THE NATIONAL ASPECT OF SWAMP DRAINAGE 13 



cient to state that such an agency is an established fact. Malaria has always 

 been a silent, but persistent scourge. Yellow fever has come repeatedly upon 

 us, scattering terror like a horde of savages and leaving in its wake broken 

 households, sorrowing communities, deserted markets, and financial loss. 

 Malaria is still with us. Yellow fever will surely come again, and the pity 

 of it is that we fail to use the means that have been placed in our hands to 

 stamp it out forever. Is not this a Federal matter? Consider a moment. 

 Yellow fever visited New Orleans in 1905. In the dire emergency of that 

 time it was considered a wise and proper use of Federal authority to send 

 national experts and Federal money there to conquer the epidemic. Would 

 it not be w^ise and proper also for the Nation to prevent the evil as well? 

 It is a wise statesman who responds to an emergency. It is a wiser one who 

 foresees that emergency and makes ready for it. 



Another national aspect of swamp drainage is that of home making. 

 In their present condition the swamps of the country are a source of weakness 

 in our national economy. They are now unproductive; they can be made 

 sources of great national wealth. They are now practically vacant ; they can 

 be made to produce citizens. In other words, they can become the sustenance 

 of the very element of which this country is made up. Seventy-four million 

 acres of drained swamps can be made to support at least 7,000,000 people in 

 agricultural pursuits. Is not this a national matter? Does it not enter into 

 every element of production, trade, and finance? Does it not become an 

 essential feature of national stability, national progress and national defense? 

 And if all these matters are not truly Federal, why then has the Federal 

 Government entered so largely into them in the past? The facts are that an 

 issue so big and broad and inclusive as the reclamation of 74,000,000 acres 

 of land must be a national matter, whether we would have it so or not. 



I have not come here in advocacy of any particular measure. My whole 

 function is to emphasize, as well as I may, the facts concerning a particular 

 necessity. In the adjustment of State and Federal relations there is no 

 necessary complication, no permanent relinquishment of State sovereignty is 

 required, nor any permanent expansion of Federal authority. From a prac- 

 tical standpoint I can see no difficulty in securing constructive cooperation 

 by all parties concerned. To reclaim these interstate swamps there is re- 

 quired a broader jurisdiction than is possessed by any one State and a more 

 extensive credit than is possessed by any individual to whom settlement upon 

 agricultural lands is attractive. There are many who will be opposed be- 

 cause the plan violates legal precedent, and many more will oppose it because 

 of what they believe to be constitutional limitations. Whether or not there 

 be any such limitations I am incompetent to determine, but as one who 

 believes that government is the means and not the end, I am unable to see 

 any insuperable obstacle. And when they who oppose rise up and cry ''The 

 Law" it appears as though the proper and comprehensive reply must be 

 "The Necessity." In days like these one can hardly find himself justified in 

 refusing to do a necessary thing because that thing was not foreseen by our 

 forefathers. 



