"War"

The states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota are battling the states of Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi over what-shall-be-done with the water of the Great Lakes. A learned man with a diplomatic beard, Charles Evans Hughes, sat in Washington last week as Special Master to hear the evidence asked for by the Supreme Court. The first group of states is seeking an injunction against Illinois and the Chicago Sanitary District to restrain them from taking water out of Lake Michigan with their Drainage Canal and sending it down the Mississippi River.

Many a distinguished lawyer came to Washington to fight for his native state. Perhaps the most distinguished of them all was Newton D. Baker of Ohio, onetime Secretary of War, who stated the issue in no mild words. Said he:

"It is an actual and important fact that we have on the one hand states aggregating a population of 40,000,000 people and on the other hand a population of 19,000,000. Thus we have an unusual spectacle, one of which the world may well take note; an issue which in any other part of the world would cause war."

The Arguments. The first group of states, all of them bordering on the Great Lakes, objects to the diversion of water from Lake Michigan on the following grounds: 1) The Chicago Drainage Canal has reversed the courses of two rivers and disrupted the drainage system of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River; 2) It has lowered the water level of the Great Lakes, spoiled harbors, endangered shipping; 3) It has vexed Canada, who of course has a right to protest interference with the Great Lakes.

Illinois and the southern states contend: 1) That the Drainage Canal is necessary to the sanitary disposal of Chicago sewage; 2) That the stopping of the diversion would have little effect on the water-level of the Great Lakes; 3) That the Drainage Canal is a vital link in development of a St Lawrence-Great Lakes-Mississippi-Gulf of Mexico waterway which will be a commercial asset to both the U. S. and Canada.

The legal question involved is whether the War Department has the right to permit or disallow the diverting of water from Lake Michigan, "pending legislation by Congress."