Warrior-Engineer

It seemed to the forefathers of the U. S. that waterways were most important to the Army. Hence to permit the building of a bridge or to undertake the digging of a Panama Canal the War Department must be called upon, and the Department must call upon its warrior-engineers. When an engineer is President, it is but logical that things should happen in the War Department.

Last week there happened a new chief of Warrior-Engineers. President Hoover picked him-Brigadier-General Lytle Brown, graduate of Vanderbilt University. West Point and the General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth.

In war, he served at Santiago during the Spanish War, in Mexico during Pershing's Punitive Expedition, in Washington as Chief of the War Plans Division of the General Staff during the greatest war of all. In peace, he served as instructor at West Point, as engineer of waterways at Louisville, Nashville, Chattanooga, as the builder of Wilson Dam in Alabama. Recently he has commanded Fort Davis in the Canal Zone.

Thence he was called to Washington, without reasons given, to call on the President. He called, had a short chat, was asked to "stand by." Several days later he read in the afternoon newspapers that the President had named him to be the Army's Chief of Engineers.

It was no routine appointment. It had been openly said in Washington that the President was looking for "another Goethals." General Edgar Jadwin, Chief of Engineers, retired on Aug. 7. On his successor devolves the duty of carrying out the Mississippi flood relief project which the President rates in importance if not in difficulty above the building of the Panama Canal. Flood Control is but one item on the inland waterways program.

As an indication of the importance that he places on the Chief Engineer's post, the President let it be known that he was looking for three other warrior-engineer-executives. They will be General Brown's lieutenants, one in local charge of the flood relief project (Cairo, 111., to the Gulf), one in charge of the Mississippi developments north of Cairo, one in charge of the Great Lakes and proposed St. Lawrence waterway.

Of most immediate moment is the Cairo to the Gulf flood project. Congress appropriated $325,000,000 for it, many think that it will cost $500,000,000 or more.*

There is trouble brewing over it. Recently the President offered to suspend judgment (and work) on part of the project (TIME, Sept. 23). The trouble brewing is the objections of landowners along the Boeuf and Atchafalaya Rivers. These are two subtributaries of the Mississippi which run practically parallel to the course of the great river in Louisiana and Arkansas. The flood relief plan devised under General Jadwin and adopted by Congress proposed that these valleys shall be used to draw off excess waters in times of great floods.

No compensation for landowners there was provided by the plan because its supporters declared: 1) that those valleys had always been inundated in great floods; 2) that they would be deprived of no flood protection that they had previously had; 3) that they would be inundated only once in ten or 15 years; 4) that the land there was about 80% swamp and forest.

* The Panama Canal cost approximately $400,000,000.