360 



THE IRRIGA TION A GE. 



it is only necessary to point to the 

 personnel and record of the recent Cali- 

 fornia body. What sort of a chance 

 would the people have had, if to that 

 Legislature had been entrusted the dis- 

 position of the Government land in Cali- 

 fornia, no matter what nominal restrictions 

 might have been provided for? 



AN INCORRECT STATEMENT. 



At the close of the recent Trans-Missis- 

 sippi Congress, in Wichita, a dispatch 

 was sent out and published by the press 

 throughout the country, to the effect that 

 Gov. Murphy had won a victory, and 

 carried his point, in securing a resolution 

 favoring the cession of arid lands to the 

 States and Territories. The Resolutions 

 of the Trans-Mississippi Congress and 

 the record of its proceedings, as published 

 in the Wichita local papers, do not bear 

 out this press dispatch, that 



"The action taken had been in the 

 nature of. a compromise in committee, 

 rather more favorable to the out-and-out 

 cession of arid lands to the States than to 

 the construction of storage reservoirs by 

 Federal aid, for which $200,000,000 was 

 asked. Previous statements that the 

 resolution passed was an unqualified in- 

 dorsement of the storage reservoir plan 

 aretoo sweeping." 



As we read the resolutions, it would be 

 hard to understand how they could be 

 made any more sweeping in favor of 

 Federal storage reservoirs. The Trans- 

 Mississippi Congress at Wichita indorsed 

 and adopted in full, word for word, the 

 resolution of the National Irrigation 

 Congress, which was as follows: 



"We favor the preservation and develop- 

 ment of our national resources by the 

 construction of storage reservoirs by the 

 Federal Government, for flood protection, 

 and to save for use in aid of navigation 

 and irrigation the flood waters which now 

 run to waste and cause overflow and 

 destruction, as recommended in the 

 report of Col. Hiram M. Chittenden, and 

 we urge the adoption of the recom- 

 mendations of this report as to the con- 

 struction of storage reservoirs in the arid 

 regions as a part of the national policy of 

 internal improvements." . . . 



In substance, as shown by the Irri- 



gation Congress resolutions, indorsed and 

 adopted by the Trans-Mississippi Congress 

 at Wichita, the policy on which those 

 two Congresses have united is that the 

 Federal Government should build storage 

 reservoirs as internal improvement?; that 

 the States should be empowered to lease 

 all the grazing lands and collect the 

 revenues and expend them in the con- 

 struction of State irrigation works, leav- 

 ing the title in the Federal Government 

 until actual settlement; that wherever 

 necessary the Federal Government should 

 build the irrigation works to reclaim the 

 arid public lands, and favoring State 

 cession. 



"Only upon conditions so strict that 

 they will insure the settlement of such 

 lands by actual settlers in small tracts 

 and absolutely prevent their monopoly in 

 large bodies under private ownership." 



The resolution embodying these strict 

 conditions was passed by the Phoenix 

 session of the Irrigation Congress, and 

 again passed at the Cheyenne session last 

 September, and introduced in the Trans- 

 Mississippi Congress at Wichita by 

 George H. Maxwell, of California, with 

 the other Irrigation Congress resolution. 

 GOV. MURPHY'S RESOLUTION DEFEATED. 



Gov. Murphy, of Arizona, introduced 

 the following resolutions: 



''Resolved, that the General Govern- 

 ment should, by Congressional act, relin- 

 quish jurisdiction and ownership of the 

 arid lands, and cede them to the States 

 and Territories wherein they are situated, 

 and this Congress requests the Congress 

 of the United States to pass the proper 

 act ceding the arid lands to the States and 

 Territories in which they lie." 



This resolution was not adopted, but 

 the resolution of the Irrigation Congress, 

 as to cession under stringent restrictions 

 and conditions, introduced .by Mr. Max- 

 well, was adopted, without change of 

 word, by the Trans-Mississippi Congress, 

 and the dispatch above referred to is 

 manifestly erroneous when it states that 

 "the result was conceded to be a virtual 

 victory for Gov. Murphy." . . . 



The contest in the Trans-Mississippi 



