) Although only a line on a map-no bayou, no ca.n.a.l, no natural boundary of any kind-separated St. Bernard Parish and New Orleans, they had nothing in common. But the river was now making them as intimate as predator and prey.

In St. Bernard, the town of Arabi bordered on New Orleans. None of its handful of streets were paved, but their surfaces of crushed sh.e.l.l hardened like concrete. Drainage was in open ditches along the streets; eels made a home of these ditches and wrapped around the legs of any children who slipped in. For drinking water people still used cisterns, which had been outlawed across the line in New Orleans because they bred mosquitoes.

But Arabi thrived. The largest sugar refinery in the world operated there and employed 1,500 people. Several hundred more jobs came from the stockyards, acres of cattle and pigs, and the largest abattoirs in the South. The smell of blood and rotting meat mixed with the delicious sweetness of the cane. In summer, in the heavy heat of Louisiana, the smells hung in the air like grit stuck to sweat, and drew swarms of rats and clouds of insects.

Arabi also had gambling casinos: the River View, the 118 Club, the 102 Club, the Candlelight Club (a converted grammar school), and, the finest and largest, the Jai Alai Club, with turrets flying pennants like a moorish castle, 3,000 seats, and a magnificent dance floor. The Jai Alai gave away a car a week in a drawing: Henry James and Tommy Dorsey played there. All the clubs were illegal, all operated openly (indeed, they advertised in the newspapers), and all were cl.u.s.tered within a few blocks of New Orleans. Slot machines, also illegal, were in nearly every bar and grocery store in the parish.

Below Arabi the parish became rural, then marsh. Of St. Bernard's 617 square miles, 544 were swamp or marsh. On the good land Italians grew vegetables and oranges, from which came a wine popular during Prohibition; bootleggers added carbonation and sold it as champagne. The swamp was thick with cypress, oak, hanging moss, and alligators and water moccasins; bayous were covered with velvety green sc.u.m. The marsh was a trembling prairie of gra.s.s. It appeared solid, but only an experienced man feeling his way with a long pole could walk on it; a wrong step sank a man hip-deep in muck. Plaquemines Parish, below St. Bernard, was similar-a narrow strip of solid land near the ribbon of river, then a marsh that merged gradually with sea, where Eads had built his jetties.

Barren as it seemed, the marsh teemed with fishermen, trappers, and bootleggers, most of them "Islenos." They, their language, and their name came from the Canary Islands in the 1700s, when Spain controlled Louisiana. The largest Isleno town was called Delacroix Island; not actually an island, it was also called "The End of the World." The road stopped there. It had a school but no electricity, no post office, no telephone. Yet in the twenties, the Islenos made good money. Small fortunes came legally, large ones illegally. Louisiana produced more fur for coats than the rest of the United States combined, or Canada and Russia. And St. Bernard produced far more than any other parish in Louisiana. Muskrats, or simply "rats," brought as much as $3 for a top-quality pelt, and the best trappers could bring in 150 pelts a day. The governor made $7,500 a year; the best trappers easily made that much in the season from November to March.

The parish also ran a thriving import business. It imported alcohol. Surrounded by the sea, with an intricate system of waterways that no outsider could navigate, the trappers took their boats out to freighters anch.o.r.ed offsh.o.r.e and loaded as many as 1,000 cases of whiskey onto their fis.h.i.+ng boats. Ca.n.a.ls and bayous ran all through the parish; along every one of them were homes storing whiskey. Al Capone and lesser gangsters visited St. Bernard, where they were amused by Sheriff L. A. Meraux and his deputies, who charged a toll on all whiskey traversing the parish, and by Manuel Molero, one of the largest bootleggers in the South. Meraux and Molero ran the parish. Both were extraordinary men, and they hated each other.

Meraux could be a charming sophisticate, speak perfect Parisian French, and discuss premier vintages. He could abruptly turn foulmouthed, violent, terrifying. Six feet four inches and at least 300 pounds, he had a big, broad head-dark eyes, a broad forehead, thinning light brown hair, a wide mouth, and chubby cheeks that gave him a baby-faced appearance. He had a kindly demeanor but anger, the kind before which men trembled, could explode from him without warning. "Meraux had a studied, careful ruthlessness," notes William Hyland, a parish historian. "He could be rude, crude, despicable, and disgusting, and the next moment display the polish of a Grandee of Spain." He was also a physician who began his career determined to do good.

After graduating from Tulane Medical School, he studied in London, Paris, and Berlin, then settled at Johns Hopkins University to do research; Johns Hopkins was possibly the finest inst.i.tution for medical research in the world at the time. When the 1905 yellow fever epidemic struck New Orleans, he returned to help and worked at Charity Hospital. But he then fell victim to yellow fever and almost died, and he never returned to research. He started a practice, and observed. What he saw did not please him. He later said, "I used to study people and mankind disappointed me. I found out what people would stoop to."

He became a ruthless real estate entrepreneur, and the largest taxpayer and landowner in the parish. His appet.i.tes were enormous. For breakfast he ate a dozen eggs, piles of biscuits, slabs of bacon. His lunches were light, but at dinner he would eat several whole chickens, then an entire strawberry shortcake, or an entire cream cheese mold. His appet.i.te for money and power was equally enormous. His home, just inside the St. Bernard parish line, was a mansion built in 1808 and once owned by sugar planter Alexander de Lesseps, cousin of the builder of the Suez Ca.n.a.l. It had a colonnaded porch, windows of cut gla.s.s, and was called Chateau des Fleurs-Castle of Flowers-because of the extensive gardens on all four sides of the house. It had a small racetrack in the rear, a walkway to the levee in the front, a gazebo on the levee from which to view the river.

Hungry for power too, he used his medical practice to take it, traveling to the farthest reaches of the parish at all hours and often treating people for free. And wherever he went, he gave lollipops to children. "Every one of those lollipops is a vote," he snorted once. People called him "Doc." He ran for sheriff.

Meanwhile, deputies of his opponents were setting up roadblocks and hijacking liquor s.h.i.+pments, then selling it themselves. Bootleggers, including Doc's younger brother Claude, a former Tulane football star and lawyer, issued public warnings that they would tolerate no more hijackings.

On April 20, 1923, a caravan of three large trucks loaded with Claude Meraux's liquor started toward New Orleans. At a narrow bridge, three deputies ordered them to stop. Two of the deputies were shot. One of the trucks drove over their bodies, killing them.

Claude was indicted as an accessory and fled to Paris. Then Doc was elected sheriff. Claude returned from France, ran for district judge for St. Bernard and Plaquemines Parishes in the next election, and won. The Meraux family now controlled St. Bernard, especially with Doc's ally Leander Perez, who controlled Plaquemines, as district attorney for both parishes. Their opponents writhed in their net, fought back, and tried to impeach both Claude and Perez over charges including "oppression." They survived, and consolidated their power. (A decade later, a second impeachment effort would oust Claude, but Perez' control would last into the 1960s and CBS' 60 Minutes 60 Minutes would investigate his sons.) would investigate his sons.) But Doc was the leader. He was a study in corruption; having started out good, he was truly corrupt. One night he invited a Prohibition agent to join him for his nightly coffee and beignets in New Orleans at the Morning Call. Meraux said, "I heard you take money from people. I heard Manny Molero has you fixed."

"I've got a few friends down there," the agent replied.

Meraux promised him $10,000 a month for advance warning of roadblocks. Prohibition agents had a starting salary of $1,186 a year year. But the agent was honest. Meraux, three of his deputies, a New Orleans police captain, and thirty others were later arrested and charged in bootlegging. His deputies pleaded guilty, but charges against him were dropped.

He used his jail as his personal dungeon, made alliances with the most conservative elements of New Orleans society-Blanc Monroe put him on the board of the Whitney Bank, the most conservative in the city-and prospered. He had almost everything.

His one rival in the parish was Manuel Molero, a squat, nearly illiterate Isleno from Delacroix Island, barely fluent in English. But Molero was intelligent, with an eye for arcana; he later devised a complex maneuver to cut oil taxes that was copied by the Chase Manhattan Bank, which learned of it through the Ca.n.a.l Bank. A man who was among New Orleans' most prominent bankers says, "He had absolutely no education, had a terrible Spanish accent you could barely understand. [He and his partner] were the biggest bootleggers around, really thugs, running s.h.i.+ploads of booze. But he was very smart, and very proper in business dealings." Recalls a New Orleans attorney: "Molero was very principled, with a pound-wise as opposed to penny-foolish approach. He could sense long-term advantages. I picture him smoking a cigar, thinking things out, and coming to a conclusion. He stuck with his plan. Determined. He would persevere."

As a young man, Molero bought vegetables in St. Bernard and sold them at a huge profit at the French Market in New Orleans. He bought a truck, then a second one, then a fleet that serviced dozens of New Orleans restaurants and grocers. When Prohibition came, it was only natural that he distribute whiskey-and he sent it even to Chicago.

In the fall of 1926, Perez and Meraux tried to take control of the trappng business from the Islenos. The trappers asked Molero for his help. The result was "the Trappers' War." Perez and Meraux sent a gunboat mounted with machine guns down to Delacroix. The trappers sank the gunboat, killed one deputy, and shot others. The governor refused Meraux's request for help, and in fact became friendly with Molero. The trappers won the war. Meraux never filed any charges against them.

A few weeks later the rising river transformed them all, Meraux, Molero, Perez, and the trappers and fishermen and bootleggers, into allies.

ON M MONDAY, APRIL 18, Garsaud and O'Keefe walked into an open hearing of the Mississippi River Commission. Immediately, it went into executive session. While O'Keefe remained silent, Gersaud explained their plan to dynamite the levee and create an emergency spillway near Poydras, the site of the 1922 break. Would the commission approve? 18, Garsaud and O'Keefe walked into an open hearing of the Mississippi River Commission. Immediately, it went into executive session. While O'Keefe remained silent, Gersaud explained their plan to dynamite the levee and create an emergency spillway near Poydras, the site of the 1922 break. Would the commission approve?

Colonel Charles Potter, commission president, went off the record, discussed the issues with his colleagues, hinted that they would approve if the emergency worsened, then back on the record formally replied that the commission could not even consider the request until three conditions were met. First, the War Department must approve. Second, the State of Louisiana would have to make the request. Third, the city would have to absolve the commission of any liability for damages and arrange to compensate victims of the creva.s.se fully for any and all losses.

Garsaud and O'Keefe, satisfied, boarded an overnight train to New Orleans. While they slept, a skiff carrying several men approached too close to the levee near Poydras. Guards opened fire. One man was killed, two others wounded. The New York Times New York Times seemed to shrug: "Residents had been warned not to approach the levees after dark." No New Orleans paper mentioned the killing in St. Bernard. Violence there was common anyway. seemed to shrug: "Residents had been warned not to approach the levees after dark." No New Orleans paper mentioned the killing in St. Bernard. Violence there was common anyway.

The next morning, April 19, the establishment of New Orleans gathered together in City Hall, a magnificent structure bedecked with columns designed by the city's most famous architect, James Gallier. In the splendor of the city council chamber grimly sat the presidents of the Cotton Exchange, the Board of Trade, the Stock Exchange, the Dock Board, the a.s.sociation of Commerce, the levee board, all the banks, the men who ran the newspapers, and a few individual business leaders. Only one councilman, Klorer, was present, along with the mayor and two congressmen. No representatives of St. Bernard and Plaquemines Parishes, which would be flooded by the proposed creva.s.se, were invited.

The meeting marked the beginning of an extraordinary week. It began with O'Keefe naming Butler chairman of an ad hoc Citizens Flood Relief Committee, comprised of all the private citizens present. This committee had no legal authority of any kind, but it, and Butler, would take charge of everything involving the flood and New Orleans from then on, including the effort to determine the policy of the United States government.

There was no discussion of the decision to dynamite the levee. It was simply a.s.sumed they would pursue that end. Before the week was out, both of Louisiana's senators and several of its congressmen would do Butler's bidding. Butler would even be authorized to sign one congressman's name to any telegram, without checking with him first. O'Keefe also said that he, Pool, and H. Generes Dufour, the attorney for the Board of Liquidation and Hecht's closest friend, would see Governor Oramel H. Simpson, whose reelection campaign was just getting under way.

On April 21, the creva.s.se at Mounds Landing made clear that the Mississippi River was sweeping everything before it, threatening to reclaim all of its natural floodplain.

The city reacted with panic. The Tribune Tribune declared on page 1: "Rumors! A rumor was circulated throughout the city that the newspapers of the city were not revealing the entire truth regarding the river and levee conditions; that news was being withheld from the public, that news was being censored. There is no truth in them, of course. The Morning Tribune and The Item are giving readers all the information they possess." The declared on page 1: "Rumors! A rumor was circulated throughout the city that the newspapers of the city were not revealing the entire truth regarding the river and levee conditions; that news was being withheld from the public, that news was being censored. There is no truth in them, of course. The Morning Tribune and The Item are giving readers all the information they possess." The Times-Picayune Times-Picayune agreed: "There is no reason for alarm in New Orleans. Hundreds of false reports...circulated in New Orleans. Needless to say none of these was true. The agreed: "There is no reason for alarm in New Orleans. Hundreds of false reports...circulated in New Orleans. Needless to say none of these was true. The Times-Picayune Times-Picayune is...giving its readers as complete and accurate information as possible." is...giving its readers as complete and accurate information as possible."

But the newspapers were ignored. Every day hundreds of people were climbing the levee to see the river. It was angry, wide, high, and fast, swirling in whirlpools, the current sweeping logs, lumber, the bodies of mules and horses past. In some stretches it had risen higher than the levee and was contained by planks backed by thick walls of sandbags. The crest was at least two weeks away.

General Allison Owen, president of the a.s.sociation of Commerce and a member of the Citizens Committee, publicly declared: "New Orleans is not affected in the slightest degree by the present high level of water in the Mississippi...New Orleans feels absolutely safe from any threat of flood from the river." Privately, he worried, "We have never seen such a panic, such an amount of hysteria."

THERE WAS ANOTHER response to the Mounds Landing creva.s.se as well. Even before it, the Red Cross had established refugee camps, set up a headquarters in Memphis, and transferred all its disaster personnel into the flooded regions. Yet the numbers of refugees-70,000 before Mounds Landing-the geographic reach of the flood, and the disruption of transportation created logistic problems far beyond its capacity to cope. Six governors had beseeched President Calvin Coolidge for help, but he had done nothing. response to the Mounds Landing creva.s.se as well. Even before it, the Red Cross had established refugee camps, set up a headquarters in Memphis, and transferred all its disaster personnel into the flooded regions. Yet the numbers of refugees-70,000 before Mounds Landing-the geographic reach of the flood, and the disruption of transportation created logistic problems far beyond its capacity to cope. Six governors had beseeched President Calvin Coolidge for help, but he had done nothing.

Now Coolidge had to act. At a cabinet meeting the morning after the creva.s.se, he named Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover chairman of a special committee of five cabinet secretaries to coordinate all rescue and relief efforts. Coolidge also gave Hoover authority to issue orders to the Army and Navy.

That was the situation when Thomson arrived in Was.h.i.+ngton. Despite the crisis, or because of it, he liked being there. It was home to him, more of a home than New Orleans. Here there was no Boston Club, no Louisiana Club, no Mardi Gras krewe. Here was a briar patch in which he could operate, in which many of his New Orleans peers would be lost.