Mississippi Bubble

“ The levees could not withstand the Mississippi in its mighty and ruthless violence, and they gave way in numerous crevasses, varying from one hundred to five thousand feet in width, aggregating fully six miles. Through these great chasms the flood has been pouring since the 15th April, in a stream seven feet in average depth and at the rate of more than seven miles an hour. More water is even now flowing from the great river over the farms and plantations of Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana, than falls over Niagara. ”

“ Many houses swept away! Toll of lives will be heavy! Many deeds of heroism! Mississippi on great rampage!”
What Blake gave expression to was merely quoted from some of the lines in the heading of the article that had so excited him and his chum. It was a telegraphed story of a big flood on the Mississippi, which, the article stated, was higher than it had been in years, while unusually heavy spring rains had added to the terrors of the rising waters.
“That sure is some flood!” murmured Joe, as he reached the bottom of the newspaper page, and turned the sheet over. “Hello!” he cried. ”

“ Stranded and discarded scows lay all about; plank sidewalks on stilts four feet high were still standing; the board sidewalks on the ground level were loose and ruinous,—a couple of men trotting along them could make a blind man think a cavalry charge was coming; everywhere the mud was black and deep, and in many places malarious pools of stagnant water were standing. A Mississippi inundation is the next most wasting and desolating infliction to a fire.
We had an enjoyable time here, on this sunny Sunday: two full hours' liberty ashore while the boat discharged freight. ”

“ Year after year, since 1717, when De la Tour, the French engineer who planned the city of New Orleans, built the first protection along the city’s waterfront, the struggle against the annual flood has been waged on its top, as the levee has been extended up the bottoms. Men, settlements, states, and at last the United States have fought for mastery over the Mississippi, with the issue always doubtful. Sometimes it has been victory for the humans, and sometimes for the river, when a break in the earth barrier let the water through to inundate the backlands with the overflow. ”

“ 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 and300 myriads of smaller things, tossed by waves in the 'runs' or sailing on serenely in the broader stretches. Great trees go by. ”

“ When the water comes close to the levee-top, and the levee protects a thickly populated lowland, sacks are filled with dirt and piled on the levee. If hands are scarce, the white men get on their horses, ride out and herd the stout negroes, and perhaps miles of levee are banked higher by these not-too-willing workers. Thus at Helena, Arkansas, one spring, the citizens of that city held back the flood that was two feet higher than the permanent levee-top, by piling on earth-filled sacks.
In whatever direction one may turn his attention, the Mississippi overshadows all the bottom-lands. ”

“ 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.276
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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We’ve got plenty of food, and other supplies, in case we find the missing ones.”
“And we’ve got plenty of films for pictures!” cried Joe, as he and Blake took their places. The rain still held off, and there were hopes that it would clear long enough for the flood to subside. But this was doubtful.
The Mississippi was still a raging torrent, but the Clytie was a stanch craft, and with care would be able to navigate the turbulent stream. ”

“ Joe said, as he rose from the table in the dining car. “We’d better get our things together, Blake.”
“That’s right. Say, it’s raining again!”
“So it is!” agreed Joe, looking out of the car window. “This is fierce! Isn’t it ever going to let up?”
It had rained at intervals for the last two days, and that fact, coupled with the knowledge that it had been pouring more or less steadily before that, did not give much assurance that the flood would soon abate.
“The Mississippi will be higher than ever,” murmured Blake. “It’s going to make it bad all around—bad for us and bad for those who are lost. ”

“ Like the gray locks of age, it reminds the passer by of centuries gone, when the red savage in his canoe toiled upon its turbid flood; it recalls the day of discovery, when De Soto and La Salle sought its mighty torrent in search of gain, and found death; and now looms before us the noblest picture of all, the existence of a maturing civilization upon its banks. Associated thus with an ever-present suggestion of a remarkable and ever-forming antiquity, the Mississippi becomes indeed the wonder of waters. ”

“ Then the news-service film pictures were thrown on the screen, and through the camera lens they saw the Mississippi flood. That they had experienced themselves. They had seen the refugees in their flight, and the overflow at its worst. The running drift; the cattle helpless on a mound, up to their knees in water, doomed! the men carrying cotton bags full of dirt to build up the levees; the fight around a sand-boil to well it in, were all comprehensible and wholly natural to them.
Then they saw a motor-boat coming down the flood, and it rounded up to land at a levee. ”

“ Some of the smaller towns near the Mississippi are completely submerged, and most of the people who lived in them are camped for the time being in emergency quarters on high ground—out of danger if the water doesn’t rise, or if disease doesn’t become too prevalent. ”

“ History is constantly repeating itself, and the history of the tremendous floods that have occurred again and again throughout the lower Mississippi Valley, is the indellible record of the crime of those responsible for denuding the headwaters of the great stream of its standing timber; and the history of this shameful condition shall be the history of similar conditions that the next generation will have to face in all the principal valleys of the West, if those who are advocating the abolition of Governmental control over the public forests are permitted to have full sway. ”

“ Nowhere was this destruction so complete as in Mississippi. The people of the State had been collected from all the States of the West and South. There was no common bond but interest; a healthy public sentiment, which must result from a homogeneous population, was unknown; there was no restraining influence upon the conduct of men, save only the law, and, for the want of efficient administration, this was almost powerless. Every one was making haste to be rich; speculation was wild, and everyday was witnessing transactions of doubtful morality. ”

“ The mean discharge of the Mississippi is 675,000 cubic feet per second, and, accordingly, that river contributes to the sea about eleven times as much water as the Po, and more than six and a half times as much as the Nile. The discharge of the Mississippi is estimated at one-fourth of the precipitation in its basin—certainly a very large proportion, when we consider the rapidity of evaporation in many parts of the basin, and the probable loss by infiltration.—Humphreys and Abbott'S Report, p. ”

“ You see, if part of a levee does give way, or as they say, if a 'crevasse' comes, thousands of square miles are inundated, hundreds of people made homeless, and the property loss is incalculable. All the land around the lower part of the Mississippi is just a flood plain which used to be covered with water every year. ”

“ I repeat, it is one of the great scandals of our history that the Mississippi, which, so to speak, is the Atlantic Ocean running thousands and thousands of miles into the interior, presenting water facilities scarcely equaled in any country, should have been permitted more than half a century of our control to remain in the half useless condition in which it is to-day. ”

“ The Mississippi resembles our fresh water rivers in having only one regular swell or tide a year. It differs from them in not 560 being subject to occasional swells. The regions it waters are so vast that accidental rains and droughts in one part are countervailed by contrary accidents in other parts, so as never |46*| to become *sensible in the river. It is only when all the countries it occupies become subject to the general influence of summer or winter, that a regular and steady flood or ebb takes place. ”

“ The individual farmer has some responsibility for such floods, because by looking after his own drainage and preserving his own timberland he may help decrease the amount of water that flows into the streams and ultimately causes such havoc farther down the valley. But such efforts are helpful only in connection, with the larger efforts of the government. Even state governments cannot alone control the floods, because the waters that cause damage in Louisiana and Mississippi come from the states along the entire course of the Mississippi River and its tributaries. ”

“ Capricious and irresistible, working insidiously night and day, seldom showing the progress of its endeavors until some huge slice of land, acres in extent, crumbles into the flood, or some gully or cut-off all at once appears as the main channel, the Mississippi, even now when the Government is at all times on the alert to Page 279hold it in bounds, is not to be lightly learned nor long trusted. ”

“ Never, perhaps, in the records of nations was there an instance of a century of such unvarying and unmitigated crime as is to be collected from the history of the turbulent and blood-stained Mississippi. The stream itself appears as if appropriate for the deeds which have been committed. It is not like most rivers, beautiful to the sight, bestowing fertility in its course; not one that the eye loves to dwell upon as it sweeps along, nor can you wander on its bank, or trust yourself without danger to its stream. ”

“ As the night closed in the threatened storm swept up out of the sea, deluging [Pg 84] the city and whipping the quiet harbor into a foam; the thunder crashed incessantly, and the flashes of lightning showed stooping figures running along the bund to shelter, and hooded jinrikishas tearing by, the coolies' grass cloaks dripping at every blade."
"When one woman wishes to wound another she always strikes at her heart."
"Black was very inky and white immaculate to this son of the prairies."
"People never relish life as they do when the taste of death is still bitter between their teeth." ”

“ When the river channels are accurately adjusted to the amount of rainfall in the river basin, destructive floods will be averted. We can never expect that the Mississippi will be absolutely put in harness. The basin is too huge, the amount of water that has to be carried down is too great. Permanent dredging and permanent levee construction and repair will always be necessary, and a close co-ordination between the Weather Bureau and the government and state engineers is a first need in the problem. ”

“ The barn swept on down stream, turning around and around, as the boat went past it, the cow’s head appearing at each turn, thrust through the window.
With a small moving picture camera, Blake got a few views of this odd scene, to add to the others already taken.
They decided to tie up for the night just above a small town, that was far enough from the banks of the Mississippi to have escaped the flood, thus far. But the inhabitants were in constant fear, and all available men were at work strengthening the levee. ”

“ I hate the Mississippi, and as I look down upon its wild and filthy waters, boiling and eddying, and reflect how uncertain is travelling in this region of high-pressure, and disregard of social rights, I cannot help feeling a disgust at the idea of perishing in such a vile sewer, to be buried in mud, and perhaps to be rooted out again by some pig-nosed alligator. ”

“ I may here observe that the banks of the Mississippi form a natural dam, barrier or levée, more or less broad, from fifty paces to three or four miles, behind which the land slopes to nearly the level of the bed of the river, so that in every summer flood, there is a general back inundation, on the subsiding of which, so much stagnant water remains, as to cause annual attacks of fever and ague, which accounts for the sallow complexion of the inhabitants of the banks. ”

“ No one, except the Weather Bureau, would have kept track of the amount of rain that had fallen.
"If the ground has been steadily soaked, even by light occasional showers, twelve inches more of rain cannot soak in. Therefore, the entire amount of rain will flow directly into the stream channels and thus into the Mississippi. Flood warnings will be sent out, the height of the flood crest can be estimated, the length of the period of the danger will be known in advance and the proper preparations can be made. ”