the BEB would hold a public hearing to allow open discussion of the proposed plan. Thus, 

 on September 4, 1935, six of the seven members of the BEB went to Old Orchard Beach and 

 conducted a pubhc hearing on the proposal.* Those BEB members who went were Col. 

 Earl I. Brown, by then Senior Member; Col. Elliott J. Dent; Maj. Charles H. Cunningham; 

 Richard K. Hale; Victor Gelineau; and Thorndike Saville; plus Capt. Frank 0. Bowman, at 

 that time Board recorder. Lt. Col. Brehon Somervell was the one member unable to make 

 the trip. Some 300 local residents attended the public hearing. The BEB members attempted 

 to clarify the fact that the Board's function was purely advisory ; that it was not connected 

 with the disposition of funds for construction nor with the construction itself. However, 

 "the opposition was under the impression that if the Board recommended any protective 

 works these would immediately be built and they (the opposition) would be taxed to pay 

 forthem."^^ 



The final BEB report on Old Orchard Beach dated September 20, 1935, included the 

 comment that, "there are other matters than purely engineering ones to be considered in the 

 location of protective works at this site, . . .^^ This marked the close of the Board's first 

 "controversial" study. (To this date, no seawall has ever been constructed at Old Orchard 

 Beach, Maine.^^) 



d. Effects of the Depression. At the first official meeting of the American Shore and 

 Beach Preservation Association on December 8, 1926, Comdr. Raymond S. Patton had made 

 the following prophetic statement: 



"Just at present we are at a high tide of national prosperity, and it is that rising 



tide which during the past few years has resulted in the unprecedented 



development of our shores. That tide will ebb; doubtlessly the future will bring 



those alternating periods of depression and prosperity which in the past have 



characterized our economic Ufe." 



During another address to the same association in April 1935, by then Capt. Patton, who, in 



the intervening years, had become Director of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, 



commented upon the depression he had foreseen some 9 years earlier. He believed that a 



contributing factor to the Depression was "our national failure to realize that man's wishful 



thinking cannot influence the operation of those natural laws and forces, . . . which control 



man's destiny." We went plunging ahead, "thinking in terms of today or tomorrow instead 



of with reasonable regard for future generations, ..." Patton saw these conditions as being 



somewhat analogous to the situation which, "in a much smaller way, had gradually 



developed along our coasts and which created the shore and beach problem of a decade and 



more ago."^^ 



During the mid-1930's, efforts were made to encourage Federal spending in the form of 

 support for an increased program of coastal research. In August 1934, Thorndike Saville, a 

 civihan member of the BEB, was appointed to the National Water Resources Survey. This 



*This was the first and only public hearing the BEB ever held. 



35 



