THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



399 



passed, named a sum of $50,000,000, which showed an 

 agile handling of figures, if nothing else. 



"Serious minded advocates of irrigation, both by 

 federal government and by private enterprise, were as- 

 tonished at the general tone of hostility toward private 

 irrigation companies, as shown in the treatment of H. L. 

 Hollister, general manager of the Twin Falls Irrigation 

 and Power Company. This company has spent millions 

 in the successful watering of nearly 150,000 acres of land 

 in Idaho. The project is completed and the railroad 

 the corporation built into the territory is handling fifty 

 carloads of produce per day from the district. 



"Mr. Hollister is known throughout the West as 

 one of the ablest and squarest men in the country and 

 his company is carrying the settlers along its immense 

 works in an amount exceeding $20,000,000. Their pol- 

 icy has been to aid the settler, and no single instance can 

 be found where they have taken land away from a delin- 

 quent purchaser. Yet, in spite of the known record of the 

 Twin Falls Company, the delegates to the Irrigation 

 Congress took a rap at the concern. Mr. Hollister, 

 indignant but too self controlled to fight a mob, quietly 

 ignored the attacks made upon him." 



Mr. Morrow has charge of the townsites along the 

 line of the Chicago, Milwaukee & Puget Sound Railway 

 in Idaho and Washington. 



This is a fair sample of numerous clippings show- 

 ing sentiment in all parts of the West. 



It is the opinion of THE IRRIGATION AGE that 

 Newell, Pinchot and the representatives of some of the 

 railroads have gone too far and that the importance of 

 the irrigation congress as at present conducted is deca- 

 dent. It is predicted that after the meeting at Pueblo 

 in 1910 a new organization may be formed which will 

 be conducted in the interest of actual irrigators and 

 those connected with general irrigation development 

 rather than for a few paid government employes whose 

 terms in office are controlled by silly, persistent resolu- 

 tions passed at each congress extolling their virtues. 

 From the regularity with which resolutions favorable 

 to the Reclamation and Forestry bureaus are jammed 

 through the congress one would imagine that some sort 

 of a sop is absolutely necessary to the existence of these 

 bureau heads. 



THE IRRIGATION AGE suggests to Secre- 

 Private tary Ballinger that he investigate the 



Interests claims of the people who first started 

 Suffer. reclamation work near Yuma, Ariz. Sev- 



eral well known men of that territory, as- 

 sociated with capitalists from a northern state, invested 

 a large sum of money, but their project was killed when 

 the government officials established what is known as 

 the Yuma project above that city, thereby depriving 

 these gentlemen, so it is stated, of their rights and caus- 

 ing them to lose a large sum of money. 



Secretary Ballinger could also find an interesting 

 condition in the Owens River valley in California, where 

 both the Reclamation and Forestry bureaus have been 

 instrumental in withholding from the early settlers 

 their rights to reservoir sites and water. A careful 

 investigation of both localities would no doubt bring 

 forth some interesting facts. 



The Seventeenth National Irrigation Con- 

 Third gress had a surprise sprung on it by the 

 Termers' Reclamation and Forestry bureaus in the 

 Idiotic Action, selection of a co-worker in both branches, 



B. A. Fowler of Arizona, as President. 

 Mr. Fowler has always played into the hands of Messrs. 

 Newell and Pinchot and in return has received all en- 

 couragement and appointments that could be thrown his 

 way. 



Mr. Fowler has had various ambitions in times 

 past. He was defeated for congress from Arizona a few 

 years ago. One incident which shows how the winet 

 blows was the open applause by Mr. Fowler and Presi- 

 dent Barstow during the addresses by Pinchot and 

 Newell while they were acting as officers of the congress. 

 This was, to say the least, undignified and inexcusable. 

 If Theodore Roosevelt had anticipated that this group 

 would perform such raw work in exploiting the third 

 term idea he would have forestalled it. But Theodore 

 was in Uganda. Oh, Uganda, how much of the strife 

 of men and nations reaches the forests of thy remote 

 interior? Oh, Barstow, Fowler. Newell and Pinchot, 

 Uganders. 



To Store 

 Rio Grande 

 Flood 

 Waters. 



In special dispatches from San Antonio, 

 Texas, statement is made that plans have 

 been matured in the lower Rio Grande 

 Valley for the most gigantic irrigation 

 project in the southwest. 

 The flood waters of the Rio Grande will be di- 

 verted to an artificial lake, which will hold two billion 

 cubic feet of water. Although the immense flow of the 

 Rio Grande makes any danger of exhaustion a matter 

 too remote for consideration, nevertheless the Mexican 

 government, under the peculiar treaty which may cause 

 trouble at some future day, has claimed its share of the 

 waters of the Rio Grande, and this immense project is 

 designed as a safeguard. Twice a year the Rio Grande 

 is in flood, flowing in three or four times its usual vol- 

 ume. These flood waters will be caught and the lake 

 thus formed will irrigate 150,000 acres and provide 

 homes for about twenty-five thousand families. 



A few miles in from the river proper, at the bend 

 where this reservoir is to be located, is a chain of lakes 

 and recesses, evidently ancient beds of the river. These 

 recesses are already partly filled with water in flood 

 times. 



