AN EXPENSIVE WHIM

That corpse, the Florida Ship Canal, several times the subject of a merciless autopsy in the House and Senate, is once again dragged from its peaceable, much-deserved rest. Its history, never particularly edifiing, has now become a story of obstinacy and foolishness.

Neither the Geological Survey, a board of Army, engineers, a W.P.A. committee had any use whatsoever for the project. Even the abject House, for once, baulked at initialing the plan. The most ringing denunciation came from the Senate, where Senator Vandenburg introduced masses of damaging testimony, demanded and received the support of his colleagues in casting out the measure implementing the project, which had already been started by presidential fiat.

But yesterday comes a full-panoplied report from another Army board which reversed, most opportunely for the President, the findings of its own engineers. Even in these days of governmental terminology, $170,000,000 represents a large sum, whether the money is for a presidential whim or not. The canal, indeed, is not even partially self-liquidating, for no tolls will be charged. It is a very notable fact even the ship-owners--the supposed beneficiaries--register a complete lack of enthusiasm for the project. Objections by the Geological Survey, raised in connection with the canal's probable effect upon the water table which makes Southern Florida a fruit-growing paradise, are suddenly and without adequate explanation ruled out of order.

The Canal, in addition to being very expensive and practically useless, might well be a positive danger to established industries. The position taken by the President in this instance cannot be regarded favorably, for there can be little doubt as to the motivating force behind the sudden revival of a program long fancied by Mr. Roosevelt. Indeed, the whole conduct of the affair smacks too much of a spoiled child deprived of a cherished plaything. Unquestionably the people have given the President a large, if ill-defined mandate, but this project was certainly anything but an integral part of it. Not once but several times it was shown to be contrary to the will of the people, their representatives, the press, the shipowners themselves, and a large and thoroughly competent body of experts.

Every indication points to an administration sortie into Congress with the Canal in tow. And not far behind lurks the dismal shade of its twin blunder, the Passamaquoddy project. President Roosevelt, this time, undoubtedly has the power and prestige to browbeat a subservient Congress into a receptive mood. To do so, however, would be an appalling abuse of trust and confidence.