Rising Tide

by John M. Barry

  A few days later Moton, unaware that Hoover was looking elsewhere, sent him a letter of further apology and enclosed for his approval a press release fully endorsing the actions of the Red Cross. Hoover replied, “I have received your letter…and was much pleased to read the statement.”

  Later Barnett pleaded with Fieser, “I feel very strongly that the changes suggested [in the report] should not be made…because of the state of mind of the colored people of the country as it regards the flood…. I beg leave to respectfully protest the change and to urge the use of the original.” Moton did not second this protest, and Fieser and Hoover ignored it.

  Meanwhile, commission member J. S. Clark told Fieser: “Neither Dr. Moton nor I had seen the final report that was submitted…. The Red Cross deserves unlimited praise for the service it is rendering.” Then Clark reminded Fieser also of “the program that will not only feed, cloth [sic] and shelter the people, but will enable them to be established more firmly than before.” He was referring, of course, to Hoover’s resettlement plan.

  THERE HAD BEEN no mention of the plan in months, except when Moton had reminded Hoover of it. Moton still did not know that Fieser had rejected it as “impossible.” But Moton did know that Fieser was now cool toward everyone associated with the Colored Advisory Commission. He did know that resettlement had been Hoover’s own idea. He did know that Hoover, despite reminders, had done nothing to pursue it. And he finally understood what had never been said: the Red Cross would do nothing to implement it. Concerned yet still hopeful, he told Hoover he planned to approach several philanthropists and asked permission to use Hoover’s name. Hoover agreed, and told him to ask William Schieffelin, a trustee of Tuskegee who owned a chemical company, to host a luncheon in New York where Hoover could present his plan to major donors to charity.

  Moton did. Schieffelin invited a select gathering, including J. C. Penney, the banker Paul Warburg, and John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Schieffelin then told Hoover they were all looking forward to hearing him “outline the plan to make good lands in the South available to Negro tenants.”

  Hoover knew all the invitees well—indeed, immediately after his election as president later that year, he would go deep-sea fishing at Penney’s Florida estate—yet on January 12, 1928, he replied, “I feel it would be undesirable to have a luncheon for the purpose of meeting me to discuss such a plan as you mention.”

  Schieffelin sent Hoover’s note to Moton. He was stunned. Hoover was abandoning him. But he said nothing, and instead turned to Julius Rosenwald, another Tuskegee trustee. Rosenwald, a short, heavy-set man with iron gray hair, did not give money away for dreams and required enterprises he supported to meet high standards, but he had already given millions to help build rural black schools; he would ultimately contribute to building 6,000. Rosenwald also had a long relationship with Hoover, having worked with him to, among other things, make second mortgages a viable financial instrument; Hoover had done him such favors as get him good seats for Coolidge’s inauguration. More important, while Hoover was declining Schieffelin’s invitation, Rosenwald was giving $5 million to resettle European refugees on farms. For this act, Hoover congratulated him on “a great experiment in human engineering, and you and I have watched together the fruition of so many enterprises born of a realization that the welfare of other human beings is the concern of all of us.”

  A similar amount would finance the entire project in the Delta. The prospect excited Moton with possibilities. Now Moton placed his fate in Hoover’s hands, hoping Hoover would personally ask Rosenwald to finance the project by himself. Though Hoover was not above personally asking for money for projects he cared about, though a direct personal request from him would be far more difficult to reject, Hoover did not ask Rosenwald himself. And, though Rosenwald was a Tuskegee trustee, Moton was never given an opportunity to present the plan—Hoover’s plan, exactly the way Hoover had written it—directly to Rosenwald. Instead, the plan was presented to Rosenwald’s assistant Edwin Embree, who replied: “Mr. Rosenwald’s reaction is, to say the least, not actively favorable. He has had somewhat unfortunate experiences in somewhat similar projects, notably one I believe called Baldwin Farms near Tuskegee.”

  THOUGH MOTON had dignity, he had never been burdened by pride. His very first day at Hampton Institute had taught him to eschew pride, when an instructor had given him his admissions examination; it had been how well he swept a classroom, not how well he learned in it. After Rosenwald’s rejection, he reminded Hoover, gently, that both the resettlement plan and the Schieffelin luncheon were Hoover’s own ideas, and pleaded with him to bring the plan back to life. “A word from you with half a dozen gentlemen, in my opinion, would settle the matter in an hour so far as the financial end of it is concerned,” he wrote. “You will I know, forgive me for this seeming persistence in the matter, but if you could make the trip to New York as you had one time suggested it would assure success at the start.”

  Hoover finally agreed to attend the Schieffelin’s luncheon, then postponed it. Now desperate, Moton began to thrash about, writing Hoover again that the luncheon would be with people who “could finance the scheme with ease…. I was not sure you wished me to push the thing further. I would be glad to have instructions as to your wishes in the matter.”

  In reply, Hoover sent him a copy of the old letter from Rosenwald’s assistant rejecting the idea. He said nothing else, and made no mention of the luncheon. It was never held.

  All his life Moton had been forced into a smiling, accepting patience. He still did not abandon hope and wrote Rockefeller, “You are the kind of American citizen that I think of whenever I take off my hat to the Stars and Stripes, and I can properly put Mrs. Rockefeller in the same category not because of any worldly possessions you possess but rather the spirit which you manifest toward every phase of human betterment.”

  Rockefeller thanked him for the sentiments. But without Hoover’s imprimatur, there would be no money for the land resettlement. The proposal that was to be the greatest boon for the Negro race since Emancipation lay waiting, and perhaps dying. Perhaps it was already dead.

  BY NOW it was March 1928. Moton likely rationalized that Hoover was so deeply enmeshed in his campaign for the presidential nomination that he could not spare the time for the resettlement question now. But if he became president of the United States…

  Moton was determined to do all in his power to help Herbert Hoover achieve that ambition. His help could make a difference. Through the spring of 1928, despite primary victories and a commanding lead among Republican hopefuls, Hoover remained anathema to party professionals. If the Republican National Convention did not nominate him on the first ballot, it might not nominate him at all. Hoover’s opponents, led by former Illinois Governor Frank Lowden, the favorite for the nomination until the flood had elevated Hoover, struggled to form an alliance to block him. On March 31, 1928, the New York Times spoke of a “plan to deadlock the convention and select a compromise candidate against Mr. Hoover.” LeRoy Percy, who knew something of such a strategy from his victory in the Mississippi legislature over Vardaman, had been watching the maneuvering for months and observed that other candidates’ “popularity grows by contact; Hoover’s diminishes.” He judged: “All of the regular Republicans will oppose him. I don’t believe he can get the nomination. If so, of course he will be elected.” He also believed, “No man in public life has more enemies than Hoover.”

  Hoover fought back with his usual style, pretending to be above politics (and fooling himself with the pretense), keeping his own hands clean. But his aides, particularly George Akerson, did what was required. Tough, even ruthless, they made deals, violated clear ethical standards, and looked the other way while people acting for Hoover broke the law. They used people. They used Moton.

  In the black community Moton, Barnett, and the Tuskegee machine shielded Hoover, answered charges that Hoover had allowed the abuses of black refugees, did everything possible to advance him. Their impact was
felt. “Would it be possible for us to have Neale [sic] in New York on March 30, for an address,” Akerson asked, referring to C. C. Neal, a small cog in the Tuskegee machine who had earlier helped move black Missouri Republicans into Hoover’s column. And no black man worked harder than Barnett, who had experience in both Chicago ward politics and presidential campaigns. He had become a campaign aide reporting to Akerson as early as January 1928; he traveled constantly, poured himself into the campaign, and simultaneously threw the influence of syndicated stories in his Associated Negro Press into the battle. Shortly before the convention, Akerson told Barnett: “Both Secretary Hoover and I have known of your devoted interest, and he appreciates as I do the fine continued work you are doing in his behalf. The battle is almost over…. Please be assured that you are counted one of the very closest friends of this organization, and we are very glad of your help.”

  But Moton was the key. Moton mattered. A Negro political operative recruited by Hoover told Moton he did not want to work “against the RACE for the sake of the MAN,” asking “just what you think of him.” A black New Jersey politician asked for information “regarding Mr. Hoover in connection with the Mississippi flood, concerning good done the Colored people.” As the convention neared, Akerson’s requests of Moton became constant. Oscar DePriest, who was not in Hoover’s camp, dominated Chicago black wards and that year would become the first black congressman elected in this century. Akerson instructed Moton to handle him, as well as to contact “Mr. J. C. Mitchell…[who] has a tremendous influence with the three colored delegates from St. Louis”; to contact Scipio Jones, a black lawyer and key to the entire Arkansas delegation, “and find out exactly how he stands on Hoover”; to issue “a statement to the Colored Press in Chicago…call[ing] attention to the satisfaction which the colored leaders in the South had over the handling of Mississippi relief by Mr. Hoover.” At the convention itself Moton was given charge of black delegates.

  Hoover won the nomination on the first ballot. The flood had swept him to it; the flood had returned him to his countrymen’s consciousness, made him once again a hero, once again the Great Humanitarian. With Moton’s help no scandal had erupted and black Republican delegates had fallen in line. The election would come in a few more months. Moton was willing to wait for the resettlement plan and other boons to the race, as well as to the Tuskegee machine, a little longer.

  Part Nine

  THE LEAVING OF THE WATERS

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  FROM CAIRO, ILLINOIS, to the Gulf of Mexico, and from New Orleans to Washington, D.C., all across the floodplain of the Mississippi River and beyond, the 1927 flood left a watermark. It changed things. Some changes, direct and tangible ones, came immediately; others, less direct and less tangible, came more slowly.

  The first change occurred even before the flood did most of its damage, when the levee below New Orleans was dynamited. The dynamite exploded not only the levee but the levees-only policy, ending forever the argument over whether levees alone could control the Mississippi River, and forcing an admission even from Army engineers that nothing could control the Mississippi. So man would have to find a way to accommodate it.

  Finding that way was the final battle of the flood, and this battle was fought in Washington. All parties began in agreement that the federal government should assume responsibility for the river, but this consensus settled almost nothing, for water, like power itself, is a zero-sum game. If one has more, another has less. The levees-only policy had obscured this truth; one of its chief attractions had been its promise to protect all the land in the river’s floodplain. Any new plan would have to allow the river to spread over some land, somewhere. Congress would have to decide whose lands that would be, and the decision would have to combine engineering and politics.

  The scope of the legislation also had to be defined, along with who would pay for it. At the least, this legislation would seek to contain the lower Mississippi; at the least, it would be the most ambitious and expensive single piece of legislation Congress had ever passed. Many wanted to make it far more comprehensive and include the entire Mississippi River system. The governor of New Mexico wanted Congress to include in the legislation the prevention of floods on the Canadian River. A senator and two mayors from Oklahoma demanded that the bill solve flooding and shipping problems on the Arkansas, Cimarron, and Canadian. The governor of North Dakota complained about the Missouri; a congressman from Montana complained about the Milk; the governor of Kansas spoke of thirty-two towns and cities inundated in his state, some of which had been flooded seven times from September 1926 to April 1927; congressmen from Pittsburgh and Cincinnati wanted floods on the Ohio addressed.

  But it was not Congress or the White House that decided these things. They were settled in a more intimate forum by the Tri-State Flood Control Committee. This committee, like so many others that exercised power, was an ad hoc group, a handful of men, from Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Their names were familiar, and they made decisions binding upon each state’s representatives, and they had influence far beyond their states. John Parker was committee vice chairman and with Jim Butler spoke for Louisiana. LeRoy Percy spoke for Mississippi and served as secretary. Arkansas Governor John Martineau spoke for his state and chaired the committee. They, and Hoover, were the ones who mattered.

  On September 12, 1927, a month after Coolidge had declared that he would not seek reelection, these men gathered at the home of Colonel John Fordyce in Hot Springs, Arkansas. By the time they met, the political forces demanding legislation were already coming together. In June, several thousand people, among them nearly 150 senators, governors, and congressmen, had attended the Chicago Flood Control Conference; its sole purpose was to generate momentum and pressure for a bill. After it adjourned, a small executive committee had been formed, including Percy, to lobby for a bill. Since then Percy had traveled constantly, meeting privately with northern governors and congressmen, seeing Coolidge and General Jadwin in Washington, hosting Vice President Charles Dawes in Greenville, guiding a U.S. Chamber of Commerce delegation through the flooded region. It seemed that everywhere, as the Associated Press reported, “[i]t remained for the old Roman of the Delta, Senator Leroy [sic] Percy of Greenville, Mississippi, to sound the keynote of these problems.”

  Now, in Hot Springs, Percy and his colleagues on the Tri-State Committee were to decide the broad outlines of a bill they would unanimously support. Present were Hoover, Percy, Martineau, Butler, and two others who were among the wealthiest men in the South. All except Hoover were men who could manifest extraordinary grace and charm, but now they had come together to make decisions. They shared little small talk, little comment on difficult travel schedules, not even a discussion of refugees or crops. Their interest was containing the river. What they settled upon would more closely resemble what actually became law than would the initial proposals later made by Coolidge, the House, or the Senate.

  IT WAS a palatial setting, the house with tall Corinthian columns and silent smiling black servants, yet it also had a rustic quality, and not far back of the house a pack of hunting dogs barked. Outside the sun blazed, but shade nestled close to the house. The shade, high ceilings, and whirring fans kept the inside cool. The town itself, its main street packed with hotels, several of them elegant, was a resort enveloped in a vast mountain forest. The springs drew the visitors, but good shooting could be found close by. It was the shooting Percy could not forget. Here twenty-five years before he had watched impotently as his young son LeRoy Percy, Jr., died in agony from an infection after a shooting accident. He had avoided Hot Springs since then, but this was not a time for sentiment.

  That became clear soon enough as they discussed federal help for the victims. Percy warned that giving relief to victims would “set a precedent” and make passage harder. It could also excite jealousy in members of Congress whose states had suffered in the past without receiving federal relief. They might exorcise their jealousy by losing interest
in legislation. Therefore, he concluded, “I am not willing to [support] any other measure which would detract in any way from the Government taking over control of the levees.”

  Martineau agreed and made another point: “I believe if Congress were to pass a measure giving relief to those damaged they would feel they had done their duty and…this general plan of [river legislation]…would have to wait months and maybe years.”

  No one disagreed. The question was settled. Later Hoover personally drafted a statement for the head of each state’s rehabilitation committee to release, saying, “No relief to flood sufferers by action of Congress is desirable but rather all efforts should be concentrated on formulation and passage of adequate flood control measures.”

  The next question was, who would pay for the massive engineering works necessary? Historically, states or local entities had always had to match with cash, land, or rights-of-way the money the federal government spent. But requiring local contributions could cripple any effort to deal with the river. In 1927, before the flood, the Mississippi River Commission had had $5 million on hand for emergency levee work, but 40 percent had gone unspent because local levee boards could not make their matching contributions. Now far more levee districts were destitute and would remain so for the foreseeable future. Yet the levee system could only be as strong as its weakest link; a crevasse in one levee district could threaten hundreds of thousands of people in other levee districts.