410 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



private enterprise, particularly so long as the reclamation 

 of public land is the main object of the government. 



The law is a beneficent one; it is another evidence of the 

 broad and liberal policy which has ever actuated our national 

 government in the disposition of its public lands. It differs, 

 however, from the simple homestead law in that it holds 

 out inducements only to men of sufficient industry and ca- 

 pacity to carry the added burdens of construction, mainte- 

 nance and operation, which is the cost of the lands. While 

 it is possible that persons of limited means may success- 

 fully enter and acquire irrigated lands, it will generally be 

 found that it is not a poor man's proposition, unless coupled 

 with intelligent industry in agriculture. 



The whole scheme of the act is based upon the appro- 

 priation of the proceeds of the sales of public lands in cer- 

 tain states and territories for the construction of irrigation 

 Works for the reclamation of arid and semi-arid lands therein. 

 No further appropriation by the government is intended, or 

 can be inferred from the act, and the responsibility for the 

 disbursement of the funds and the construction of the works 

 is placed upon the Secretary of the Interior. It must be 

 recognized that the government Is acting in the nature of 

 a trustee for the people in the disbursement of this fund; 

 that It must construct the works for the settlers and turn 

 TKem over at cost, and has no right to recklessly or im- 

 providently waste the fund; that cost means the cost which 

 is incurred in the exercise of common business prudence, 

 and this is likewise true of the expense of maintenance and 

 operation. 



It is also the declared purpose of this law that the Sec- 

 retary of the Interior in carrying out its provisions shall 

 proceed in conformity with the laws of the states and terri- 

 tories wherein the irrigation works are situated and Is bound 

 by these laws in respect To the appropriation and use of the 

 waters therein. 



The government, as I have said, has invested fifty mil- 

 lions of dollars in reclamation works, and by such invest- 

 ment has succeeded in irrigating over a million acres of 

 arid lands; and it may be likewise stated with fairness that 

 more than fifty million dollars have been added to the value 

 of these lands. With the additions which are contemplated 

 in the completion of irrigation works now under construction 

 and those contemplated, the increase of values will more 

 than proportionately continue and the consummation of the 

 revolving fund brought about by the return of the cost 

 of construction of present works will enable the government 

 in the course of years, where feasible projects exist, to in- 

 crease beyond calculation the wealth of the irrigable regions 

 and the continued expansion of opportunities for settlement 

 and for homes; the end to be reached only when irrigable 

 lands cease to be available. 



Lands that may be considered under cresent methods 

 non-irrigable, in the development of mechanical and electrical 

 capacity for raising water onto higher levels may be econom- 

 ically irrigable in years to come, so that no one can today 

 define the limits of possibility, as they are not the limits 

 of conceivability. This fact has been well illustrated in the 

 history of the public domain, as it has not been many years 

 since the arid and semi-arid lands of the west were con- 

 sidered worthless and denominated "desert lands." 



Thousands of acres of these lands, considered non-irriga- 

 ble, and valuable only for grazing, are now being entered and 

 utilized for dry farming as authorized by the act of congress 

 known as the "enlarged homestead act." 



Any one who has visited one or more of the reclamation 

 projects now in operation and sees on the one hand the 

 desert covered with sage brush, and barrenness, and on the 

 other, the water flowing over the fertile soil producing heavy 

 crops of grain, or orchards in fruit, appreciates to the full- 

 est extent the benefits of irrigation. 



The people of the west, therefore, who are familiar 

 with these wonderful results In irrigation are highly appre- 

 ciative of the importance of the reclamation service, but the 

 great difficulty which that service encounters is in finishing 

 the projects now undertaken as against the clamor for a 

 diversion of the funds to new fields. In this respect the 

 service has suffered in not carrying to completion a less 

 number of projects than it is now engaged In constructing. 



I cannot conceive of anything which will contribute 

 more to the permanent wealth and piosperity of the reclama- 

 tion states and territories than the continued construction 

 on the broadest possible scale of irrigation works. 



The danger, which the government Is undertaking to 

 overcome, is the establishment of small irrigation projects 

 in localities where by such establishment the larger oppor- 

 tunities are destroyed, thus preventing enormous areas of 

 lands from ever acquiring the use of water. It is quite true 

 that many small projects capable of being financed by men 

 of limited means can be carved out of larger possibilities, 

 but to encourage them means the loss of the larger possi- 

 bilities. 



For lack of funds the government is at present often 

 required to surrender possibilities in water appropriation 

 which means an enormous loss in future development of 

 irrigation works, and I fear this is not fully appreciated. 

 It is for this reason that at times private enterprises are 

 disposed to contend that the government is obstructing their 

 interests, while from the larger view their interests are ob- 

 structing greater possibilities for larger areas of irrigable 

 land. I may mention here what has frequently occurred to 

 me as a source of advantage both to the states and the 

 federal government, and that is the securing from the vari- 

 ous states of uniform legislation in the matter of the appro- 

 priation of water and its beneficial use, and also legislation 

 looking to the control and conservation of all available 

 water power. 



This congress could accomplish no greater work beyond 

 the stimulation of Interest In the development of irrigation 



than to secure uniform water regulations in the states, and 

 also uniform legislation affecting interstate waters. 



Ours is a nation of busy people, a nation of great re- 

 sources and possibilities, and most favorably situated for 

 trade and commerce. Its wealth is greater than that of any 

 single country, even of France and Germany combined, and 

 this wealth is increasing at a fabulous rate. Much of it 

 has been accumulated by the destruction, by the sacrifice and 

 waste of nature's gifts, and it is a fortuitous circumstance 

 that the country has been brought to understand the im- 

 portance of utilizing and saving our natural wealth and 

 making It possible for the nation to continue to prosper, and 

 for the generations that are to come to have some share in 

 that prosperity, especially' since no element of the nation's 

 wealth is greater than that contained in the soil. For this 

 reason, if for no other, the work of reclamation of the arid 

 and semi-arid lands of the west is worthy of first impor- 

 tance in the development of the nation's resources. Every 

 acre of irrigable land will be needed in the nation's economy. 



In a century we have passed from a purely agricultural 

 country to an industrial and commercial country, but we 

 have not outgrown the necessity for agriculture. We have, 

 of necessity, maintained agriculture, and have added to our 

 national activities, industrial and commercial progress to a 

 wonderful degree. The wealth of the nation embraces every 

 product of labor which contributes to the needs of man. The 

 dormant wealth In national resources means only resources 

 available to create wealth by intelligent effort, and I trust our 

 people will never be called upon to look with fear upon the 

 couplet of Goldsmith: 



"111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, 

 Where wealth accumulates, and men decay." 



Mr. Fairweather o.f California : Mr. President, I would 

 like to ask Mr. Secretary one question. Mr. Secretary, if 

 I understood you right in your address, you spoke as if 

 the taking of a homestead under the Reclamation Serv- 

 ice was not a poor man's job. 



Secretary Ballinger: The thought I intended to 

 convey to you was that ordinarily speaking, it is not a 

 poor man's job, as the cost of construction, maintenance 

 and operation is sometimes beyond the capacity of the 

 poor man to carry unless he couples with that industry 

 and the power of agricultural development. 



After the reading of a message from J. J. Hill, of the 

 Great Northern, congratulating the congress and advising 

 that the next gathering be held at Chicago or St. Louis, 

 A. C. Campbell, of the U. S. Department of Justice, gave 

 a talk on the legal view of water rights. Ex-Governor 

 Pardee, of California, followed with an arraignment of 

 railroads, which, by refusing sale of lands granted by the 

 government had impeded the progress of agriculture in 

 the west. It is known that the speaker, by the publica- 

 tion of interviews in the Spokane papers, had prepared for 

 an attack upon Secretary Ballinger and his release of 

 government lands, and much interest centered in these 

 parts of his address: 



I am one of those rather old-fashioned people who be- 

 lieve with Roosevelt that the time to do things is now and 

 let us talk about them afterwards, I believe with him that to 

 withdraw, for instance, from entry those lands which take 

 with them power sites and to hold them for the benefit of 

 the people, is a thing for the government of this country 

 to do. 



Much to the surprise of the people who were Interested 

 in those things in this country, almost immediately after 

 his introduction into office as secretary of the interior, Mr. 

 Ballinger put back into public entry those various parcels 

 of land which embraced a water site, and within eight 

 days, or within a very few days after the order had been 

 made, most, if not all of those sites had been grabbed, by 

 whom? By the people who will use them for the future bene- 

 fit of the people of the United States? 



I am informed that he did this because there was no spe- 

 cific law by which the secretary of the interior could do 

 those things; but Garfield did them. The then president of 

 the United States patted Garfleld on the back for having done 

 that, and the present president of the United States, fortun- 

 ately after the damage had been done, ordered the secrtary 

 of the interior, Mr. Ballinger, to withdraw again from pub- 

 lic entry those lands which were left and had not been 

 grabbed because they did not contain power sites and let me 

 say that Mr. Taft, before he became president of the United 

 States, had quite a reputation among the common, every-day, 

 ordinary people of the country as being quite a lawyer. 



In rendering these decisions, the present secretary of 

 the interior, Mr. Ballinger, has reversed his predecessor, 

 Mr. Garfield, whose loyalty to the principles of government 

 reclamation has never been questioned. It is true that 

 Secretary Ballinger made his ruling on the ground that there 

 was no specific law which permitted his predecessor. Secre- 

 tary Garfield, to thus withdraw from entry public lands. But 

 It is not to be denied that Secretary Garfleld and his legal 

 advisers thought he was acting within the law, and that the 

 president, Mr. Taft, has ordered that no more of the lands 

 Mr. Garfleld withdrew from entry shall be restored to entry 

 until an executive order to that effect has been made. And 

 Mr. Taft, before he became president, had quite a reputa- 

 tion as a lawyer. 



