Press Release, Message from President Harry S. Truman to the United States Congress

277 HOLD FOR RELEASE HOLD FOR RELEASE HOLD FOR RELEASE JULY 16, 1947 CONFIDENTIAL: To be held in STRICT CONFIDENCE and no portion, synopsis or intimation to be given out or published until the READING of the President's M+ caage has begun in either the Senate or House of Representatives. Extreme care must therefore be exercised to avoid premature publication. CHARLES G. ROSS Secretary to the President TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES: The major opportunity of our generation to increase the wealth of the Nation lies in the development of our great river systems. I urged in the State of The Union message on January 6, 1947, that the program for improvement of our rivers be pushed with full vigor. Since that time, the urgency of one phase of our water resources control program has been demonstrated forcefully and TRUMAN NARA tragically. Vast areas of the most productive sections of the Missouri and Upper Mississippi River Valleys have been subjected to a series of the most destructive floods in our history. Too frequently within our memory, as well as in earlier years, the Mississippi River Basin has been similarly stricken. This con- tinued threat and the recurring and accumulative damage to the national reconomy and well-being call strongly for the prompt use of more effective counter-measures. Prudence requires that adequate measures be taken for protecti on against these devastating floods. Measures for flood control should be integrated with plans for the use and conservation of water resources for other purposes. This will insure maximum control of floods at the least cost and will permit the full utilization of water resources in the develop- ment of this vast region. The drainage basin of the Mississippi River and its tribu- taries comprises nearly half of the Nation in area and population. It is a rich central core from which stem goods and services vital to the entire country. A large proportion of the people in this great central basin, their homes and businesses, their fertile farm lands and their transportation and communication systems are concentrated in the flood plains and low lands immediately adjacent to the rivers. Nature also requires the use of these flood plains for drainage. Consequently, we must pay the price for occupancy of these lands, either in the form of continued flood damage or in preventive measures. The economy of controlling floods as compared with the cost of continuing under the handicap of their disruptive force has been amply demonstrated. In the short 10-year period from 1937 through 1946 a total of more than a billion dollars in flood damage has been suf- fered in the Mississippi Basin. The real cost to the Nation, of course, has been much greater. Dollars are not adequate to measure the toll in the hundrods of lives lost and the suffering of millions of persons affected. The cost of rehabilitation and repair of flood damage, though staggering, is but the initial burden. Extended effects, both in distance and time, are reflected throughout the Nation as a result of the disruption of lives and activities in the flood zone. These more remote inroads on our health and prosperity are not so obvious, but they may total many times the more apparent losses in the flood area. (OVER)