The River

Oh from as far west as Idaho down from the glacier peaks of the Rockies from as far east as Pennsylvania down from the turkey ridges of the Allegheny down from Minnesota 2,500 miles the Mississippi River runs to the go carrying every drop of water that flows down two-thirds the continents carrying every brook can drill rivulet and crease carrying all the rivers that run down two-thirds the continent the Mississippi runs to the Gulf of Mexico down the Yellowstone the milk the white in Cheyenne the Cannonball the Musselshell the James and assume down the Judith the grandiose stage in the Platte the skunk's gasol's two black in Minnesota down the rocks the Illinois and the Kankakee the Allegheny the Monongahela kanawha and the scheme down the Miami the Wabash the licking in the green the Cumberland the Kentucky in the Tennessee down the watch adore the widget or the Reds in yazoo down the Missouri 3,000 miles from the rock down the Ohio thousand miles from the Allegheny down the Arkansas 1,500 miles from the Great Divide down the red thousand miles from Texas down the Great Valley 2,500 miles from Minnesota carrying every rivulet in Brook Greek can drill carrying all the rivers that run down to third the conference the Mississippi run to the go New Orleans to baton rouge baton rouge to Natchez Natchez to Vicksburg Vicksburg to memphis memphis to Cairo we built a dike a thousand miles long men and mules mules and mud mules and what a thousand miles up the Mississippi a century before we bought the Great Western River the Spanish in the French build dikes to keep the Mississippi out of New Orleans at flood stage in 40 years we continued the levee the entire length of the great alluvial Delta that mud plain that extends from the Gulf of Mexico clear to the mouth of the Ohio the ancient valley built up for centuries by the old river spilling her floods across the bottom of the continent on mud Delta a 40,000 square miles men and mule mules and mud New Orleans to Baton Rouge Natchez to Vicksburg Memphis to Cairo a thousand miles up the river and the plant has brought their blacks in their plows in their cotton over to the river down to the boom train down through cumberland gap over from Georgia and South Carolina over from the time over from the old cotton land west to the big west to the steamboat hybrid down the highway to the sea corn and oats down the Missouri tobacco and whiskey down the Ohio down from Pittsburgh down from st. Louis infant potatoes pork and flour we sent our Commerce to the sea we made Kotton King we rolled a million bales down the river for Liverpool and me 18 six-year-old four million bales down the road roll them off Alabama rolled them off Mississippi roll them up Louisiana rolled and down the river you we fought a war we fought a war and kept the west bank of the river free of slavery forever but we left the old self impoverished and stricken dub listing because besides the tragedy of war already the frenzied cocky cultivation of a quarter of a century had taken toll of the land we mined the soil for cotton until it would yield no more and then moved west we fought a war but there was a double tragedy the tragedy of land twice in poverty black spruce and Norway pine Douglas fir and red seated scarlet oak and shagbark hickory hemlock and Aspen there was lumber in the north the war impoverished the Old South the railroads killed the steamboats but there was Lombe in the north heads up lumber on the Upper River heads up lumber enough to cover all Europe down from Minnesota and Wisconsin down to take fall down to st. Louis st. number for the new properly with lumber in the North Col in the hill iron and coal gala Monongahela iron and coal down the Ohio down to Pittsburgh down to wheelie I annan cold for the steel for the railroads driving west and south for the new cities of the Great Valley we built new machinery and cleared new land in the West 10 million bail down to the goat cotton for the spools of England and France 15 million bail down to the go rotten for the spools of Italy and Germany we built a hundred cities in a thousand town st. Paul and Minneapolis Davenport and kyoko Moline and Quincy Cincinnati in st. Louis omaha and Kansas City across to the rockies in down to minnesota 2,500 miles in New Orleans we built a new continent you black spruce to Norway pine Douglas fir and red cedar scarlet oak and shagbark hickory we built a hundred cities and a thousand towns but at watercourse we cut the top off the Allegheny and sent it down the river we cut the top off Minnesota and set it down the river we cut the top off Wisconsin and sent it down the river we left the mountains and the hills slash and burn and moved on but the water comes down hill spring and fall down from the cutover mountains down from the plough door flew from as far west as Idaho and as far east as Pennsylvania down every Brook and drill rivulet and cream carrying every drop of water that flows down two-thirds the continent 19 3 19 7 1915 1916 1922 1927 1936 1957 down from Pennsylvania and Ohio Kentucky and West Virginia Missouri and Illinois down from North Carolina and Tennessee down the Judith the grand Theo sage in the plaque the rock assault the black in Minnesota down the Monongahela the Allegheny Cano one must kingdom the Miami the Wabash been licking in the green the white the wolf the cash and the black down the corn Kaskaskia the red in Yazoo down the Cumberland Kentucky in the Tennessee down the Ohio a thousand miles from Bedford down the Arkansas a thousand miles and Texas down to the Mississippi you you New Orleans to baton rouge baton rouge to Natchez Natchez of exposure Vicksburg to memphis memphis to cairo thousand miles down the levee long vigil star 38 feet at Baton Rouge River rising River rising hero River rising a thousand miles to go thousand miles of levees to hold Coast Guard patrol needed at Paducah Coast Guard patrol needed at Paducah 200 volts wanted at hickman 200 boats wanted at hickman levy patrol men de blytheville levy patrol men de blytheville two thousand men wanted a Cairo two thousand men wanted a Cairo a hundred thousand men River he said every branch of the service down the river to help the sleepless engineers fight a battle on a 2,000 mile from the Army in the Navy the Coast Guard in the Marine Corps the CCC and the WPA the Red Cross in the health service or at night and day to hold the old river off the valley food and water needed at Louisville 500 5000 ill food and water needed at Cincinnati food and medicine needed at Lawrenceburg 35,000 homeless in Evansville food and medicine needed in Aurora pooled in medicine and shelter and clothing 750,000 down in the valley last time we held deliver the Mississippi claimed haveli he backed into Tennessee and Arkansas and Illinois and Missouri she spread her arms over thousands of acres of land and she left kloms room stop drown houses torn 19 3 nineteen seven 1915 1916 15 22 1937 we built a hundred city and a thousand town that what up cost in 1930 tarnation sent help to the stricken people of the valley Congress appropriated millions to aid the flooded cities and villages and to rehabilitate the flood victims but spring and fall the water comes down and for years the old river has taken a toll from the valley more serious than ever she does in front I year in year out the water comes down down from a thousand hillside washing the top or favelas for 50 years we dug for cotton and moved west from the lan-evo for 50 years we ploughed for corn and moved on with a LAN Evo we planted and plowed with no regard to the future and 400 million tons of topsoil 400 million tons of our most valuable natural resource have been washed into the Gulf of Mexico every year and poor land makes poor people poor people make poor lamb for a quarter of a century we have been forcing more and more farmers entertainers day forty percent of all the farmers in the Great Valley are tenants ten percent a sharecroppers down on their knees in the valley a share of the crop their only security no home no land of their own aimless Footloose and impoverished unable to eat even from the land because their cash crop is their only lively credit at the store they're only reserved you and a generation growing up with no new land in the West no new continent to build a generation whose people do Kings Mountain in Shiloh a generation whose people knew Fremont and custom but a generation facing a life of debt and poverty disease and drudgery growing up without proper food medical care or school ill-clad Hill House and ill-fed and in the greatest river valley in the world I there is no such thing as an ideal river in nature but the Mississippi River is out of joint dust blowing in the West floods raging in the east we have seen these problems growing too alarming extremes when we first found the Great Valley it was forty percent forested today for every hundred acres of forests we found we have 10 left today five percent of the entire valley is ruined forever for agricultural use twenty-five percent of the topsoil has been shoved by the old river into the Gulf of Mexico today two out of five farmers in the valley are tenant farmers ten percent of them sharecroppers living in a state of squalor unknown to the poorest peasant in Europe and we are forcing 30,000 more is a tendency and cropping every year flood control of the Mississippi means control in the great Delta that miscarry all the water brought down from two-thirds the continent and control of the Delta means control of the little rivers and the great arms running down from the uplands and the old river can be controlled we had the power to take the valley apart we have the power to put it together a game in nineteen thirty three we started down on the Tennessee River when congress created the Tennessee Valley Authority an authority Commission to develop navigation flood control agriculture and industry in the valley a valley that carries more rainfall than any other in the country the valley through which the Tennessee used to roar down to Paducah in flood time with more water than any other tributary of the first came the Damned upon the clinch at the head of the river we built Nora Stan a great barrier to hold water in floods time and to release water down the river for navigation in the water season next came wheeler then guntersville and pickwick in chickamauga a series of great barriers that eventually will transform the old Tennessee into a link of freshwater pools locked and damned regulated and controlled down 650 miles to the do but you cannot plan for water unless you plan to land for the cutover mountain the eroded heel the gullet peed before their waters unchecked down to the river the CCC working with the Forest Service and agricultural experts have started to put the Warren fields and hillsides back together black walnut and pine for the worn-out peels and the Gallego sides roots for the cutover and burned over hillsides roots to hold the water in the ground black wallet and fine for the New Forest Preserve soil conservation men have worked out crop systems with the farmers of the valley props to conserve and enrich the top soil so that today a million acres of land of a Tennessee Valley are being killed scientifically staying instead of speeding the water off the ground but you cannot plan for water and land unless you plan for people down in the valley the Farm Security Administration has built the model agricultural community living in homes they themselves built paying for them on long-term rates the homesteaders will have a chance to share in the wealth of the valid more important the Farm Security Administration has loaned thousands of dollars to farmers in the valley farmers who were caught by years of depression and in need of only a state to be self-sufficient and where there's water there's power where there's water for flood control and water for navigation there's water for power Oh however the villages and cities and West Virginia North nfe in Mississippi Georgia and Alabama how to make a new Tennessee Valley for a new generation Pollock the river would you