THE IEEIGATION AGE. 



49 



HON. F. W. MONDELL ON LAND LAW REPEAL 

 RESOLUTIONS. 



The News-Journal, New Castle (Wyoming), prints 

 the following under date of November 25 : 



"Congressman Mondell was asked by the reporter 

 for the News-Journal whether, in his opinion, the 

 resolution recently adopted at the National Irrigation 

 Congress, held at El Paso, favoring repeal of the 

 Timber and Stone Act, the Desert Land Act, and the 

 Commutation Clause of the Homestead Law, would 

 'have any influence" on Congressional action. 



"Congressman Mondell said: 



" 'I do not think it will. The action taken by the 

 late Irrigation Congress at El Paso was discounted 

 in advance. It was a part of the scheme of the re- 

 pealers to secure a meeting at El Paso in order that 



climax of inconsistency this Congress, meeting in a 

 non-public land State just across the Rio Grande from 

 foreign territory, recommended the repeal of those 

 laws which are the principal sources of income of the 

 National Irrigation Law. If the recommendation of 

 the Congress were enacted into law not a single new 

 enterprise could be started under the National Irri- 

 gation Law and those already projected and for which 

 only partial apportionments have been made from the 

 Irrigation fund would remain incompleted. The en- 

 tire procedure is conclusive of the fact, well under- 

 stood by those who have studied the methods of Mr. 

 Maxwell's land grant land law repeal bureau, that it 

 is and has been from the beginning hostile to the aims, 

 purposes and provisions of the National Irrigation 

 Law. 



>ASO, TEXAS. 



the land grant lobby, which had no end of railroad 

 transportation to distribute, might pack the Congress 

 with the view of securing the passage of such resolu- 

 tions as they desired. It has been notorious for months 

 that Mr. Maxwell, head of the land grant railway re- 

 peal bureau, and those in his pay, were drumming up 

 delegates largely from States where irrigation is not 

 practiced and to which the National Irrigation Law 

 does not apply, and oifering free transportation to 

 El Paso and return for such delegates as would vote 

 for anything that Mr. Maxwell proposed. Those dele- 

 gates not favorable to the schemes of the repeal bureau 

 paid their fare or stayed at home. The outcome was 

 just what all who were conversant with the situation 

 had expected. 



" 'While the discussions in the Congress largely 

 related to the work under the National Irrigation Law, 

 the meeting was held in Texas where the law does not 

 apply and on the border of Mexico, and to cap the 



" 'In view of the fact that the objects of the 

 Maxwell-Boothe repeal crowd are well understood the 

 true friends of the National Irrigation Law can view 

 with equanimity the ridiculous attitude in which their 

 packed Irrigation Congress placed itself in recom- 

 mending the cutting off of the sources of income of 

 the National Irrigation fund before a single acre of 

 land has been reclaimed under it.'" 



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