Canal Killing

The U. S. Senate last week had to choose between an estimable old gentleman and a dubious ditch. The ditch was the Gulf-Atlantic ship canal across Florida, on which President Roosevelt has already spent $5,400,000 of relief funds and which truck and fruit farmers fear may turn lower Florida into a semidesert (TIME, Feb. 17). The old gentleman was Duncan Upshaw Fletcher, 77, who has been in the Senate longer than any other member, except Idaho's Borah and South Carolina's Smith.

With the War Department Appropriation bill before the Senate, Florida's Fletcher proposed an amendment to appropriate $12,000,000 to carry on the Florida canal's construction. The House had refused funds for this project, as had the Senate Appropriations Committee. But to Senator Fletcher it was a matter of political life & death. Michigan's Senator Vandenberg, who alone has vigorously opposed the canal, promptly took the floor, recapitulated the arguments against it: The Army's Board of Rivers & Harbors Engineers, which always passes on such projects, had refused its approval. Secretary Ickes' Public Works Engineers had also turned it down. Steamship operators did not want it. Much expert geological opinion held it would endanger Florida's water supply. It was the only great waterway job ever undertaken without the specific consent of Congress. Declared Senator Vandenberg: "There is not a scintilla of economic justification for going on with it."

Then Senator Fletcher, with tears in his eyes, swung into action. He cited the report of a Presidential Board of Review which had approved the Canal for WPA. ("No board of engineers ever exceeded in ability and in training and in experience this special board of review.") He dwelt on the hurricanes which wreck ships going around the Florida Keys. ("I do not brag about those hazards; they are too close to Florida. ... I mention this as a fact.") He concluded: "This project is the mightiest force now available in making the Gulf of Mexico the Mediterranean of the Western World."

When the vote was taken, the oldsters of the Senate rallied affectionately around Oldster Fletcher. Party lines were split. The final count: For Fletcher, 34; Against the Canal, 39. A motion was made to reconsider the vote. While it was pending, those who voted against the canal received boxes of fine crisp celery from, South Florida. Some who voted for it received telegrams from a Florida hotel man inviting them to be his guests "at any time while in Florida." Closer still was the second vote: 36-to-35. Heartsick Senator Fletcher saw his hopes defeated unless President Roosevelt decided to ignore Congress and go on building the canal with relief money.

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