Joseph McKenna

“ As said by the Solicitor General, 'the phrase 'continuing extraordinary emergency' is self-contradictory.'
The building and repair of levees on the Mississippi river is one of the most important and conspicuous of the public works of the United States, and if it had been intended to exempt it from the provisions of the act of August 1, 1892, which declared a public policy in regard to labor, it would have been expressed. There is no hardship in this to a contractor. He has before him the law and the conditions affecting the work which he may undertake, and can govern himself accordingly. ”

“ When the river is bank full, necessarily no levees can be built. Statistics of the river's height at New Orleans show that during the past twenty-five years the river has been bank full on nearly every day of the year, and these statistics may well apply to the locality where the defendant was working. An unprecedented rain or an early freeze, followed by a thaw anywhere in the valley of the Mississippi river or its tributaries, might unexpectedly cause the river to rise at New Orleans. ”

“ No one can foresee or anticipate the acts of nature, and who can say that a few days' more time, in which it might have become solidified, would not have so materially added to the levee's strength as to enable it to withstand the pressure, and without which it might signally fail?' [180 Fed. 503] . ”