354 THE ANNEX A TION FEVER 



The geolog}^ of the delta of the Mississippi is an interesting 

 local study. The effect of the withholding by the levees from 

 the great areas of the delta of the annual contributions of sedi- 

 mentary matters, and the stead}', though slow, subsidence of 

 these areas, is one which should be taken into account in decid- 

 ing the important question of how to protect the people from the 

 flood waters of the river. No doubt the great benefit to tlie pres- 

 ent and two or three following generations accruing from a com- 

 plete system of absolutely protective levees, excluding the flood 

 waters entirely from the great areas of the lower delta countr}^ 

 far outweighs the disadvantages to future generations from the 

 subsidence of the Gulf delta lands below the level of the sea and 

 their gradual abandonment due to this cause. While it would 

 be generally conceded that the present generation should not be 

 selfish, yet it is safe to sa^^ that the development of the delta 

 countr}'' during the twentieth century by a full}^ protective levee 

 system, at whatever cost to the riparian states and the Federal 

 Government, will be so remarkable that people of the whole 

 United States can well afford, when the time comes, to build a 

 protective levee against the Gulf Avaters, as the cit_y of New Or- 

 leans has done on a small scale against the sea waters of Lake 

 Pontchartrain, and as Holland has done for centuries and is now 

 about to do on a still larger scale, in removing the sea waters 

 themselves in the great projected reclamation of the lands sub- 

 merged by the Zuyder Zee. Mr Eads once said, in an eloquent 

 speech on the subject of the importance of the Mississippi river 

 and its delta channels to the sea : " This giant stream, with its 

 head shrouded in Arctic snows and embracing half a continent in 

 the hundred thousand miles of its curious network, and coursing 

 its majestic way to the southern Gulf through lands so fertile that 

 human ingenuit}^ is overtaxed to harvest their productiveness, 

 has been given by its Immortal Architect into the jealous keeping 

 of this Republic." 



THE ANNEXATION FEVER 



A curious and interesting example of the survival of inherited 

 traits, on a large scale, is seen in the instinct for the acquisition 

 of territory, which is manifested b}' all nations, savage or civil- 

 ized, in greater or less degree. 



In the olden time, when the earth was peopled b}^ savages, 

 the acquisition of territory b}^ conquest involved not alone the 



