Rising Tide
Page 54
Percy had the Greenville: See, for example, log of correspondence under title “Flood Protection Activities of the New Orleans Association of Commerce,” NA, RG 77, case 2891.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Then God, our Lord”: Garcilaso de la Vega, The Florida of the Incas, quoted in H. C. Frankenfield, “The Floods of 1927 in the Mississippi Basin,” Monthly Weather Review, Supplement 29 (Washington, D.C., 1927), p. 10.
“to prevent the destructive”: Annual Report of the Chief of Engineers for 1926, p. 1793.
“There was needed”: Ibid., p. 16.
Only six times: John Lee, “A Flood Year on the Mississippi,” Military Engineer, July-August 1928.
In October 1926: Ibid.
“It is no unusual”: Report of Charles Ellet, reprinted in U.S. House of Representatives Documents, vol. 24, 63rd Cong., doc. 918, pp. 32-120.
the flood crest poured: D. O. Elliott, The Improvement of the Lower Mississippi River for Flood Control and Navigation, vol. 1, p. 91.
The new crest: Ibid.
This does not mean: Ibid., p. 92.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
In Fulton, Kentucky: MC-A, January 4, 1927.
“You haint’ got”: JC-L, February 2, 1927.
“The Local Klan”: JC-L, February 18, 1927.
Several farmers were indicted: JC-L, February 3, 1927.
Delta & Pine Land Company: MC-A, December 9, 1926.
“Cornets, trombones, bass horns”: NOT-P, March 1 and 2, 1927.
“From the Rockies”: Ibid.
That crest took: Frankenfield, “The Floods of 1927,” p. 28.
It would remain in flood: Ibid., p. 37.
the White and the Little Red: NOT, February 3, 1927; JC-L, February 4, 1927.
A week later: NOT, February 14, 1927; JC-L, February 19, 1927.
“Although river stages”: NOI, February 10, 1927.
March opened: MC-A, March 1 and 3, 1927.
“The virtual flood”: JC-L, March 15 and 16, 1927.
Between March 17: NOI, March 18 and 21, 1927.
In January: J. S. Allen to Walter Sillers, Sr., March 1, 1927, Walter Sillers, Jr., Papers, Delta State University Library, Clarksdale, Mississippi.
On March 23: Minutes of Board of Mississippi Levee Commissioners, March 23, 1927, Mississippi Levee Board, Greenville.
“If the river”: Associated Press wire report, March 24, 1927.
“all the water in sight”: Isaac Cline, Storms, Floods, and Sunshine, p. 124.
One camp operator: Lomax, The Land Where the Blues Began, pp. 225-229.
On April 1: Lee, “A Flood Year on the Mississippi”; Frankenfield, “The Floods of 1927,” p. 29.
“higher ups”: JC-L, February 5 and April 7, 1927; MC-A, February 5 and April 7, 1927.
“concentration camps”: Walter Sillers, Sr., to W. L. Thompson, September 20, 1927, Sillers Papers, Delta State University Library; Lee, “A Flood Year on the Mississippi.”
In New Orleans hundreds of men: Marcel Garsaud to James Thomson, March 16, 1927, NOCA.
Danger areas included: Klorer to Thomson, April 10, 1927, NOCA.
“It is apparent”: James Kemper to Walter Parker, February 1, 1927, NOCA.
Engineers sounding the bottom: MC-A, March 30, 1927.
Already the Yazoo: MC-A, March 28, 30, and 31, 1927.
“All levees are”: JC-L, April 5, 1927.
“No serious trouble”: SBV, March 26, 1927.
“report on relief”: John Lee to Adjutant General, April 18, 1927, NA, RG 94.
Mississippi Governor Dennis Murphree: Malin Craig to Adjutant General, April 6, 1927, NA, RG 200.
a storm March 31: MC-A, April 8, 1927.
“The outlook was gloomy”: MC-A, April 8, 1927.
“Eleven Killed Many Hurt”: NYT, April 9, 1927.
the Canadian River flood: NOI, April 10, 1927.
As of April 9, 1927: Frankenfield, “The Floods of 1927,” p. 28.
“We are in condition”: MC-A, April 12, 1927; JC-L, April 10, 1927.
“From the forecast”: Guy Deano to John Klorer, April 14, 1927, NOCA.
a levee in Arkansas was dynamited: GD-T, April 14, 1927; NYT, April 14, 1927.
“Great Flood Peril”: NYT, April 15, 1927.
“The roaring Mississippi”: MC-A, April 15, 1927.
“Every Available House”: T. H. Caraway to Dwight Davis, April 14, 1927, NA, RG 94.
In the ten years: “Report of the Superintendent of the Sewerage and Water Board on the April 15 Flood,” p. 10, NOCA.
Between 10 and 12: Ball diaries, April 15 and 16, 1927, MDAH; NYT, April 14-16, 1927.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
In 1882: HFCCH, Committee Doc. 1, p. 25.
The levee itself: “The Mississippi Valley Flood, 1927,” Bulletin of the American Railway Association 29, no. 297 (July 1927), pp. 9, 29.
“They gave me”: Interview with William Jones, March 2, 1993.
“An attempt to dynamite”: GD-T, April 6 and 16, 1927.
“Nothing could be”: LP to Sedgwick, April 27, 1922.
Bill Jones remembered: Interview with William Jones, March 2, 1993.
“They had a bunch”: Statement of Duncan Cope, “The Flood of 1927,” Mississippi Public Television, transcript in MDAH.
“There has never been”: For example, see House Flood Control Committee Hearings, 64th Cong., March 8, 1916, p. 26.
“We feel confident”: MC-A, April 17, 1927.
“At Forest City”: Caraway to Davis, April 18, 1927, NA, RG 94.
“absolutely without food”: Mississippi Flood Control Association to Davis, April 18, 1927, NA, RG 94.
“Seven more die”: NYT, April 17, 1927.
“the greatest flood in history”: Wire from T. R. Buchanan to James Fieser, April 16, 1927, RCP.
“This is the psychological”: LP to Dennis Murphree, March 24, 1927, PFP.
Murphree had sent: Kenneth McKellar to Dwight Davis, April 15, 1927, NA, RG 94.
“The levee board was”: Statement of Vivian Broom, “The Flood of 1927,” Mississippi Public Television, transcript in MDAH.
“They kept sending”: Statement of Florence Sillers Ogden, “The Flood of 1927,” Mississippi Public Television, transcript in MDAH.
If a black man refused: There are at least three confirmed incidents in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas in which blacks who refused to work on levees were killed. See Louisiana Weekly, March 14, 1927; GD-T, July 6, 1927.
“The first of April”: Interview with Wynn Davis, February 28, 1993.
“They gave me charge”: Statement of Frank Hall, “The Flood of 1927,” Mississippi Public Television, transcript in MDAH.
levees averaged eighteen inches: GD-T, April 20, 1927.
that same day, April 19: MC-A, April 19, 1927; NYT, April 19, 1927.
Thirty years earlier: MC-A, April 22, 1927.
“The apparent slope”: Report of Charles Ellet, reprinted in House Documents, vol. 24, 63rd Cong., doc. 918, p. 45.
Missouri Pacific Railroad bridge: MC-A, April 22, 1927.
In 1927 the Mississippi River: Testimony of Charles Potter, HFCCH, p. 1874; James Kemper, HFCCH, p. 2869; “The Mississippi Valley Flood, 1927,” Bulletin of the American Railway Engineering Association 29, no. 297 (July 1927).
one and a half feet higher: Interview with Frank Hall, March 27, 1992.
pumped billions of gallons: J. S. Allen to Major J. C. H. Lee, June 23, 1927; “High Water Report East Central Sector,” Mississippi Levee Board, Greenville, Mississippi.
On April 19: NYT, April 20, 1927.
“Stormy tonight”: Ball diaries, April 20, 1927, MDAH.
“I’d never seen”: Statement of Florence Sillers Ogden, “The Flood of 1927,” Mississippi Public Television, transcript in MDAH.
“Is it as bad”: Ibid.
“Forces were redoubled”: JC-L, April 21, 1927.
upriver from Mounds Landing: Lee, “A Flood Year on the Mississippi,” p. 112; MC-
A, April 20 and 21, 1927.
“You get all”: Interview with M. L. Payne, March 4, 1993.
“felt like jelly”: Interview with William Jones, March 2, 1993.
“It was just boiling”: Interview with Moses Mason, March 1, 1993.
“From dark until dawn”: Lee, “A Flood Year on the Mississippi,” p. 112.
“All night long”: Statement of Florence Sillers Ogden, “The Flood of 1927,” Mississippi Public television, transcript in MDAH.
“to arouse the labor”: GD-T, April 21, 1927.
“The negroes ran”: E. C. Sanders, “Report of Activities at Camp Rex,” contained within Report of Flood Relief Expedition, Mississippi National Guard, Office of the Adjutant General, MDAH.
The river was overflowing: GD-T, April 21, 1927.
“You could see”: Interview with William Jones, March 2, 1993.
“We can’t hold it”: A. G. Paxton, Three Wars and a Flood, p. 24.
“just seemed to move”: Diary of Louise Henry Cowan, William Alexander Percy Library, Greenville, Mississippi.
“I took him”: John Hall, Jr., oral history project taped April 13, 1977, William Alexander Percy Library, Greenville, Mississippi.
“I was…”: Taped interview kindly shared by Pete Daniels with author.
“Levee broke”: Wire from John Lee to Edgar Jadwin, April 21, 1927, NA, RG 94.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Thousands of workers”: MC-A, April 22, 1927.
“Refugees coming into Jackson”: JC-L, April 24, 1927.
Judge R. C. Trimble: JC-L, April 22, 1927.
“estimated that more”: JC-L, April 24, 1927.
“No lives were”: Paxton, “National Guard Activities in Connection with Levee Fight and Flood Relief Expedition, Greenville, Mississippi,” Report of Flood Relief Expedition, Mississippi National Guard, Office of the Adjutant General, MDAH; see Associated Press report in Washington Post, April 25, 1927; JC-L, April 22, 1927; Fred Chaney, “A Refugee’s Story,” unpublished ms., MDAH; interview with Frank Hall, March 27, 1992.
“We had a lead”: Interview with Frank Hall, March 27, 1992.
The water’s force: Oscar Johnston to H. W. Lee, Fine Cotton Spinners and Doublers Association, May 31, 1927, D&PLCP. The Delta & Pine Land Co., the largest cotton plantation in the world, operated the land at the site of the break. Johnston was its chief executive officer.
“Let’s put all”: Interview with William Jones, March 2, 1993.
“It was as if”: MC-A, April 22, 1927; see also article by Floyd Clay, MC-A, July 22, 1973.
“[T]he water was leaping”: Oral history of E. M. Barry, MDAH.
“An airplane kept”: Vicksburg Evening Post, September 15, 1985.
“the flood water approach”: Louise Henry Cowan, “Essay on Greenville, 1927,” WAPL.
“in waves five or six”: Statement of D. S. Flanagan, “The Flood of 1927,” Mississippi Public Television, transcript in MDAH.
“When that levee broke”: Statement of Sam Huggins, “The Flood of 1927,” Mississippi Public Television, transcript in MDAH.
the water moved: Interview with Newman Bolls, March 2, 1993.
animals by the hundreds: Chaney, “A Refugee’s Story.”
“23 white women”: JC-L, April 26, 1927.
“At 9:00, we could”: Chaney, “A Refugee’s Story.”
“The water just came”: Interview with L. T. Wade, “The Flood of 1927,” Mississippi Public Television, transcript in MDAH.
“The situation is”: MC-A, April 22, 1927.
“For God’s Sake”: NOT-P, April 23, 1927.
Mounds Landing was: American National Red Cross, The Mississippi Flood Disaster of 1927: Official Report of the Relief Operations, p. 47.
Within three hours: Chaney, “A Refugee’s Story.”
Levee board engineers: JC-L, April 26, 1927.
“The water was just rolling”: Interview with Frank Hall, March 27, 1992.
“Everybody run”: Oral history of Levye Chapple, transcript in MDAH.
“You could see waves”: Interview with Lamar Britton, March 1, 1993.
“The water was coming”: Statement of Mrs. Henry Ransom, “The Flood of 1927,” Mississippi Public Television, transcript in MDAH.
Up to ten feet: Connolly to Gen. Edgar Jadwin, April 23, 1927, NA, RG 77.
“Louisiana waits”: MC-A, April 23, 1927.
The guards: JC-L, April 18, 1927; NYT, April 19, 1927.
“Coolidge in Conference”: NOT, April 23, 1927.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
FRENCH DOMINATION: George Reynolds, Machine Politics in New Orleans, 1904-1926, p. 11.
faux stone fronts: S. Frederick Starr, Southern Comfort, p. 261.
Modern poker: S. Frederick Starr, New Orleans Unmasqued, pp. 79, 142.
their own symphony: Starr, New Orleans Unmasqued, p. 127.
Women lowered baskets: Oral history of Marc Antony, FC.
“delight”: Sherwood Anderson, “Certain Things Last,” reprinted in NYT, December 29, 1992.
Billy Cabildo’s: Oral history of Albert Goldstein, FC.
lavish parties: Oral history of Leon Mann, FC.
Well-dressed doormen: Oral history of Virginia Barnett, FC.
“Yeah, music”: Quotations from Louis Armstrong exhibit, New Orleans Museum of Art, January to April 1996.
“without a doubt”: David Cohn, Where I Was Born and Raised, pp. 61-62.
“Jazz is all”: Quotations from Louis Armstrong exhibit.
“It was only”: Quoted in Al Rose, Storyville, New Orleans (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1974), p. 94.
a drugstore sold cocaine: Ibid.
“Mardi Gras runs”: Interview with Mrs. Ford T. Hardy, February 11, 1993.
“There is perhaps”: Perry Young, The Mistick Krewe, pp. 212-213.
“[Carnival] queens are”: Walker Percy, “New Orleans, Mon Amour,” Harper’s Magazine, September 1968, p. 90.
“Yet he values”: Interview with Walter Barnett, January 28, 1993.
“Often the men”: Interview with Mrs. F. Evans Farwell, January 23, 1993.
Every Rex since 1888: Phyllis Raabe, “Status and Its Impact: New Orleans Carnival, the Social Upper Class, and Upper Class Power,” Ph.D. diss., p. 63.
the disease had killed: John R. Kemp, ed., Martin Behrman of New Orleans, Memoirs of a City Boss, p. 270.
“were largely formulated”: Quoted in Landry, History of the Boston Club, pp. 115, 211; Angelo Miceli, The Pickwick Club of New Orleans, p. 70.
“he spoke”: Interview with Ruth Dreyfous, January 5, 1993.
“Mother used”: Ibid.
Rex went right on by: Oral history of Charles Kahn, FC.
Baron de Rothschild: Robert Tallant, Mardi Gras as It Was, pp. 179-180.
“spirit of noblesse oblige”: Landry, p. 7.
“The aggregated amount”: LP to Charles Claiborne, April 9, 1917, PFP.
“there is a discrepancy”: M. Waterman to LP, January 9, 1923, PFP.
New Orleans had nearly: As measured by debits to individual accounts, cited in Association of Commerce News Bulletin, January 23, 1923, ACP.
“a compulsory reduction”: LP to L. M. Pool, October 12, 1926; LP to Fenner, October 14, 1926, PFP.
payments on bonds absorbed: Association of Commerce News Bulletin, January 9, 1923, ACP; Bureau of Governmental Research (a local group), 1936 report, Special Collections, Earl Long Library, University of New Orleans.
the city could issue: The Sewerage and Water Board had the legal authority to issue bonds, but members of the Board of Liquidation automatically sat on it also, so in practice their approval was needed even for these bonds.
Twenty-four of: Raabe, “Status and Its Impact,” pp. 140-141.
“ultra-exclusive”: Young, p. 208.
the photograph of the Mystic Club queen: NOT-P, February 27, 1927.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Flood Water Is”: SBV, January 1, 1927.
“Thomson was an”: Interview with Charles Dufour, December 20, 1992.
a dinner was given: NOI, February 11, 1927.
The weakest levees: Memo from the Mississippi River Flood Control Association to Army Liaison Office and Red Cross, April 23, 1927, RC.
“it offers protection”: See undated report (probably late January or early February 1927) for the National Flood Commission, NOCA.
“was based on”: See Kemper to Walter Parker, February 1, 1927; Kemper to Thomson, February 4 and March 27, 1927, NOCA; report on levees, unsigned, March 16, 1927, NOCA; Kemper speech to Round Table Club, April 8, 1937, Kemper Collection, Louisiana State Museum, Historical Division, New Orleans.
“Serious settlements”: Report by S. Young, chief engineer of the Dock Board, to Garsaud, March 12, 1927, NOCA.
“decided improvement”: Klorer to Thomson, April 10, 1927, NOCA. The date is misleading; the report covers an earlier inspection.
twenty-four-hour patrols: SBV, April 9, 1927.
the Red Cross began: Henry Baker to Robert Bondy, May 3, 1927; two undated reports by Mrs. Charles Buck, General Chairman Women’s Division Emergency Flood Relief; Ben Beekman to W. P. Simpson, July 22, 1927; all in RCP.
“the most insatiable”: Schoot, “John M. Parker of Louisiana,” Ph.D. diss., p. 104; Dabney, One Hundred Great Years, p. 462.
“to refrain from publishing”: Reports of the Publicity Department, December 16, 1924; December 18, 1925; October 10, 1926; March 6, 1927; Charles Dunbar to three publishers, October 12, 1926; all in ACP.
“to avoid”: Thomson general letter to members of the Safe River Committee, April 8, 1927.
“River Warning”: See NOT, NOI, NOT-P, and NOS, April 9, 1927.
“The next boat”: NOT-P, April 23, 1927.
news, and fear, spread: Interview with Dufour.
Estimates of the number of dead: John Weems, A Weekend in September (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1993), pp. 114-115.
He had refused: Cline, p. 114.
“You’re jeopardizing lives”: Ibid., pp. 197-200.
“Heavy Rains Raise River”: NOI, April 14, 1927.
Thomson had talked: NOT, April 28, 1928.
“The Emergency Committee”: Guy Deano to John Klorer, April 14, [1927?], NOCA.
Albert Baldwin Wood: Sebastian Junger, “The Pumps of New Orleans,” Invention and Technology (Fall 1992), p. 47.