Prophet Spurned

When last September's hurricane devastated 50 miles of Fire Island, New York's Park Commissioner Robert Moses issued an ominous warning: unless the long strip of beach and sand dunes which now protects Long Island from the sea were turned over to him, the next big blow would destroy it (TIME, Oct. 17). The cost of making Mr. Moses' promised land of boulevard-parkway and State parks was $15,500,000 of which Suffolk County must pay a little over two-thirds.

The county supervisors worried long over the cost, got Mr. Moses to shave his plan to $9,250,000. Then they worried over the idea of opening Suffolk County's wild and beautiful seashore to hordes of city trippers and picnickers. Last week they voted 7-to-3 to have no promised land. To $100,000 and 500 men from WPA they added $100,000 of county money to try patching the broken dunes with wire fences and brush jetties, filling in three inlets cut through the beach into the bays.

Bitterly disappointed, Prophet Moses told the Supervisors: "We offered you a suggestion and you have rejected it. You will have to abide by the consequences."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.