THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



13 



PROF. ELWOOD MEAD'S REPLY TO GEO. H. 

 MAXWELL'S ATTACK. 



An open letter to the delegates to the .National 

 Irrigation Congress at Colorado Springs, October 6-9, 

 1902. 



WASHINGTON, D. C., October 15, 1902. 



GENTLEMEN : Those of you who were present at the 

 Wednesday evening session of the Congress will recall 

 that after my statement of what the Department of 

 Agriculture is doing for irrigation an address was made 

 by Mr. George H. Maxwell criticising the irrigation work 

 of this Department. The lateness of the hour and my 

 enforced departure before the next session of the Con- 

 gress prevented any reply at the time, although I very 

 much desired to make this becaiise silence on my part 

 might be construed to be an acquiescence in his state- 

 ments. Since then, I have concluded, in justice to Sec- 

 retary Wilson and the work under my charge, to reply 

 to the portion of his address which is regarded as un- 

 called for and unfair, and this can be most conveniently 

 done in an open letter. 



Although several of Mr. Maxwell's criticisms were 

 by implication' rather than by direct statement, the im- 

 pression which he sought to convey seemed to be : 



That I had, officially and otherwise, opposed the pas- 

 sage of the National irrigation act. 



That the Department is carrying on a propaganda 

 to force other arid States to adopt the Wyoming code 

 of irrigation laws. 



The paragraph which he objected to will be found 

 on page XCII of the Secretary's report for 1901 : 



"If the States are to control the water supplies, 

 there should be satisfactory assurance that whatever is 

 made available by public funds shall benefit the actual 

 users of water and not enrich the holders of speculative 

 rights. In some States there is such assiirance. These 

 States are entitled to National aid, because it is known 

 from present conditions that such aid would be clearly 

 beneficial. But there are other arid States where the 

 doctrine of riparian rights jeopardizes the success of 

 every irrigation work now built, as well as any works 

 which the Government might build. In other States 

 rights have been established to many times the existing 

 supply, yet there is nothing to prevent new claims being 

 filed, new diversions made, and unending litigation over 

 the conflicts thus created. For the Government to 

 provide an additional supply on these streams before 

 existing controversies are settled would simply aggravate 

 and intensify the evils of the present situation. What- 

 ever aid Congress extends should be conditioned on the 

 enactment of proper irrigation codes by the States, and 

 be made to promote the greater efficiency and success of 

 such laws rather than interfere with their operation." 



No one will question that this deals with one of the 

 most important problems of Western irrigation and that, 

 if the facts are a-s stated by the Secretary, it was his 

 duty to submit them to Congress and the Nation. To 

 have withheld this information would have subjected 

 the Secretary to just criticism, because it has a vital 

 relation to any irrigation legislation. The only question 

 which can be raised 'regarding this paragraph in the 

 Secretary's report is as to whether or not the conditions 

 described exist. Mr. Maxwell said they do not. In this, 

 he is contradicted by President Roosevelt, whose support 

 of National irrigation he cannot well question, and who, 

 in his first message to Congress, describes these con- 

 ditions in stronger language than Secretary Wilson used. 

 I desire that everv one interested in this discussion shall 



compare the following quotation from President Roose- 

 velt's message with the above paragraph in Secretary 

 Wilson's report, in order that there may be no mistake 

 regarding their agreement : (The italics in this and all 

 other quotations are mine.) 



"Whatever the Nation does for the extension of irri- 

 gation should harmonize with, and tend to improve, the 

 condition of those now living on irrigated land. We are 

 not at the starting point of this development. Over two 

 hundred millions of private capital has alreadv been ex- 

 pended in the construction of irrigation works, and many 

 million acres of arid land reclaimed. A high degree of 

 enterprise and ability has been shown in the work itself; 

 but as much cannot be said in reference to the laws re- 

 lating thereto. The security and value of the homes 

 created depend largely on the stability of titles to water ; 

 but the majority of these rest on the uncertain founda- 

 tion of court decisions rendered in ordinary suits at law. 

 With a few creditable exceptions, the arid States have 

 failed to provide for the certain and just division of 

 streams in times of scarcity. Lax and uncertain laws 

 have made it possible to establish rights to water in excess 

 of actual uses or necessities, and many streams have al- 

 ready passed into private ownership, or a control equiva- 

 lent to ownership. 



Whoever controls a stream practically controls the 

 land it renders productive, and the doctrine of pri- 

 vate ownership of water apart from land cannot prevail 

 without causing enduring wrong. The recognition of 

 such ownership, has been permitted to grow up in the arid 

 regions, should give way to a more enlightened and larger 

 recognition of the rights of the public in the control and 

 disposal of the public water supplies. Laws founded 

 upon conditions obtaining in humid regions, where water 

 is too abundant to justify hoarding it, have no proper 

 application in a dry country. 



In the arid States the only right to water which 

 should be recognized is that of use. In irrigation this 

 right should attach to the land reclaimed and be insep- 

 arable therefrom. Granting perpetual water rights to 

 others than users, without compensation to the public, 

 is open to all the objections which apply to giving away 

 perpetual franchises to the public utilities of cities. 

 A few. of the Western States have already recognized 

 this, and have incorporated in their constitutions the 

 doctrine of perpetual State ownership of water.'' 



If Secretary Wilson's statement is untrue, the Presi- 

 dent's message is untrue, but both are true. They are 

 supported by the reports of the State engineers of Colo- 

 rado, Nebraska, Utah and Idaho, and by Mr. Maxwell's 

 own State, and by the action of the Water and Forest 

 Association. In a petition addressed to the Secretary 

 of Agriculture, asking for an investigation of the water- 

 right problems of California, signed by the Director of 

 the California State experiment station, by the President 

 of Leland Stanford University, by the Manager of the 

 State board of trade, by the President of the San Fran- 

 cisco Savings Union, the Bank of California, the Cali- 

 fornia Academy of Sciences, and by a large number of 

 the leading business and professional men of San Fran- 

 cisco, the following statement is made : 



"We respectfully submit that nowhere in America 

 are there irrigation problems more important, more in- 

 tricate, or more pressing than in California. Neither are 

 there any whose study would be more greatly instructive. 

 We can offer, we presume, examples of every form of 

 evil which can be found in Anglo.-Saxon dealings with 

 water in arid and semi-arid districts. Great sums have 



