Signed & Consigned

By a simple motion of his right hand, President Coolidge called forth a flood of headlines in the press of the Mississippi Basin. Hundreds of citizens of New

Orleans rushed into their City Hall to make merry with expansive Mayor Arthur J. O'Keefe. The school children of New Orleans were instructed to contribute a penny each to buy a silver scroll of thanks for President Coolidge. Mayor O'Keefe called for thanksgiving services in all the churches. The Flood Control bill was law at last.

In the Louisiana legislature, rejoicing was not so wholehearted. Members from districts where Federal spillways and floodways will force dwellers to move out, defeated a resolution of thanks to the U. S. Congress. .. After the excitement had passed, citizens considered what actual Flood Control work would go ahead forthwith, and what the U. S. had done already.

After the flood (April-May, 1927), the U. S. Army engineers, who were caught in the middle of a four-year levee-improvement program, directed their energies and the $10,000,000 currently available for their work, together with two borrowed millions, to plugging crevasses, replacing revetments,* dredging out silt-choked channels. Today the Mississippi's levee system is as sound as before the flood, the Army reports.

Before the new flood-prevention works can be begun, two more legal moves are necessary: 1) To $10,000,000 which the War Department has on hand, Congress must add $15,000,000, to make up a first instalment of $25,000,000 on the $325,000,000 authorized for the whole program. The $15,000,000 will doubtless be inserted in the Second Deficiency Bill when that measure reaches the Senate this week or next. 2) The new three-man U. S. Flood Control Commission (see below) must study conflicting plans for the work and report to the President, who will pass on the final plan. The conflicts centre chiefly on the size and cost of floodways on the Boeuf River in Arkansas and Louisiana and the Atchafalaya River in Louisiana; and on raising present levees a third foot higher.

Parts of the work upon which the plans do not conflict and upon which work may go forward at once, and the amounts of money that may be spent this year, are as follows:

1) On an $8,200,000 spillway at Bonnet Carre, La.--$2,200,000. To buy one-third of the flowage rights for same--$1,000,000.

2) Raising main-stream levees two feet and widening them from eight feet thick to twelve--$7,700,000 (total authorization is $139,000,000).

3) Bank revetment--$8,000,000 (total authorization is $80,000,000).

4) Dredging, regulating, surveying, emergency fund--$3,000,000 authorized for this year.

P: The conflicting plans of Flood Control, were drawn by the Mississippi River Commission (an interstate body) and the U. S. Army engineers, respectively. The chiefs of these two bodies were put on the new U. S. Flood Control Commission. For the third member, President Coolidge sought a civilian of unquestioned neutrality. He found and named him in Carleton W. Sturtevant, aged 64, a native of Ohio, trained in Missouri, now living in the Bronx, N. Y. A lifelong dredger of rivers, Engineer Sturtevant has worked on the Mississippi, St. Lawrence, Hudson, Red

Rivers and on the Panama Canal. He has worked before with both the Mississippi River Commission and the U. S. Army. Awaiting confirmation by the Senate, all he would say about his new job was: "It is possible to control the river, entirely possible. It depends on spending the proper amount of money and on using the proper plans."

P: Having signed the Flood Control bill, President Coolidge consigned several other bills to Congressional limbo. A single day brought forth eight vetoes. The rejected measures included: the $3,500,000 bill for roadbuilding in public domains (Indian reservations, national parks, etc.); a 10% pay-raise, totaling some $6,000,000 per annum, for night-working city and railroad postal employes; a bill of extra allowances to fourth-class postmasters for rent, fuel, light, equipment; a bill to promote Captain George R. Armstrong, U. S. A. (retired) to lieutenant-colonel.

P: Besides selecting Flood Controller Sturtevant (see above), President Coolidge busied himself and his assistants making other appointments, as follows:

Fifteen dignitaries--eight from the U. S., seven foreigners--to fill vacancies on arbitration boards under treaties between the U. S. and Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Denmark, The Netherlands, Paraguay, Venezuela.

Rear Admiral Hutchinson I. Cone, U. S. N. (retired), of Florida, to succeed Rear Admiral William S. Benson (retired) on the U. S. Shipping Board. Rear Admiral Benson had displeased President Coolidge by repeatedly opposing sales of U. S.-owned merchantmen.

Samuel S. Sandberg of Los Angeles to succeed Philip S. Teller of San Francisco on the U. S. Shipping Board. Mr. Teller, too, had seemed to be for keeping the U. S. in the shipping business.

Edmund Platt of Poughkeepsie, N. Y., to succeed himself on the Federal Reserve Board.

George R. Cooksey of the District of Columbia to succeed himself as a director of the War Finance Corp.

Patrick J. Farrell of Vermont and the District of Columbia, to succeed John Jacob Esch on the Interstate Commerce Commission. President Coolidge had tried to keep Mr. Esch, but the Senate repeatedly refused to believe that Mr. Esch had not overinterpreted the Commission's function and power. Mr. Farrell, Canadian-born, had been retained as counsel for 27 years by the I. C. C., latterly as chief counsel. He is a Democrat, but party is supposed to be forgotten on the I. C. C.

P: The Navy became exercised during the week over the apparent Senate blockade of its 16-ship building program. Theodore Douglas Robinson, convivial Assistant Secretary of the Navy, was sent "up the hill" to remind forgetful Senators that 16 ships were little enough; the Navy had asked originally for 71 ships. Grizzled sea-dogs were infuriated by a rumor, doubtless emanating from wickedly pacifist Congressmen, that President Coolidge himself had sanctioned sidetracking the ships to relieve the already strained Budget. . . . Whether or not the Navy's topmost chiefs, Secretary Wilbur and Admiral Hughes, believed this gossip, they smiled pleasantly enough at a ceremony outside the White House, when President Coolidge bestowed the Congressional Medal on Commander Willis M. Bradley for World War heroism. Commander Bradley is a big man. In dropping the medal over Commander Bradley's head, and clasping the ribbon-ends behind, President Coolidge adroitly surmounted (and cameras recorded--see col. 2) a difficulty often encountered by Chief Executives when they are called upon to decorate towering pillars of the national defense.

P: Many though his desk duties were, President Coolidge found time during the week to attend an historical pageant in Annapolis, Md., provisional (1783-1784) capital of the U. S. . . . Another day, in Washington, he addressed a joint session of the American Association of Museums and the American Federation of Arts. "We need to put more effort into translating art into the daily lives of the people," said President Coolidge. "If we surround ourselves with forms of beauty, the evil things of life would tend to disappear and our moral standards would be raised. . . ."

Another day he journeyed to Andover, Mass., for the150th anniversary of Phillips ("Andover") Academy. Here he said: "The standards which the student body sets are high. They want accuracy that is well-nigh complete. They apply the same standards to candor and honesty. Bluff and pretense may be permitted in the classroom, but in their relations with each other students regard such practices with contempt and those who resort to them are properly considered cheap. . . . When the world holds its examinations it will require the same standards of accuracy and honesty. . . ."

P: Ten volumes of stenography and a ton of documents had been accumulated up to last week by the Federal Trade Commission in its investigation of the business and political methods of interstate public utility companies, ordered by the Senate last winter. President Coolidge, whose appointees the trade commissioners are, said last week that in his opinion the ton and the ten volumes contained nothing requiring federal action, that state regulators had power to deal with such utility practices as might seem suspicious in the evidence. Chief among the trade commission's discoveries which have excited vigilant patriots is the distribution of text books and public utility "catechisms" circulated by thousands in the public schools of several states to foster the idea that government-operation of light, gas and power companies is un-American if not Bolshevistic. This school-book scheme appeared to have been originated by Samuel Insull, public utility pope of Chicago. The chief propagandist of the industry has been the National Electric Light Association. Citizens awaited completion of the Trade Commission's investigation and a final verdict from Commission and President. . . . In Manhattan, President Bayard F. Pope of Stone, Webster & Blodget, Inc., made public a survey of U. S. investments in the past five years. Of a total of 34.8 billions invested, public utilities attracted 9.04 billions,--more than any other kind of investment.

* Loose-woven fibres matted against mudbanks to keep them from slipping.