IRRIGATION, POLITICS, AND SECTIONALISM 87 



and beautiful Valley ; and they will come to 

 stay, too. 



It may seem a far cry from irrigation to 

 politics, but in truth it is never a far cry to 

 politics anywhere on this side the water. In 

 every condition and phase of life there is to 

 be found the influence of politics in their 

 too common guise the curse of this fair land. 

 At this hour quite a little furore is raging 

 anent the publication in a well-known Eastern 

 magazine of testimony by public - school 

 teachers, going to prove how hopelessly they 

 are at the mercy of the professional politician, 

 and if they, how much more their luckless 

 pupils ! The wiseacres, many of whom 

 have for years been blindly extolling a public- 

 school system which to the humble observer 

 long since acquainted with its ways, devious 

 and corrupt, and its results, poor and unsatis- 

 factory, looked amazingly imperfect these 

 wiseacres are now wailing and crying : ' How 

 can such things be in a free country?' But 

 they are, and have been for years, and their 

 sudden unearthing is the result of a slowly 

 growing dissatisfaction on the part of the 

 best citizens, not perhaps with the system, 



