EDITORIAL 



637 



ceded. The Interior Office admits it, 

 and the President says, "The Forest 

 Service is much better able, with its 

 trained men, to do the work with effi- 

 ciency and economy." 



Nevertheless, it has been discovered 

 that this method is "illegal" and there- 

 fore must be stopped until Congress 

 chooses to act, whatever fires may, 

 meanwhile, consume the Coeur d'Alene 

 or other Indian forests. 



Apropos of this question of legality, 

 note the following passage from For- 

 ester Pinchot's letter to Secretary Wil- 

 son on July 23 last : 



"But lest the Forest Service might be 

 thought to have acted hastily in recom- 

 mending the plan for cooperation to 

 you for approval, I have the honor to 

 report that its legality was fully con- 

 sidered in both departments at the time 

 it was agreed upon ; that the auditor 

 for the Department of the Interior has 

 approved the accounts under it since 

 cooperation began ; and that similar 

 cooperation between departments is now 

 and has long been in existence." 



J^ «t' )^ 



The Cooperative Certificates "Illegal" 



MENTION has before been made in 

 these columns of the cooperative 

 plan whereby users of water rights on 

 lands irrigated by the Reclamation 

 Service paid in part for their rights 

 with their labor, receiving therefor cer- 

 tain "certificates." 



These certificates were adopted to 

 meet a pressing and imperative need on 

 the reclamation projects. 



The settler, to hold his claim, was re- 

 quired to occupy it while waiting for 

 water. This might involve two or three 

 years of waiting, during which time he 

 could make nothing out of the land, and 

 could not leave it to earn a living else- 

 where. 



The eflfect on a multitude of settlers 

 was intolerable. They begged the 

 privilege of constructing irrigation 

 ditches themselves, receiving from the 

 Government some form of evidence 

 that they had performed this work, and 

 being credited with the same against 



their future obligations to the Govern- 

 ment for water. 



To the profound satisfaction of the 

 reclamation communities these certifi- 

 cates, known locally as "scrip," were 

 authorized, and the settlers were per- 

 mitted to work on the ditches. 



As is well known, these certificates, 

 and the cooperative arrangement which 

 they represented, have gone down be- 

 fore the strict-construction steam-roller. 



The question of their legality was 

 referred to Attorney General Wicker- 

 sham, and by him decided adversely. 



Before consigning these certificates 

 finally to the dust of oblivion, a little 

 history should be narrated. 



This cooperative plan was not 

 adopted hastily nor without advice. As 

 noted last month, it was first carefully 

 considered by the Secretary of the In- 

 terior, the Director of the Reclamation 

 Service, and the Assistant Attorney 

 General for the Interior Department. 



After the plan had been in operation 

 some three months it was taken up by 

 the Senate Committee on Irrigation and 

 the Reclamation of Arid Lands. 



On May 18, 1908, a hearing relative 

 to the certificates was had before this 

 committee, and the results published. 

 No action, however, was taken regard- 

 ing the certificates save to suggest a 

 slight change in their phraseology. 



Now the present Attorney General 

 has declared the plan illegal, the princi- 

 pal reason given being that it consti- 

 tutes "a system for borrowing labor 

 and material, and making the Govern- 

 ment the debtor to intending settlers," 

 thus violating the law providing that 

 "no project shall be entered upon until 

 there is money enough in the Reclama- 

 tion Fund to pay for the project or 

 parts thereof contracted for." 



What are the facts? 



The maximum ohli^^ation incurred by 

 the Reclamation Service on account of 

 these certiHcatcs has never e.rcceded 

 $400,000, over a_s:aiiist which there has 

 ahvays been in the Treasury to the 

 credit of the Reclamation Fund ap- 

 proximately $1,000,000 available for 

 reclamation work. 



