From September, 1927,
issue The Bureau Farmer
Shall This Happen Again?
Last April, when the flood waters of the Mississippi River
were lapping over 16,000 square miles of the richest farm lands of America,
when 200,000 farm people were being fed by the American Red Cross, Sam H.
Thompson, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, went on record
pledging the support of the American Farm Bureau in the rehabilitation in the
South lands and called upon the state Federations for their assistance and
help.
At that time, President Thompson said: “Above everything
else, the American Farm Bureau, in assisting the rehabilitation of this area,
will insist upon the development of permanent preventive measures.”
The task of rehabilitation is now in full swing. During the
summer, the exact requirements of the flooded area were determined, relief
measures have been started, preventive measures have been discussed and
considered.
On July 21, Herbert Hoover, Secretary of Commerce, took to
President Coolidge a comprehensive report of the flood disaster. Secretary
Hoover reported that the flood had driven from their homes 750,000 people, that
101 counties had been flooded, that 3.5 million acres of crops were washed out
and destroyed.
At that time, Secretary Hoover said: “By the first of
November we estimate we shall have spent $13.4 million in Red Cross funds, $7
million for equipment and supplies from the federal government, $3 million in
free railroad transportation, and provided $1.1 million for county health
cleanup units.”
He urged the development of a national flood control plan
which would make impossible again the reoccurrence of such a disaster.
Discussing the value of such a plan, he said: “Flood control means the secure
development of 20 million acres of land capable of supporting from five to ten
millions of Americans.”
The latter part of June, the American Farm Bureau Federation
executive committee in session in Chicago stated the purpose of the American
Farm Bureau and its policy in the following resolution:
“WHEREAS: The Lower Mississippi Valley is experiencing the
most disastrous flood in the history of this nation, causing great damage and
destruction and directly affecting more than one million people; and
“WHEREAS: The concentration of waters in the Lower Valley
from more than 30 states provides a problem beyond the power and financial
ability of the states of the Lower Mississippi to solve; and
“WHEREAS: The Mississippi River is a national waterway and
is under the control and supervision of the Federal Government in many
respects;
“NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED: that the American Farm
Bureau Federation go on record as urging the Federal Government to provide in
the most practicable way for the rehabilitation of all persons within the flood
area who have suffered as a result of the flood; and that the Government assume full control of the Mississippi River
and its tributaries, and by a system of impounding, levees, spillways, and
other necessary means that it shall reduce as far as possible the likelihood of
a recurrence of the recent disaster.
“AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: That we commend the Federal
Government for its relief efforts, which have been carried on through such
agencies as the American Red Cross, the Department of Commerce, the Department
of Agriculture, and the War Department, and that we acknowledge our gratitude
to the transportation systems and all other agencies co-operating in the relief
of the stricken district. We hereby express our sincerest appreciation for the
untiring efforts, both by night and day, of Hon. Herbert Hoover, Secretary of
Commerce, who took personal charge of relief work in the flooded areas.”
At the same time that the resolution was being adopted, the
Home and Community Department of the A.F.B.F. got in touch with all state Home
and Community Departments and asked them to assist in securing underclothing,
clothing and bedding for the flood victims. In reply to this request, which was
sent to the state federation by Mrs. Charles W. Sewell, head of the Home and
Community Department, the state chairman immediately got in touch with their county
Farm Bureaus and a vast amount has been contributed through these sources.
The real sacrifice to which Farm Bureau women went to assist
the southern sufferers is here reflected in a letter from the Montana State
Farm Bureau. In this letter, written by Mrs. Dwight A. Smith, State Chairman,
Mrs. Smith points out that in many of the farming sections in Montana times
have been hard for two or three years, but she says: “Our women are making
underwear and children’s clothing from flour and sugar sacks. You know it is
possible to make some very nice articles from these sacks and they are
something we at least all have and can spare.”
Mrs. Edna L. Carlson, secretary of the Nevada State Farm
Bureau, reported that that state was raising a fund through the County Farm
Bureaus to be added to the Red Cross quota.
H.S. Benson, Agricultural Agent at Knox County, Indiana,
reports: “The Knox County Farm Bureau has raised a few hundred dollars for the
flood sufferers of Mississippi and are anxious that this be handled by the Farm
Bureau.”
These are but typical examples of the way the country and
state Farm Bureaus are responding to President Thompson’s appeal for aid and
assistance.
But while this relief for the human sufferers was being
carried on, the American Farm Bureau has not lessened, at any time, its effort
to urge the adoption of preventive measures to prevent such a disaster again
occurring in the Mississippi River Valley. Commenting on this, President
Thompson said: “Past experience and the disaster last spring makes imperative
the development of preventive measures that will give full assurance against a
repetition of this national calamity. It may be necessary,” he suggested, “in
order for the government to do this that large tracts of land be taken over and
turned into forest preserves which can, if necessity requires, be utilized as
flood reservoirs.”
This interesting suggestion by President Thompson has been
taken up in many other quarters and the general subject of the value and
usefulness of forests in preventing floods is a point which is being largely
discussed this fall.
Probably the most interesting data that has been issued on
this subject was an article entitled “Do Forests Prevent Floods?” written by
Raphael Zon, Director of the Lane States Experiment Station, and printed in American Forests and Forest Life, the
magazine of the American Forestry Association. Highlights of Zon’s article:
“Soils covered with forests can
store up a quantity of water corresponding to a precipitation of 0.16 inch, or,
in very favorable conditions, 0.24 inch at most. A cover of moss can store p
from 0.18 to 0.39 inch of water. Moss can absorb water amounting to from 200 to
900 times its weight; dead leaves of birch, maple or other hardwoods 150 to 220
times their weight and pine needles from 120 to 135 times. These amounts are
insignificant when compared to the enormous quantities of precipitation that
cause excessive floods.
“The fact that forests do not
prevent floods resulting from exceptional meteorological conditions is not
saying, by any means, that forests have no effect upon water stages in our
rivers, or that they are an insignificant factor that can be overlooked in any
comprehensive plan for flood control by either storage reservoirs, levees or
any other engineering works.
“When we turn, however, from large
to small watersheds, the forest as a controlling factor in stream behavior
comes out in unmistakably bold relief. If forests cannot prevent great floods
in large river basins, they can and do prevent small floods in small
watersheds.
“In the light of all these facts,
one cannot escape the conviction that the cutting away and burning of the
forest on the western slopes of the Appalachians, where the Ohio and its
tributaries rise, increased erosion from the slopes, raised the water level in
the tributaries and increased the flood danger farther down the Mississippi.
Likewise, breaking up the virgin sod of the plains, cutting away the timber
along the banks of the streams in the West, draining the swamps and even some of
the lakes of the North, the construction of a network of ditches and sewers
following in the wake of settlement and city development, all have thrown a
greatly increased flood burden on the lower portions of the Mississippi Valley.
The more serious part of it is that erosion, once started, as a tendency to
grow worse. If soil erosion, either form denuded forest slopes or cultivated
fields is not stopped, there is little likelihood that floods will ever be
controlled.”
