The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado Part 42

"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 ent.i.tled to this, no less than the people of lower Mississippi are ent.i.tled 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 Ca.n.a.l 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 Ca.n.a.l. 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 a.s.surance that this great man and this incomparable equipment will soon be consecrated to their relief.