ppropriated by
Congress for levees and bank revetment, working under direction of the
Mississippi River Commission; (2) the State Board of Engineers, which
disburses Louisiana State funds wherever it sees fit, and which,
incidentally, does not use, in its work, the same specifications as are
used by the Government; and (3) the local levee boards, of which there
are eight in Louisiana, one to each river parish--a parish being what is
elsewhere called a county. Each of these eight boards has authority as
to where parish money shall be spent within its district, and it may be
added that this last group (considering the eight boards as a unit) has
the largest sum to spend on river work.

The result of this division of authority creates chaos, and has built up
a situation infinitely worse than was faced by General Goethals when
Congress attempted to divide control in the building of the Panama
Canal. It will be remembered that, in that case, a commission was
appointed, but that Roosevelt circumvented Congress by making General
Goethals head of the commission with full powers.

While the canal was in course of construction, General Goethals appeared
before the Senate Committee on Commerce. When asked what he knew of
levee building and work on the Mississippi, he replied:

"I don't know a single, solitary thing about the work on the Mississippi
except that it is being carried on under the annual appropriation
system. If we had that system to hamper us, the Panama Canal would not
be completed on time and within the estimate, as it will be. That system
leaves engineers in uncertainty as to how much they may plan to do in
the year ahead of them. Big works cannot be completed economically,
either as to time or money, unless the man who is making the plan can
proceed upon the theory that the money will be forthcoming as fast as he
can economically spend it."

In view of the foregoing, I cannot myself claim to be free from river
theory. It seems to me clear that the Mississippi should be under
exclusive Federal control from source to mouth; that the various
commissions should be abolished, and that the whole matter should be in
the hands of the chief of United States Engineers, who would have ample
funds with which to carry on work of a permanent character.

As one among countless items pointing to the need of Federal control,
consider the case of the Tensas Levee Board, one of the eight local
boards in Louisiana. This board do