President Roosevelt, having served the banking situation with dispatch, concerns himself in the current Tennessee Valley project with matters quite as vast, but far less debatable. That the national investment in Muscle Shoals has remained too long in an inchoative stage is a criticism which few would care to dispute. And that flood control is not a quixotic dream the most superficial reveiw of British engineering on the Nile makes very clear. In detail, the Presidential message is sound and desirable enough; but in the abstract, a few uncomfortable difficulties arise.

The principal concrete objection is the very old, and apparently very reasonable one of the minority whose irrigating water would be diverted. Any governmental attempt at water control is anteceded by pioneer projects instituted by individuals; and their unwillingness to dessicate their holdings in the interests of what is, in this case, a rather hypothetical influx of activity, is not difficult to appreciate. But the real obstacle is the popular disapproval of subsidizing the development of regional industry in competition with the unassisted industry of other areas.

The President, silent on the matter, probably proposes to conduct the Tennessee development in such a manner that neither school of rugged individualists will be injured. But state socialism, in a form howsoever diluted, cannot be imposed on the American commercial structure without real basic reform. The Farm Relief Bill is a hoary example, but it still serves to illustrate that the importance of this issue is greater than the President seems to appreciate.