1904.] HAUPT — THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER PROBLEM. 7S 



Again it was urged that the confidence inspired by the levees had 

 caused the value of property to advance '*all over the alluvial val- 

 ley, in some places loo per cent., in some places 200 percent., in 

 some places 300 per cent "; but a distinguished Senator calls atten- 

 tion to the fact that Congress," under the Constitution, had no 

 power to appropriate money to protect private property. I want 

 to say to-day that every dollar that has ever been appropriated for 

 levees on the Mississippi river has'been on the theory that it would 

 benefit navigation, and we never dared to put it on the ground, up 

 to this day, that it would benefit private landowners, though we 

 knew of course that it was incidental to it." 



The success or failure of this improvement must, therefore, hinge 

 upon the ability to prevent the elevation of the bed and its silting 

 up by the larger amount of sediment confined to its channel and 

 the relief of the excessive high stages by other expedients than 

 levees, and it is to the consideration of this question that the fol- 

 lowing pages are directed. 



A Method of Controlling Floods on Mississippl 



Prior to the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the territory of the 

 United States was limited to the area east of the Mississippi river 

 and north of the Spanish possessions in Florida, giving no inde- 

 pendent outlet for the products of the republic other than that 

 across the Appalachian Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean. 



By the purchase of the territory extending from the mouth of the 

 river on the Gulf to Puget Sound on the Pacific, the United States 

 came into peaceable possession of the most fertile and productive 

 region within its borders and secured control of the navigation of 

 the greatest river in length on the globe. 



Up to the middle of the last century the population was com- 

 paratively sparse and the products limited, but after the restoration 

 of peace and the opening of the country by roads and railroads, 

 the development became so rapid as to require a systematic and 

 comprehensive effort to regulate and control its avenues of inter- 

 state and foreign commerce under the control of the general Gov- 

 ernment. 



The frequent casualties to the palatial steamers traversing these 

 western waters from snags, bars and shifting channels with insuffi- 

 cient depths finally led to the organization of the Mississippi River 



