Part 3

These men and women who met at Richmond had their faces set toward the village and the open country. They realized that American life was becoming a pyramid set wrong end up. To turn the pyramid over, so that at the bottom supporting the whole structure will be a satisfied and satisfying country life, was the large task to which these southerners gave vigorous attention. The conference took note of the fact that the “great American contortion” of the fed trying to support the feeder cannot be perpetuated. It realized, too, that the general assumption that all country people are or are to become men is wholly wrong; that it is many generations past the time when in an organized and comprehensive way, educational and social agencies should have begun to help the farmer’s wife and daughter so that they could help themselves. To be sure, wife and daughter will not have their due until the farmer is economically efficient, but what are the chances that he will increase his yield if he has to eat poorly cooked food, to say nothing of putting up with a nagging wife and a discontented daughter?

As the most tangible and immediate method of making the farmer more efficient economically, the conference emphasized better business methods. Here again Dr. Albert P. Bourland, executive secretary, showed discernment, in that he related the subject of agricultural co-operation and better farm credits to the other topics discussed—school, church, home and business in the large. The conference had the right to preach co-operation for it was practicing it!

All the discussions were illuminated by honesty—the recognition of problems and the characterization of evils by their right names. Indeed, this meeting made the few visitors from north of Mason and Dixon’s line again wish that in their sections of the country there were the same hearty frankness joined to tact.

Since this conference discussed the whole of the circle of life, what right had it to be called a conference for _education_?

In the South, the machinery for social amelioration is to a large extent educational. Whether it be the hook worm in South Carolina or bad housing in Texas that is attacked, efforts to make the South a better place in which to live emanate to a surprising degree from state departments of education, agricultural colleges, state universities, sectarian colleges, secondary schools, and—praise be!—one-room rural schools. Whether or not these institutions have the help of individuals, they do their work in the name of all of the people.

LESSONS FROM OHIO RESERVOIRS

MORRIS KNOWLES Pittsburgh Flood Commission

Early reports of the recent Ohio floods gave many the impression that the disasters were due to the failure of reservoirs; and as these reports were not generally corrected later, this impression no doubt remains in the minds of some. An investigation made during the week following the disasters showed this to be incorrect; but the escape was so narrow in some instances that the lesson of reservoirs of this sort is driven home almost as strongly as if they had failed and caused an enormous destruction of life and property.

Most of the reservoirs in the flooded districts belonged to the Ohio state canal system and were constructed to supply water for the canals in the dry seasons. In addition, the Columbus water supply storage dam on the Scioto river, was reported to have failed, causing a panic in Columbus. A number of power dams in various parts of the state were also the subjects of similar rumors. But these reports were either entirely without foundation, as in the case of the Columbus dam, or else the dams were relatively unimportant, so that this article may well be confined to the canal reservoirs.

The Ohio canal system, built in the second quarter of the last century, consists of two main divisions—the Ohio Canal, or eastern route, connecting Lake Erie and the Ohio river by way of the Cuyahoga, Tuscarawas, Muskingum, Licking and Scioto river valleys; and the Miami and Erie Canal, or western route, connecting Lake Erie and the Ohio river by way of the Maumee, Auglaize, and Miami river valleys. In addition, the Muskingum river was slack-watered below Zanesville. Numerous lateral, feeder and tributary canals completed a system which had cost approximately $16,000,000 and which comprised in 1850 over 1,000 miles of canals, more than 300 lift locks and half a dozen reservoirs.

In the case of each of the main canal routes, water was lacking on the summit level during the dry season, and the reservoirs were constructed to supplement the normal flow at such times. The Portage Lakes, just south of Akron, were dammed about 1840, to supply the summit of the eastern route; Loramie and Lewistown Reservoirs about 1850–60, for the western route; and the Licking Reservoir, or Buckeye Lake, about 1832, for the Licking summit. In addition, Grand Reservoir, the largest in the state, was built about 1841, to supply the northern slope of the Miami and Erie Canal.

During the middle of the last century, just prior to the Civil War, these canals were very active, and brought in a gross revenue, during some years, of over $500,000. In 1851 the gross earnings were over $799,000, and the net earnings almost $470,000. But later, the decline came, as it did on all of the old canals. As the canal section and lock dimensions were out-grown by the demands of modern traffic, a gradual abandonment of navigation followed, until now, for many years, there has been no canal freight traffic at all. Some of the branch and feeder canals have been officially abandoned, and either left to deteriorate without attention, or else filled up. Several of the reservoirs were dedicated by the legislature, by several acts passed since 1894, to use as public parks and pleasure resorts, with the provision, however, that they must be maintained for canal purposes.

For the past few years, therefore, the only revenues from the canals have been from the leasing of lands for oil well drilling and from the sale of water or water power to private or municipal water works and industrial plants. An annual appropriation has been made, in addition, to assist in meeting the expense of maintenance. There has, therefore, been no great stimulus to comprehensive and thorough work, and probably a great deal of the maintenance has been of a perfunctory character. The canals and reservoirs are in charge of a Board of Public Works of three members, but neither this nor any other state body or official appears to have had the specific duty of investigating these reservoirs from the sole point of view of public safety.

The Portage Lakes, about six miles south of Akron, were provided with no spillway whatever. The only way water could be discharged from them was through a thirty-six inch pipe. At the beginning of the rain-storm, the level in the reservoirs was within about one foot of the top of the embankment. It was not surprising, therefore, that the lakes filled up, overflowed the low embankment and washed out a crevasse about twenty-five feet deep and nearly 200 feet wide. The water overflowed a considerable area of low farm lands.

At the Lewistown Reservoir, which covers 6,000 acres, about a quarter of a mile of the west embankment was overflowed continuously for a day and a half. Waves dashed over the top of the south bank for several days. Both banks were almost despaired of, and a large force of men, including cottagers and citizens from neighboring towns, worked hard, placing logs and sand bags, to save them. In this they were successful, but a large area south of the reservoir was overflowed.

The Loramie Reservoir of 1,830 acres was already filled to above the spillway level when the rain started, and the water reached a maximum elevation of about four feet above the 200 foot spillway. Two small crevasses about twenty and twenty-five feet wide respectively and five or six feet deep, were washed out at a low portion of the embankment.

The Grand Reservoir is one of the largest artificial bodies of water in the world and covers about 13,400 acres. The water rose to about two feet above the ninety-five foot spillway. The water did not come near overtopping the banks, but heavy waves were driven against and over them, eroding them seriously at some points, and softening and furrowing their backs at others. A large force of volunteers worked with the laborers, filling and placing bags of sand, while a company of state militia patrolled the banks. No breaks occurred at any point, but the situation was critical for two or three days.

* * * * *

These situations teach a lesson that ought never to need repetition. Reservoir failures did not contribute measurably to the flood damage in Ohio. The trouble was caused by excessive and extensive rains.

But even if the reservoirs did not fail with disastrous results, the margin was a narrow one and the lesson is equally plain. It has long been an engineering principle that an earth embankment must not be overtopped. Twenty-four years ago, the Johnstown disaster, due to insufficient spillway capacity, impressed this upon the whole world. And it is an interesting parallel, that this was caused by an old reservoir originally built by the state for canal purposes, and later abandoned and used for pleasure purposes. Yet in Ohio there were four earth embankment reservoirs, one of which had no spillway and a far from sufficient discharge pipe; two of which filled up so that the banks were overflowed; and one which did not overflow, but which filled up sufficiently so that waves were driven over the embankments. Nor was the rainfall one beyond the range of probability. The March storm probably broke all records for combined intensity, duration and extent. But for small drainage areas such as these (52 to 114 square miles) the rainfall was not unprecedented. At least two storms have occurred in Ohio during the past forty years in which the rainfall in forty-eight hours was greater than that recorded in any forty-eight hours of the late storm, at any station, excepting Piqua, which is below the reservoirs in question. And in at least one storm in the same period, the rainfall for twenty-four hours was within .06 inch of the highest twenty-four hour rainfall of last month.

The faults in these reservoirs, then, were not due to a lack of knowledge as to what to expect, but only to failure to apply knowledge already gained. In this case, of course, state ownership put an extra responsibility on Ohio to see that its property was not a menace to its citizens. But, in any case, the state is the only institution which can see that such structures are provided with the necessary facilities to make them safe. Johnstown ought to have taught the necessity of examining reservoirs and dams, and of enforcing suitable standards of design and construction. Yet if we examine the statute books of Ohio we find no legislative provision of this kind whatever. Nor is there any provision for the study, mapping and gauging of the water resources. This is a necessary preliminary to a full understanding of the possible menace from uncontrolled waste.

With only two or three exceptions, conditions are precisely the same throughout the country. Even in Pennsylvania, which has probably suffered more grievously from dam failures than any other state, there is as yet no public knowledge of the design and condition of all dams, and no authority in any official or body to correct a dangerous condition.

Must we wait for another Johnstown or an Austin to change these things? Or will we learn from what might well have occurred in Ohio, and make a repetition of such disasters impossible? The lesson is plain. Will we profit by it?

BOOKS

MODERN PHILANTHROPY

By WILLIAM H. ALLEN. Dodd, Mead & Co. 437 pp. Price $1.50; by mail of THE SURVEY $1.64.

During 1910 and 1911, the years immediately succeeding the death of her husband, Mrs. E. H. Harriman received many thousands of appeals from as many individuals, charities, churches or other enterprises, most of whom either felt that they had some claim upon her generosity or hoped that their individual desires or necessities were particularly worthy of support. These appeals, to the number of 6,000, Mrs. Harriman turned over to the New York Bureau of Municipal Research for analysis and study. They came from all corners of the globe. The plans and remedies proposed ranged from a sage’s advice to a cheap cure-all emanating from a freakish brain.

Using the results of this study as a text, the author has written this volume, a part of which is a discourse on the relation of philanthropy to the functions of government. Another part is more like a manual on will making and successful appealing for private funds. The final section is an argument in favor of a national clearing house for appeals and charitable causes.

The details with which the analysis and classification of the 6,000 appeals is presented are so elaborate that they become tiresome and confusing. Besides, many of them are so exceptional that while they might be texts for discussions in social ethics, few general conclusions of value can be reached from them.

The discussion of will making has greater value for our various communities, and is receiving increasing attention among lawyers, social workers and civic reformers. The author proposes that lawyers recognize this value and equip themselves as experts or consultants for those who in increasing number wish to leave of their resources a contribution toward the betterment of social and civic conditions. He calls attention to the fact that the terms of a will are generally an expression of a previous generation’s interest and that it is altogether too commonly true at the present time that the will maker’s thought is not kept abreast with the development of the community and the needs of the times. For instance, the important work in scientific research of the present day is not provided for to any large extent by bequests but is largely financed by gifts from the living.

The continuous education of prospective givers is urged so that their bequests may express a vital interest of the donor’s present instead of his past. The tendency of men to make their wills in middle life will, however, always prove to be an obstacle to this desired result, and hence the terms of a will must be made as general as a careful description of the donor’s interest allows it to be, rather than so restricted that its usefulness will soon be so lessened that the state must set a limit to the life of the bequest.

The list of nation-wide needs that the book presents is certainly a formidable one. Many of them require a paragraph while others ought to have a whole chapter if not a whole volume to elucidate them and show their value to the skeptical reader or legislator. In the shape in which they are presented they bewilder all except the expert social scientist or social reformer. That the needs have diverse values is easily seen by examining two in the list of 4 per cent to 6 per cent investments, combining public service and private profits. Here we find the enigmatic suggestion that we discover the “application of the Child’s Restaurant idea to boarding houses” placed side by side with the need of a “model factory system that would net capital 4 per cent or 5 per cent and let the earnings above that limit go to make high wages, shorter hours and lower prices.” Many utopias are contained in these lists. The enumeration is impressive and suggestive but not convincing.

The author’s tendency to question every social fact, every community habit and every form of benevolence is found throughout the volume. This undoubtedly arouses thought. It is nowhere better exemplified than in the following statement: “It is doubtful whether the philosophy of giving formulated by Mr. Carnegie or Mr. Rockefeller rings truer than does that of begging letters. After all, philosophy is not much more than straight seeing, and a person in trouble, needing help, can see almost as much and as far as a person wanting to get rid of money. Neither a multi-millionaire nor a professor of ethics could surpass the good wife whose husband is harassed to pay $200 debts.” These half truths challenge one to find the whole truth, but they do not much enlighten him who is seeking to find a safe social policy.

Mr. Allen’s mind is fertile. He has the unusual gift of throwing out sheaves of questions for arousing one’s interest, and for this purpose the volume in question is particularly noteworthy.

C. C. CARSTENS.

VOCATIONS FOR GIRLS

By MARY A. LASELLE and KATHERINE WILEY. Introduction by Meyer Bloomfield. Houghton, Mifflin Co. 139 pp. Price $.85; by mail of THE SURVEY $.92.

This little volume is designed to be of service in assisting wage-earning girls to a wise and intelligent choice of a vocation and may be used as a reference or text book in the elementary grades, as well as furnish “advisory material” for those girls who continue in school after fourteen years of age.

The chief value of this book has been pointed out by Mr. Bloomfield; namely, that it is written by teachers who perhaps thus unconsciously express the prevailing discontent of the teacher alert to modern demands on education, and the reaching out of the hitherto secluded educator into the realities with which the child, unequipped, constantly struggles.

The material is attractively arranged, presented in a breezy, readable form, tinged with the spirit of sentiment, calculated to excite and hold the interest of the girl reader. It cannot fail to make the careless, irresponsible girl more thoughtful to untangle many perplexities for the troubled girl and to arouse ambition for personal efficiency in all girls who read it. The emphasis for gaining success is laid almost entirely upon personal efficiency. While the necessity cannot be made too clear to the girl—who is inclined to look upon her wage-earning life less as a profession than the boy—the book is disappointing in its almost total lack of recognition of the many failures in industry to meet the reasonable claims of efficiency. The absence of such information is prone to tempt the girl into industry sooner than there is financial need for her service, and does not protect her incentive or optimism, which protection is hoped for by the concealment of these facts. It is this feature which is too often damaging to the beneficial effect of many vocational bulletins published without an intimate and accurate knowledge of the trades discussed.

This setting forth of disadvantages as well as advantages has been most excellently done in another recent Boston publication, Survey of Occupations Open to the Girl of Fourteen to Sixteen Years, by Harriet Hazen Dodge. This pamphlet presents both sides of the question in a most helpful, concise and scientific form. The knowledge of the “disadvantages” is needful to the educator with whom will lie the decision as to the kind of trade or industry with which education can assist and co-operate in moulding the life of the child.

Vocations for Girls will be of assistance to the elementary teacher in providing an opportunity for intelligent contact with the girl worker, and suggestive material for further investigation as to the educative motive in trades and the benefit of the “occupative motive” in the girl pupil.

Little or no new information is given the sociological worker concerning specific lines of work for girls, or concerning her education for wage earning and home making.

The note of unquestioned recognition of the permanency of the girl’s wage-earning life which pervades every page of the book, is most welcome and all too urgently needed—both by girl and employer. But above all else, let me repeat that the book deserves a pioneer place in vocational literature, as one of the outward proofs of that which has long been felt,—that the destiny of the wage-earning child can be safely trusted to the keen interest, stimulating sympathy and sound judgment of his or her main dependence—the most potent of our social forces—the public school teacher.

MARY EDITH CAMPBELL.

GENETICS: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF HEREDITY

By HERBERT EUGENE WALTER. 272 pp. Price $1.50; by mail of THE SURVEY $1.65.

Everyone interested in the modern problems of eugenics and the care of defectives will find much of value in this book. The author says: “An attempt has been made to summarize for the intelligent but uninitiated reader some of the more recent phases of the questions of heredity which are at present agitating the biological world.”

The book is an excellent statement of the present most generally accepted theory of heredity, with only as much reference to other theories as will enable the reader to see how modern theories have grown out of the old ones.

Much of the book is extremely interesting to anyone with the least beginning of a scientific mind. The incidents with regard to the various experiments by biologists are illuminating.

The author is fair and guarded in his statements on questions which are in dispute. Although there can be no doubt as to his own beliefs in such matters, for example, as the inheritance of acquired characters, yet he gives both sides of the question fairly. Some of the instances of experiments read like a romance. The story of Lamarck’s Evening Primrose as studied by De Vries is fascinating.

Of course, to the socially minded person, the most interesting part of the book is that which deals with its application to man, and the chapter on human conservation which takes up such topics as how mankind may be improved, control of immigration, discriminating marriage laws, educated sentiment, segregation of defectives, etc., is compelling and well worth study.

The text is illustrated by a large number of diagrams some of which, although simple to the student of biology, will require considerable study by the ordinary reader. On the whole, the book is a valuable contribution to our literature on heredity and will be of great service to those who, while unable to study eugenics exhaustively, still feel that they must know the general theories on the subject.

ALEXANDER JOHNSON.

MARRIAGE AND THE SEX PROBLEM

By DR. F. W. FOERSTER. Frederick A. Stokes Co. 225 pp. Price $1.35: by mail of THE SURVEY $1.44.

This is a translation of a work entitled _Sexualethik und Sexualpadagogik_ by Dr. F. W. Foerster of Zürich, Switzerland. The translator supplies a brief statement of Foerster’s personal development and his final adoption of a positive ethical and religious philosophy akin to the new idealism of Prof. Rudolph Eucken. The book devotes considerable space to the theories of Ellen Key, Freud and Forel. On its positive side it advocates undeviating adherence to the traditional point of view in matters of sex and marriage. A somewhat pedantic touch results from the translator’s use of “ethic” in preference to the more familiar “ethics” as an equivalent for the German _Ethik_.

KATHARINE ANTHONY.

BEDROCK

By ANNIE L. DIGGS. The Social Center Publishing Co., Detroit. 70 pp. Price $.25; by mail of THE SURVEY $.30.