RIO GRANDE IRRIGATION. 



THE HISTORY OF AX OFFICIAL CRIME. WHY 

 AMERICAN INVESTMENTS ARE 

 BOYCOTTED IN EUROPE. 



We have also touched upon one sad feature and it is one which we found little 

 pleasure in handling. That is the shameful corruption which lately crept into our 

 politics. But I have a great, strong faith'in a noble future for my country. A vast 

 majority of the people are straightforward and honest, and this state of things is 

 stirring them to action. If it would only keep on stirring until it became the habit 

 of their lives to attend to the politics of the country personally, and ,put only their 

 very best men into positions of trust and authority! That day will come.' ? Mark 

 Twain'? Preface to the "Gilded 1 Age." 



American industrial securities were for many years so exception- 

 ally popular with European investors, British investors particularly, 

 that the present uncompromising, widespread prejudice against Amer- 

 ican undertakings seeking capital abroad, demands some attempt at 

 explanation. Possibh* the following particulars of departmental 

 juggling with America's reputation for probity and good faith may 

 serve to throw some light on the question, and, if taken as an example 

 of American official methods largely explains why it is that the United 

 States as a field for the investment of cheap European capital has 

 been so completely abandoned in favor of Canada, Mexico, Argentina 

 and other South American countries, South Africa and Australasia. 



It has long been recognised that the two things needful to insure 

 the prosperous advancement of the Rio Grande Valley in southern 

 New Mexico and western Texas, admittedly the finest fruit and vine 

 growing section of the North American continent, are 



1. A comprehensive and scientific system of irrigation, including 

 suitable and adequate means for conserving the vast volume 

 of flood waters hitherto allowed to flow unused down the Rio 

 Grande to the Gulf of Mexico and 



2. A legitimate means of interesting capital in the development 

 of the valley's exceptional agricultural possibilities so long 

 dormant. 



Many other sections of the arid belt in the United States, notably 

 in southern California, Colorado, Arizona and Utah, less favored by 

 nature than the Rio Grande Valley, have, within a few years, been 

 transformed from comparatively unproductive wildernesses, support- 

 ing but sparse populations, into prosperous rapidly growing commun- 

 ities, while the Rio Grande Valley, deservedly described as the Nile 

 Valley of America, with all its vast potentialities for the production 



