IRRIGATION PRINCIPLES. 



IV. CONTROL ENTERPRISE. 

 BY WM. HAM. HALL, MEM. AM. SOC. C. E. 



IT MUST not for a moment be thought by those 

 who may read these papers that they are written 

 with any idea of attack upon rights which have 

 accrued under existing laws in our irrigation states of 

 the arid region and Pacific Coast. Rights, whether 

 of property or of use, depending either upon riparian 

 ownership or water appropriation, are fixed in Cali- 

 fornia, for instance, and no general criticism of the 

 system on which they are founded will in the least 

 affect them, or harm the interest of those who hold 

 them. But if by analysis of that system and review 

 of its working we can get at some fundamental 

 reasons for the train of disappointments and failures 

 which is now found in the wake of irrigation progress, 

 we may do a service without inflicting a damage. 

 We may help to prevent newer irrigation states and 

 territories from going as far wrong, to their grave 

 injury, as several of the older ones have gone in this 

 field of development. We may succeed in impress- 

 ing on those who assume to lead and control irriga- 

 tion sentiment and legislation in the older irriga- 

 tion states, some points in which their leadership 

 might be bettered ; and, as the best thing which can 

 happen to men is an awakening to the fact that they 

 are not infallible, every contribution to that end 

 should be graciously received by the individuals, as 

 well as the people whose interests have been so far 

 injured by unwise leadership. Moreover, we may 

 rouse some people who are putting or have put their 

 millions into irrigation works and properties, to the 

 knowledge of the fact that there are yet other mis- 

 takes in the field than those whose realization has 

 already been forced upon them by the courts and 

 otherwise. And if we accomplish this latter object 

 without giving offense, we might hope to point out to 

 these commendably enterprising investors a course 

 of policy along which they may escape from or 

 modify retarding influences now hampering irrigation 

 growth, and avoid others which may develop with 

 time. 



It sometimes, in the course of human progress, is 

 instructive and even practically beneficial to get 

 down from horseback and walk, in order that we 

 may better appreciate the condition of the road and 

 realize the application of those fundamental prin- 

 ciples upon which it should be built and kept in 

 repair; especially, if we aspire to the office of 

 road overseer. Albeit the principles of road mak- 

 ing and maintenance are very simple. But then 

 everybody can not be thought to have been born with 

 an understanding of them, or to have subsequently 

 mastered them, or even studied the subject. Es- 

 pecially so, in the cases of those who have spent their 

 lives industriously and vigorously in other walks of 

 life. 



To drop the allegory and take up a practical illus- 

 tration suggested by it: There has been a class of 

 specialists civil engineers preaching the present 

 popular "good roads' 1 doctrine for a half-century 

 back, but with a scant attention from the general 

 public or those who have assumed to control road 

 legislation and management. Think how long under 

 such circumstances our great country has suffered 

 and its progress been retarded by bad road laws and 



*A11 rights reserved by the author. 



administration and bad roads. Yet road building is 

 an engineering art, and the economic problems of 

 roadways are engineering questions. Then realize 

 the immense awakening there has so lately come, as 

 though it were a new revelation, all over the land 

 and among people of all classes, to the omissions and 

 mistakes made in this everyday kind of development, 

 which is simplicity itself compared to that of irriga- 

 tion, as an economic problem. Finally, reflect that 

 road reform was hindered, prevented, lo, these long 

 years, by the opposition ot those to whose benefit it 

 would most inure farmers and farming land owners. 

 And when we have realized the picture we should 

 not be stampeded or put on the defensive by an invita- 

 tion from a lifelong professional friend of irrigation 

 development to study dispassionately the errors of 

 its ways; for the sooner these errors are known and 

 eliminated the earlier the great irrigation industry 

 will gain the widespread public confidence it should 

 command ; and the quicker will enterprise, founded 

 upon it, reap that return to which it is entitled. 



As a matter of fact, irrigation development in 

 America has been along lines laid for it chiefly by 

 those who had neither experience, broad observation, 

 nor special reading to guide them. Unfortunately, it 

 has been marshalled as if the problems were new to 

 mankind, and leadership needed a prophet or inven- 

 tor, rather than a student of the practical lessons of 

 development in other lands. In our ignorance on 

 this subject and our pride as a people we have 

 turned our backs on what we might have learned 

 from other countries, of irrigation organization, enter- 

 prise and economic industry. Some of those who 

 have assumed to lead in irrigation legislation, and, 

 unfortunately as it turns out, those who were hark- 

 ened to, have not led, but weakly trimmed their 

 measures to catch legislative votes enough to pass 

 them subjecting what was clearly right to what was 

 apparently politic. The country has caught the 

 result. Others, who have stepped to the front in 

 speculative enterprise, and, in so doing, set captivat- 

 ing examples, have been short-sighted in their forms 

 of organization as affecting the economic and social 

 problems involved. Especially is this the case in the 

 relation sought to be established between develop- 

 ment enterprise and irrigation under it. It is not too 

 late to correct some of these mistakes. And for this 

 purpose, let us first see how the application of funda- 

 mental principles may affect class interests, as well 

 as the general interest. 



And still again, on another point it is well to guard 

 against possible misunderstanding. In speaking 

 herein of the mistakes of irrigation enterprise and 

 the unfortunate condition of its development, in some 

 aspects, in this country, the writer implies no criti- 

 cism on irrigation industry itself, but he calls atten- 

 tion to some faults and foibles of that class of enter- 

 prise which prepares the way for irrigation the 

 construction and management of works and the 

 establishment of those business and politico-social 

 relations under which people are solicited to come 

 and settle and become irrigators. However much 

 irrigation practice has succeeded, however gratifying 

 and even wonderful its results in transforming arid 



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