40 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



jjrise of the convention, revealed a silver loving 

 cup, which he presented to J. M. Pritchard, who 

 for six years has been chairman and for eleven 

 years a member of the grading rules committee. 



Mr. Pritchard in acknowledging pleaded his 

 inability to make a suitable address of thanks and 

 assured the Philadelphia delegation of his hearty 

 appreciation of its token. 



The question of legal effect on all contracts 

 by the adoption of the new rules was then again 

 opened up, and after a discussion Horace C. Mills 

 moved that the motion adopting the rules be 

 amended with the provision that they take effect 

 on September 1 as to new business. This motion 

 was seconded and O. O. Agler then moved that as 

 an amendment to that motion the matter be re- 

 ferred to the board of managers. This motion was 

 also seconded. 



Mr. Agler 's amendment was carried unanimously. 



The meeting then adjourned sine die. 



ENTERTAINMENT 

 The entertainment features provided included 

 the banquet for the membership held at the ban- 

 quet hall of the Hotel Sherman on Thursday eve- 

 ning, a dinner for the ladies given in the Italian 

 room of the Hotel Sherman on the same evening; 

 smoker, vaudeville and buffet lunch tendered the 

 men visitors on Friday' evening, and a theater 

 part}- followed by luncheon, music and informal 

 dancing in the banquet hall for the ladies on Fri- 

 day. The various affairs were not, as last year, 

 given entirely by the Chicago trade. They were 

 subscribed to by most of the members of the Na- 

 tional Hardwood Lumber Association and carried 

 out to a successful and enjoyable conclusion in 

 every instance. 



E. C. Atkins & Co. of Indianapolis, Ind., manu- 

 facturers of the famous silver steel saws, provided 

 the unusualh- attractive badges, cut of which is 

 shown on this page. 



^H yroii!:OT5!a'.g'.K;c>iK.'KiiakAj;i<gi to^^ 



Control of Floods 



Editor's Note 



The following is ;in aililress di-livored li.v ( 

 belore tile National Lumber Manufacturers' 



It my memory serves me right I had the pleasure of addressing the 

 convention of this association which met at the Kew Willard Jiotel 

 in Washington some years ago in advocacy of the National Appala- 

 chian Forest bill, which was passed not very long afterward, in the 

 face of the same opposition we are now meeting in opposition to the 

 Newlands bill. If any one had suggested the substitution of forest 

 preservation and reforestation, or of reservoir construction, for the 

 levee system, much of the argument of the gentleman who has pre- 

 ceded nie would be sound, but such is absolutely not the case. Our 

 ohjectiou to the levee — only system with revetments — is that the best 

 matured judgment of the people behind the levees in the lower Missis- 

 sippi valley is that the system can be made absolutely secure against 

 the average floods of the average years, but that when you come to 

 the extraordinary floods of the unusual, occasional years a levee 

 system which is supplemented by nothing else never has been secure 

 and never will be; and I refer as authority for that point, gentlemen, 

 to one of the authors of the Ransdell-Humphreys bill who in a letter 

 sent to iVew Orleans for publication within the last two or three weeks 

 stated, "If everything were done that the bill provides for and this 

 magnificent system of levees built, in some greater flood the levees 

 might be again overtojiped. " 



Xow then, the position we stand for is this: Speaking from the 

 point of view of the lower Mississippi valley, that country is entitled 

 to be safeguarded against, not only the average floods, but against 

 the greatest floods of the most exceptional years and it is not safe 

 to develop that country under any other system. I do believe that 

 character of protection for man}' years to come could be had in the 

 delta of the lower river by supiilemeuting levees with a system of 

 controlled outlets and spillways and I know that the most practical, 

 common sense men of that country agree with me. I do not hesitate 

 to say it is my personal belief and judgment after studying this a 

 year and a half on the ground, after watching these two great floods 

 pass by, after studying every possible question involved with the 

 water in front of me, that all the losses that have occurred in the last 

 two great floods, probably over $.500,000,000, have resulted primarily 

 from the stubborn opposition of the engineers to a system of con- 

 trolled outlets. Nothing more, and they took care of the excess 

 waters. If those outlets had been controlled outlets and the channels 

 which the waters made across towns and villages had been controlled 



Ki- II. .Miixwell. or .New 

 uciation at Kansas City, 



i)rl.-.-ins. La., 

 lane a and 4. 



auxiliary channels, the lower Mississippi valley would not have 

 suffered one dollar from flood damage in the last two years. I am 

 willing to state as far as the lifetime of the men now here are con- 

 cerned, you can protect the delta with the levee system supplemented 

 by an outlet system as provided by the Newlands bill, but you can 

 not by a system of levees only with revetments. 



When we come to look at it from a broad national point of view-, 

 I juit the question up to you ; how just is the plan to people of all 

 sections? 1 ask you whether you do not think you should give protec- 

 tion to the citizen farmers of the San .Joaquin, or the lower Colorado, 

 or the rivers of the west, including the Big Muddy, and the great Ohio 

 valley where it is estimated the annual flood damage is more than 

 $50,000,000 a year and $100,000,000 in the single year before this 

 last one when it was more than $250,000,000. Why should not the 

 interests and rights of these very sections be considered as much as 

 the rights of the lower Mississippi valley? Will you go to Congress 

 and explain this matter before the law-making body of the nation ? 

 Are they going to single out one section and say: "We will appro- 

 priate $()0,000,00i» for that section and nothing for the rest." Can 

 you do this when it is absolutely beyond question that you can demon- 

 strate to any fair-minded man that the $60,000,000 is absolutely in- 

 adequate to accomplish ;ts purpose? Why, gentlemen, the testimony 

 before the committees in Washington a year ago showed that after 

 the great flood of 1912 the Mii=sissippi River Commission, having in 

 creased its estimate for levees from $16,000,000 to $38,000,000 and its 

 estimate for revetments from $80,000,000 to more than $150,000,000. 

 the testimony pointed out beyond all question that if you built a 

 levee system without first building a revetment system, your levee 

 system is in danger at any time of caving into the river. This has 

 happened in the lower valley within the. last few months. You re- 

 member very well the Kemy cave and the Poydras cave. It is true 

 these people by the exhibition of nerve and quickness succeeded in 

 stopping these two breaks before they became crevasses, but if you 

 will get the testimony of Capt. C. H. West last year and read it, 

 you will want no further arguments. It shows that the amount of 

 money appropriated by the Humphrey bill is hopelessly inadequate. 

 If the country is going to take hold of this flood problem and settle 

 it, why not recognize in advance what it is going to cost to do it* 

 What would you think of a business man's proposition to liuild a 



