Evening Post. MONDAY, JULY 23, 1934. HEAT WAVE AND HOT POLITICS

Evening Post, Issue 19, 23 July 1934, Page 8

Evening Post. MONDAY, JULY 23, 1934. HEAT WAVE AND HOT POLITICS

That misfortunes never come singly, and that when' they come to America it is on the same huge scale asher once proverbial prosperity are commonplaces which are painfully illustrated in today's reports. Saturday saw the' great heat wave which attacked the States of the Middle West several days ago to be still mounting, while over an even wider area the wave of industrial strife con; tinued Loth to mount and to spread. On Saturday, we are told, the heat wave claimed 106 lives, bringing the total for the.last.three days of the week to 235, of which 66 were taken from the central State of Missouri— !the same State -which- a few years | ago was loaded with a principal share lof the sufferings from the last of the great Mississippi floods.. In loss of life the) industrial warfare has for' lunately been far less, costly, but in oilier respects not even an approximate comparison is yet possible. The cost of the heat wave to the State of Nebraska- alone is already estimated at 156,000,000 dollars, whereas for the whole Union "the losses since May attributable to -strikes aggregate 100,000,000 dollars, including lost wages to-men." At this rate "man's inhumanity to man" as represented by the blind folly of these strikes is a small matter in comparison with the cruelty of Nature while her visitation, lasts, but the figures are but rough guides; there are doubtless other items to be included in both accounts, and neither of the stories is yet fully told. . In respect of duration, at any rale, there is good reason to suppose that the visitation" of Nature will be the milder of the two. She has her occasional outbursts, but it is not her custom to be angry for very long. "Small showers last' long, but sudden storms are short." Though the weather forecast may have said that ''the blazing rainless . spell would continue indefinitely," this does not mean that it may be expected to go on for ever, but that neither Wednesday nor Thursday next, nor any othe*-, definite day, can be named for its, probable disappearance. But the ; prophet who said that the human! folly and perversity, to which most of the misfortunes of the United States, as of every other country in, the world, are due, would "continue j indefinitely" would not need to' hedge. It would be a statement too obvious to invite anybody's challenge. If the prophet added that the folly and perversity of the race in the management of its own affairs was,likely to increase indefinitely, the proposition might be considered arguable by somebody with a faith above the average. The pessimist has at least a plausible case in the fact that it is just during the twenty years when the bounds of man's knowledge and of his power over Nature^ have been extended to a degree perhaps unequalled during any two previous centuries that his incapacity to manage his own affairs .seems lo have become most conspicuous, and the higher motives which i were steadily asserting themselves in I world policy have Teceived a severe I check.

Assuming .that the comparison between tho relative contributions of Nature and of man to America's present, troubles were .worth pursuing, the statesmanlike measure which President Roosevelt- proposes for the reduction of the s drought menace calls attention to the fact that a large share of the trouble with which ho is accustomed lo debit Nature- is really his own work. With characteristic breadth and length of view the President has decided to plant

a bolt of treos 100 imlcH wide imd 1000 miles long, stretching from Canada to North-western Texas, -which is expected to broalc tho dry dust winds which causeso much damage, also lo preserve much land moisture.

The scheme will require 10 years lo complete; it will cost 75,000,000 dollars; and it will cover about (54,000,000 acres. Just as characteristic as the scale of the proposal is the promptitude with which the President has launched it. Tt is indeed already past the proposal stage. Before announcing it he had given it legal authority hy the issue of an executive order, and he had allocated 15,000,000 dollars for the preliminary work. It is fitting and consoling that a country visited by calamities on so largo a scale should have a President with a mind and an imagination and a resolution on so large a scale lo direct the protective measures.

But, though Nature is the immediate agency against which these measures are directed, it would be interesting to know what proportion of the mischief, if any, cnn fairly be debited to her as 'principal, ajid in how much of it, if any, she is-merely ihe agent of the rfeslnjcjiycness and

,the shortsightedness of man. The land doubtless suffered little from droughts and dust-storms in the clays when it belonged lo the Red Indians, but it has since suffered like New Zealand, though necessarily on a much vaster scale, from the destruction of its forests, and presumably it would have needed afforestation as little'as this country if man had-not wrecked the balance of Nature to his own heavy and in some respects permanent, loss. Towards the work of restoration President Roosevelt has now received a powerful stimulus from the apparently increasing power with which Nature is taking her revenge, and as there seem to be no vested interests lo check him he may get a free hand.

In this happy freedom from the human handicap President Roosevelt's cheerful enterprise presents a striking contrast lo one of his lasl Messages to Congress, in which both the "New York Herald-Tribune" and the "Nation" note a sad decline from the statesmanlike level- of its predecessors. Our quotation is taken from the "Nation" of June 20:

The President's latest Message, as the "Now York Herald-Tribune unkindly observes, is at oneo tho most "political" and tho least impressive of' his public docuinonts to date. It ia obviously dosighed to help loyal Democratic Senators and Congrossraon to mond their political fences back home—tasks which thoy aro impatient to take in hand, ovou at Iho cost o£ adjournment without passing several important items of pending legislation. including: the Wagnor Bill. ... In brief, tho Administration has Sailed to, make Rood soveral of its major promises, so tho President is obliged, in this Message, to_ issue new promises—a form of inflation which goes inovitably with tho other forms into which tho Administration is being pushed.

To Congress the November elections are everything just now, and even an idealistic President cannot altogether disregard them.