Flood Aftermath

Flood aftermath last week centered about two topics--Herbert C. Hoover and special session. Secretary Hoover appeared generally regarded, in the flooded district, as the "hero" of the flood; in Chicago, however, he was not so highly considered. Meanwhile the Special Session (to consider flood problems) continued to find many supporters, though to the cynical minded it took on the aspect of a tail to the tax-reduction kite.

Hoover. Mr. Hoover was scheduled to speak at the Governor's Conference on Mackinac Island, Mich. (see POLITICAL NOTES). When he was unable to attend, his place was taken, spontaneously, by onetime Governor Gifford Pinchot of Pennsylvania. The substitution made a very considerable difference in the nature of the speech delivered, for Mr. Pinchot vigorously attacked the Federal Government for entrusting flood control to Army engineers, and Mayor William Hale Thompson of Chicago expressed his total lack of confdence in the flood-prevention measures recently (TIME, Aug. 1) expounded by Mr. Hoover at Rapid City. Mr. Pinchot termed the Army engineers' efforts at flood-control "the most colossal engineering blunder of the human race." Mayor Thompson said that "our failure [to prevent floods] is a national humiliation." Discussing the Hoover plan (which was chiefly the expenditure of some $150,000,000 to $200,000,000 in the next ten years in strengthening the levee system and supplementing it with spillways) Mr. Thompson said that Mr. Hoover was merely repeating previous flood-control methods on a somewhat larger scale and added that the natural desire to arrive as soon as possible at some plan of flood prevention was likely to result in the adoption of "half baked measures."

Thus Chicago and Pennsylvania on Secretary Hoover. Meanwhile the inhabitants of the flooded region appeared more kindly disposed toward the Secretary of Commerce. In Arkansas, Negroes flooded from the plantations arranged a Hoover celebration, presented him with a loving cup. On the cup was inscribed :

Presented to HON. HERBERT HOOVER In token of appreciation and gratitude for his wonderful work and sympathy

during

Flood of 1927 BY THE COLORED PEOPLE OF ARKANSAS

One of the Negroes was quoted as having said: "Sho' would have had a hard time didn't Mr. Hoover come to fetch us to de high ground .... Sho' would make a noble president." And a white man was said to have remarked: "We think Hoover is the most useful American of his day. Why, he'd make a fine President."

Special Session. Shortly after the flood waters began to recede, the suggestion was made that Congress should call a special session to consider flood relief. This idea apparently did not,appeal to the President and inasmuch as only the President could put it into effect, prospects for a special session seemed remote. Last week Senators Smoot and Harrison (see TAXATION) joined in a special session call, but the Utah senator seemed primarily and the Mississippi senator considerably interested in the matter of tax reduction rather than in the matter of flood relief. With Mr. Coolidge, as far as is known, still opposed to a special session, it did not seem likely that Congress would meet before its regular time, or long enough before to make much difference to the flooded region.