on on both sides raised
above the flood stage of 1912, and men and material were sent to all
points along the river to combat the expected high water in the lower
Mississippi.

Colonel Townsend, head of the Mississippi River Commission, ten days
previously predicted a stage as high as that of 1912, and sent out
warnings to all engineers in the valley. It was acting upon his advice
that Captain Sherrill began to assemble barges, quarter boats, bags,
material and tools to be sent to points between Vicksburg and New
Orleans for possible emergencies.

In explaining why the river from Vicksburg to the mouth of the river
would be higher than last year, Captain Sherrill pointed to the fact
that crevasses both below and above the stretch in 1912 lowered the
river there, whereas upon the present rise, with levees expected to
confine the water, the crest naturally would be higher. Because of this
fact the brunt of the high water was expected to strike that stretch,
and any possible trouble to be looked for could be expected there,
although the levees between Old River and Baton Rouge might also be in
danger.

RISING HOPE

The hopes of the people began to rise as they learned that the entire
Mississippi levee system was to be made two feet higher than the record
of the flood last year. It was expected the work would be completed
before the crest of the Ohio River flood reached the lower Mississippi
Valley.

On receipt of reports that two hundred families had been driven from
their homes in the lowlands of the Atchafalaya River, near Breaux
Bridge, Louisiana, owing to high water, and were in a destitute
condition, local relief committees from New Orleans rushed a large
quantity of supplies to that section.

The appeal said if immediate aid was not received it was feared many
would die of starvation. Inhabitants of the district were principally
foreigners, who had reclaimed a part of their truck farms, which were
destroyed by last year's flood. Their newly planted crops were
abandoned.

A NATIONAL PROBLEM

It is a curious fact that the Mississippi has done as much to kill the
old doctrine of states' rights as any other influence. For instance,
Louisiana, after spending thirty millions of dollars on river problems,
was quite willing to concede that the Mississippi was a national affair
and that Federal aid was altogether desirable. But it is plain that the
resources of the individual states as well as of the nation mu