Flood Continued

At Melville. One evening last week some 1,000 residents of Melville, La., went serenely to their beds. Doubtless most of them gave their last waking thoughts to the flood waters bearing down from the north. Yet they were hardly excited, much less panic-stricken.

True, "M'sieu Jean" (their name for onetime Louisiana Governor John M. Parker, now directing flood relief) had given danger warnings, had urged them to leave their homes and to gather in refugee camps. "M'sieu Jean" was a good man, a fine man--but perhaps a little inclined toward alarms. When one's fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers have lived in the same village and furrowed the same earth, one does not take oneself away without good reason. Floods ? There had always been floods, there would always be floods. Every spring the rivers rose and frightened strangers. True, this flood seemed to be worse than usual. Later on, perhaps, they might have to fight day and night against the waters as they had fought against them before. But the danger was still far to the north. That, without even fighting, they should abandon their homes, gather in refugee camps, become objects of charite-- well, a fine man, a great man was "M'sieu Jean," but just a little bit an outsider, hardly quite able to realize how very many seasons of high water they had seen come and go.

So the people of Melville went to bed. At daybreak next morning the Melville levee along the Atchafalaya gave way. Soon every street in Melville was a roaring torrent. Scrambling from their houses, lacking time even to clothe themselves, men, women and children half-waded, half-swam to unbroken sections of the levee. Five hours later Melville was from 10 to 15 feet under water with most of its houses sweeping in fragments toward the Gulf.

Acadians. The story of Melville illustrates the tenacity with which the people in the area now being flooded cling to their homes. Most of them are Acadians--of old French and Spanish stock, few speaking English. They are (in the words of Herbert C. Hoover) "as much like French peasants as one dot is like another." Many of them wear French peasant costumes; have their shoes peg-nailed by a community shoemaker, his last held between his knees; eat hoe-cakes of home-ground corn meal, baked over live coals on three-legged iron spiders. Unable to realize that the present flood is the greatest in the history of the Mississippi, hating the thought of herding into refugee camps, they cling to their homes and threaten to add great loss of life to the other disasters of the flood. One farmer is said to have been "rescued" six times from a flooded home to which he has each time returned.

Mr. Hoover has said: "These Acadians are a wonderful people and they love this Evangeline country of theirs with all their heart and soul. Very few speak English and they are as proud as the forefathers who settled the Sugar Bowl 200 years ago. We are finding it the toughest sort of a job to convince them that when they go to a concentration camp they do not become objects of charity. They stay behind until the flood is in sight and even then they hesitate to take to the high places.

"Thousands of them are in the line of flood waters . . . and they are proving our biggest problem; but we are going to save them whether they like it or not."

Ten Lives. Despite the Acadians indifference to their danger, however, only ten lives are definitely known to have been lost in Louisiana, though rumor has listed the dead at more than 100. Nine of the dead belonged to one family, a widowed woman and her eight children. Caught as the flood entered Plaucheville, the Widow Dupre fled with her children to the second story of her home. The water poured into the house, reached the second story, continued to rise. A rescue boat found the entire family huddled together, drowned.

The other death came when one Tony Pitilalia and his son were caught as a span of the Texas & Pacific bridge connecting Melville with the east bank of the Atchafalaya was washed away. The boy was rescued but Mr. Pitilalia was carried off, drowned.

Thousands of refugees have been taken by rescue boats from housetops, from crumbling levees, from treetops.

Two Sections. Meanwhile the flood remained split into two sections. West of the Atchafalaya River the flood waters which last fortnight crumbled the Bayou de Glaize levees moved south, poured into the Atchafalaya River far more water than its banks could hold. This was the western half of the flood. The eastern half was the main stream of the Mississippi.

The Atchafalaya and the Mississippi flow southward and (very roughly) parallel, and between these two rivers is a long narrow strip of land--a sort of finger of dry territory.

Last week's flood defense centred in the point of this finger. The levee at McCrea, on the east bank of the Atchafalaya in the parish of Pointe Coupee, was weakening. At last reports it appeared likely that the east-Atchafalaya system would give way, permitting waters from the Atchafalaya to join the main Mississippi stream after flooding the dry strip between the rivers. In this strip, about 100 miles long and 25 miles wide, are the parishes of Pointe Coupee, Iberville and Assumption with a population of about 80,000. Five other parishes to the south and west would be partially flooded. Meanwhile the Mississippi itself was falling from St. Paul to New Orleans and further fall was predicted.

"Greatest Catastrophe." Few U. S. citizens appeared to realize the extent of the flood disaster. During the last fortnight, indeed, the flood did not enjoy a "good press." The Snyder-Gray trial and the Lindbergh transatlantic flight elbowed it onto the inside pages of many a newspaper. Nevertheless, observers united in terming it the greatest of peacetime national catastrophes of all time.

Said Gutzon Borglum, famed sculptor: "The waters of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers and their tributaries represent one if not the most ruthless force on the American continent and are a menace to the sources of a vast part of our life and wealth."

Said Frank R. Kent, of the Baltimore Sun: "The San Francisco earthquake and fire does not compare with this as a national calamity. Nothing else . . . since the Civil War is in its class."

Said Will Irwin, author, journalist: "Excepting war alone, the history of the United States shows no parallel to this for death, destruction, disturbance and misery."

Said Herbert C. Hoover authoritative, conservative, in charge of flood relief: "There was never in our history such a calamity as this flood, which before it ends will have, I fear, involved more than half a million of our people, creating a problem of relief and rehabilitation the magnitude of which it is scarcely possible to exaggerate. I sometimes wonder if the people of our country realize just what this calamity is. Do they know that before the flood recedes more than half a million Americans, men, women and children, will have seen their homes swallowed up in the deluge, their crops destroyed, their businesses ruined? . . . The flood is still roaring on its devastating way in Louisiana and thousands are daily being added to the long roll of those who are under the care and protection of the Red Cross."

At Washington. Meanwhile President Coolidge steadfastly refused to call a special flood session of Congress. Hostile Administration critics maintained that:

1) The last session of Congress closed with a Republican filibuster which prevented the passage of the urgent deficiency bill, left the Government without sufficient funds for normal activities--let alone flood relief. Assuming that there are 500,000 refugees and that there is $10,000,000 (the Red Cross relief fund) to spend on them, money available for flood relief would be only $20 per victim. By calling a special session, the Government could get both the money for relief work and the authority to spend it.

2) President Coolidge has refused to make a personal visit to the flooded section. The flood has not caught the imagination of the country because it has not caught the imagination of the country's chief executive. Were Roosevelt President for instance, he doubtless would long since have been personally piling sandbags on threatened levees.

3) It was asserted that President Coolidge's reluctance to a special session sprang from political reasons. Summoned, Congress might make a flood appropriation; then open up the Vare scandal and the Smith scandal, consider an anti-third term resolution, in general prove embarrassing to the President.

To which Administration supporters answered:

1) With regard to funds, Mr. Hoover last week telegraphed President Coolidge: "The success of our appeal to the public makes it reasonably safe now to say definitely that the funds in hand and prospective will enable the Red Cross to do its work on an efficient basis."

2) There is no need for the President to visit the flood area, efficiently patrolled by Mr. Hoover and other members of the presidential commission. President Coolidge, no spotlight-seeker, has dignifiedly remained in Washington, attended to the nation's business.

3) Not the President but anti-Administration Congressmen are the politics-players. At a special session, flood relief would be forgotten in wrangles over organization, in sniping at the Administration. By the time Congress assembled and got anything done the immediate emergency would long be over.

4) In December the President will stress flood prevention in his Congressional message. A sane, authoritative, carefully worked out plan of flood-prevention, prepared by U. S. army engineers, will be presented to Congress.

5) The New York Times last week asked leading citizens in the flooded area if they wanted an immediate extra session of Congress. Twelve said Yes; 19, No.

So the pros, so the cons. Meanwhile Washington correspondent Mark Sullivan, writing for the Republican New York Herald Tribune, said: "It requires pretty thoroughgoing Republican partisanship to deny that Senator Reed of Missouri and the other Democratic Senators were justified in asking President Coolidge to call a special session,"