200 



THE IRKIGATION AGE. 



correspondence; with having gone into the district 

 after the Reclamation engineers had entered the field, 

 and by means of lapsed and illegal appropriations of 

 water, attempted to obstruct the Government, etc. 

 These statements were afterward admitted to be erro- 

 neous. 



An offer was made by the I. L. and I. Company to 

 submit to arbitration the valuation of its property, or 

 to the decision of the Court of Claims, both of which 

 were denied, but instead, a committee of engineers, in 

 the selection of whom it was allowed no voice, was 

 sent down to view the premises, hear evidence and report 

 to the Honorable Secretary of the Interior. They re- 

 ported that the system was a physical and financial fail- 

 ure, and recommended the payment of $45,000, on con- 

 dition that the payee out of that amount, would settle 

 for water certificates issued, amounting to the par value 

 of over $130,000. 



The eighth section of the Reclamation Act pro- 

 vides that the work to be done under it should not in- 

 terfere with the laws of any State or Territory relating 

 to the control, appropriation, use or distribution of 

 water used in irrigation, or any vested right acquired 

 thereunder. In vain has this provision of the law been 

 appealed to, to protect those whose money and labor 

 have gone into what is better known as the "Ludy Canal 

 System." After financial and physical success have, 

 by the methods above recited, been made impossible, 

 this ex parte committee taunts the company with the 

 fact that it has not had strength enough to cope suc- 

 cessfully with the Federal Government with its mil- 

 lions of money and armies of men. 



Forcible possession has been taken by the engineers 

 of lands owned in fee by the I. L. and I. Company. 

 The engineers wanted to construct a levee along the 

 river. Under a provision in the patent for this land, 

 reserving a right-of-way for an irrigation canal, the 

 officers proceeded to construct the levee, claiming it to 

 be one bank of a canal. 



A precedent for this conduct is reported to have 

 been made in North Carolina, by an old justice of the 

 peace, who was applied to for a search warrant by a 

 man who had lost a turkey. After examining his form 

 book, he told the applicant that he could not find a 

 form for search warrant for a turkey, but he did find 

 one for a pig, and he proposed to issue a search war- 

 rant for a pig, and he said, "while you are pretending 

 to look for a pig, you may find your turkey." 



The private concerns engaged heretofore in re- 

 claiming that God forsaken desert are not the only suf- 

 ferers from the destructive methods used by Govern- 

 ment Engineer Lippincott and those under and over 

 him. Business stagnation and bankruptcy have suc- 

 ceeded the era of activity and prosperity which they 

 found in and have driven out of the valley. Paralyzed 

 by the presence and uplifted club of this Government 

 Goliath, the private concerns lack the heart, means or 



object to keep their properties up to efficiency. Canals 

 and ditches are becoming overgrown with willows and 

 choked with weeds, while crops are famishing for water, 

 and farms relapsing back into desert places. The own- 

 ers of these lands now realize they have let go the song 

 bird they had in hand for two vultures hovering over 

 the valley. Already they are circulating and signing a 

 petition to the Government, in which they say, among 

 other facts, that 



"Under these private systems of irrigation the 

 country was being rapidly developed up to the time 

 when the Reclamation Service came into the field, and 

 in fact continued until the uncertainties of their posi- 

 tion with reference to a final determination of their 

 rights, the private companies, not feeling justified in 

 perfecting their irrigating systems; from that time the 

 development of the valley practically ceased; without 

 a water supply the lands would deteriorate and go back 

 to their primitive conditions. These facts are self evi- 

 dent." 



Many land holders signed up with the Government 

 only after being assured that these canals would be 

 taken over and operated in the interim, and their rights 

 and improvements protected. It is said that nearly 

 every man in the town of Yuma and Yuma County has 

 signed this petition. 



Thus disappears the only palliating apology that 

 could have been made for perpetrating these wrongs, 

 viz., that if Peter was being robbed it was for the 

 benefit of Paul. Peter has not consented to the robbery, 

 and Paul now declines to be implicated, even as acces- 

 sory after the fact. 



The people who are being crucified by the policy 

 herein criticized, are as good law abiding citizens as 

 can be found in the whole United States. No one of 

 them, before this experience, could have been made to 

 believe that any department of the Federal Government, 

 in time of profound peace at home and abroad, would 

 use its power in such way as to destroy private property 

 and rights. It has been said that republics are ungrate- 

 ful. If this conduct, which seems to meet the sanction 

 of Secretary Hitchcock, is approved, it must be added 

 that republics are dishonest, and that all our constitu- 

 tional guarantees of protection to private rights, "are 

 as sounding brass and tinkling cymball." There is 

 no better school for anarchy than the oppressive use 

 of power by those who are called upon to administer 

 the affairs of government. There is no surer way to 

 make a good law unpopular than to make of it an 

 instrumentality of oppression and wrong. It is our in- 

 tention to furnish later information in detail regarding 

 the work and methods in and around Yuma and other 

 centers of Federal activity. 



