requires the combined efforts of national and state governments,
as well as of local communities and individuals.

Levees have been built along some of our rivers that are subject
to flood, notably the lower Mississippi, where the work has been
done by the joint action of the states affected, through their
local levee boards and their state boards of engineers, and the
United States Mississippi River Commission. The United States
government has spent large sums for river improvements, but there
is a general feeling that the money has not always been wisely
spent. At all events the work has been restricted to navigable
streams under the power of the national government to regulate
interstate commerce. Recently, however, the President has approved
a law passed by Congress appropriating $45,000,000 for the control
of the floods of the Mississippi by improvements from the
headwaters of the river to the mouth of the Ohio. The law also
includes the appropriation of $5,000,000 for the protection of the
Sacramento Valley in California. This law was passed under the
power given to Congress by the Constitution "to lay and collect
taxes...for the common defense and general welfare of the United
States" (Art. I, sec. 8, clause i).

WORK OF THE UNITED STATES WEATHER BUREAU

Great saving of property has been effected by the United States
Weather Bureau. The work of this Bureau is wonderful, but it is
not mysterious. Just as the movements of a ship or of a railroad
train may be reported day by day, and hour by hour, by telegraph,
so the appearance and movement of a storm center or of a cold wave
or of a flood are reported from a multitude of observing stations.