262 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



The 



It is the proud boast of the press that it 



_., stands for the interests of the dear people, 



and exposes schemes detrimental to their 



welfare. Trulv, a laudable purpose; but 

 Thing. 



sometimes the press is worked by the 



smooth, oily, and slick promoter in applauding, in edi- 

 torials and general articles, schemes that will not bear 

 the light in the regular advertising columns. 



As a sample of the slick manipulation of the press, 

 we find in the Capital, of Topeka, Kan.. June 14, ult., a 

 glowing telegram, or special correspondence, direct from 

 Phoenix. Ariz., anent the Tonto Basin reservoir. The 

 sensational headlines are: "Plans for Irrigation Great 

 Canal for Arid Lands in Arizona Enormous Enter- 

 prise A Three Million Dollar Reservoir Is Only the 

 Corner Stone of a Gigantic Scheme of Development." 



We feel inclined to say : "Phew !" at this appalling 

 enormity, but when we investigate and find that the 

 "Special" to the Topeka paper was a clipping from the 

 St. Louis Globe-Democrat, we say: "Pshaw! another ad- 

 vertising dodge of the lively George." It reads like a 

 patent medicine ad. that fools the reader by its interest- 

 ing, perhaps sensational, beginning, and falls flat when 

 he discovers it to be nothing but an ad. 



To learn something new about the Great 

 Rip Van Bounding, Pulsating West, something 

 Winkle positively new and unique, one must scan 



Wakes Up. the columns of the eastern newspapers. 



The Brooklyn Citizen, in a recent is- 

 sue, ventured to express an opinion upon the subject of 

 irrigation, which is charmingly ingenuous, withal non- 

 committal. 



After mentioning the fact that the government is 

 taking steps to carry out the promises of the National 

 irrigation Act. and is about to redeem 600,000 acres of 

 arid lands at a cost of about $7,000,000, the Citizen 

 turns on its psychological calcium light thus : 



"What may be grown on these lands remains to. be 

 seen ; but as the only thing they lack to make them pro- 

 ductive of something in the way of vegetation is a suf- 

 ficiency of water, it is not unlikely that when that is 

 supplied they will yield crops far greater in value in a 

 single year than all the money spent on them for irriga- 

 tion by the government, added to what the farmers who 

 work them will expend for cultivation." 



We should say. To estimate that antediluvian re- 

 searches are limited to the great west, when there are 

 mastodons to be had right on the surface in Brooklyn ! 

 The humor of this appears in a paragraph immediately 

 following the above : 



"This calculation is based on the results of irriga- 

 tion elsewhere. For instance, the cost of the irrigation 

 works already in operation in eleven states, including 

 those above named, with California, Idaho, New Mexico, 

 Oregon, Utah and Washington, was $64,289,601, and the 



yield in 1900 of hay, cereals, vegetables and fruits on 

 the lands treated, aggregated $84,433,438 ; and this on 

 an area of about 7,260,000 acres." 



With 550,000,000 acres more to be redeemed, the 

 market garden prospects in and about Brooklyn seem to 

 be in a fair way of being overshadowed, or run out of 

 the game entirely. 



The reader will find in another column the 

 Light first chapter of "An Expose," in the mat- 



in a ter of The San Carlos vs. The Tonto Res- 



Dark Place, ervoir, prepared by Hon. Thos. F. 

 Weedin, of Florence, Ariz., editor of the 

 Arizona Blade. 



Mr. Weedin's article will prove interesting reading 

 to those who ha-ve heard heretofore mere muttering 

 thunder, and perhaps open the eyes of many to an as- 

 tonishing condition of things connected with the manip- 

 ulating the irrigation act of Congress for private pur- 

 poses. 



History demonstrates that few government enter- 

 prises intended for the benefit of the people, have ever 

 been carried on for the purposes intended, until some 

 syndicate headed by a few private parties, operating 

 through facile government agents, have sufficiently 

 crammed their pockets, and then the general public, the 

 people, have been kindly permitted to come in and take 

 the leavings. 



The country has grown too big, become too thickly 

 settled for the old successful land schemes to attain suc- 

 cess, because by the simple method of organization, they 

 can be either nipped in the bud by publicity or the gov- 

 ernment forced to take a hand in their suppression. The 

 political pull of an organization composed of 75,000 

 actual settlers demanding an honest application of the 

 land and irrigation laws of the United States, and of 

 the small states, is too strong to be general, for it could 

 make itself felt in local, state, and national affairs to 

 some purpose. 



After the dust of the first Oklahoma boom had set- 

 tled, it was discovered that more land locations had been 

 sold than there were locations mapped out, and that the 

 money received by somebody in excess of that lawfully 

 allowed to be collected, amounted to about one hundred 

 and twenty-five thousand dollars. Of course, those 

 who paid the government their money on fictitious loca- 

 tions, had only to demand it back and the beneficent 

 government would return it. But it did not. The 

 "government" happened to be vested in certain officials 

 who raised the question that the money was a voluntary 

 payment and therefore could not be recovered ; that ig- 

 norance of the fact was no protection, and that a gov- 

 ernment official acting as such was the government and 

 could do no wrong. These points have been sustained 

 by the courts, and the defrauded got their moneys' 

 worth in experience and the government that is, the 

 official understrappers kept the money. 



