THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



247 



EXPLAINS MISTAKES. 



The editor of IRRIGATION AGE is quoted in the 

 Lewiston (Idaho) Tribune, of recent date, as follows: 



D. H. Anderson, editor of THE IRRIGATION AGE, 

 of Chicago, 111., visited in Lewiston yesterday en route 

 to the coast. In an interview last evening with a Trib- 

 une reporter, Mr. Anderson said: 



"I have come here attracted by the widespread rep- 

 utation which your territory has attained for its pro- 

 ductiveness. The inland empire and Lewiston-Clarks- 

 ton are largely quoted throughout the country, and my 

 impression is that you have here the base for a popula- 

 tion of upward of 50,000 in the near future. The peo- 

 ple of the East are just beginning to realize the impor- 

 tance of this famous section of the inland empire, 

 where 33 per cent of the wheat of the Northwest finds 

 an outlet and market. I am informed by those who 

 are competent to speak that the territory adjacent to 

 your city will produce at no distant day 25,000,000 

 bushels of wheat, and, this being true, it is easy to real- 

 ize the possibilities in the way of commercial and polit- 

 ical development. One feature especially noticeable to 

 one who has studied the development of eastern cities 

 is the perhaps oft-quoted comparison of your location 

 with Pittsburg, being at the head of navigation with 

 water open to the Pacific coast. You are, moreover, in 

 close proximity to mineral deposits of quantity sufficient 

 to enrich a nation, while your possibilities in the way 

 of timber and coal productions are, I am informed, un- 

 limited. There are other features your great fruit 

 production, immense granite and marble deposits, all 

 of which should produce untold wealth in the not dis- 

 tant future. Taken all in all, I believe no western city 

 possesses advantages exceeding those of Lewiston- 

 Clarkston. 



RECLAMATION LAW. 



"The original intent of the reclamation law, as its 

 friends understood it, was to reclaim areas and develop 

 territory impossible to private capital ; that is to say, it 

 was expected that the engineers in charge would under- 

 take great storage projects and go into fields considered 

 of too great magnitude for timid individual investors 

 for the field of private enterprise. At 'the time the 

 reclamation law was under consideration several changes 

 were made, among them one clause to the effect that 

 money secured under the law could also be used in giv- 

 ing assistance to private projects then in operation 

 which had been able to secure only a partial water sup- 

 ply. This clause, it is charged by those who have fol- 

 lowed development work, had been taken advantage 

 of and in one case, that of the Salt River scheme in 

 Arizona, it is asserted that the cost of the Roosevelt 

 dam and accompanying expenses, something like $3,000,- 

 000 has worked to the direct benefit of those holding 

 land under it, in so far as to bring the land values up 

 so that it has permitted many holders to unload at a 

 heavy advance on people who must comply with 'signed 

 water user's contract,' those from whom they purchased 

 stepping out from under with a large profit made pos- 

 sible by the United States reclamation service officials. 

 There could, of course, be no serious objection raised to 

 this move if not for the fact that it has been shown that 

 the same amount of money, had it been expended in an- 



other section of Arizona (the San Carlos project) would 

 have reclaimed at least 360,000 acres of virgin land, 

 which would have thereby been thrown open to settle- 

 ment to the hungry homeseekers whom this service is 

 supposed to assist. If this is true, does it not lead one 

 to wonder why the Salt River or Roosevelt site was 

 selected instead? 



"This is only one of the many similar instances 

 where it would appear that private rather than public 

 interest has been subserved. 



"I believe that it would be wise on the part of Con- 

 gress to throw around the expenditure of this vast sum 

 of money, amounting in all to thirty or forty million 

 dollars, all possible safeguards. Instead of the expendi- 

 ture of this vast sum being left to the discretion of 

 one or two subordinate individuals, would it not be bet- 

 ter that it be placed in the hands of a competent board 

 composed of able engineers and business men, such as 

 obtains in connection with the work being done on the 

 Panama Canal? 



FOREST RESERVE DATA. 



"I observe that your Senator Heyburn is making a 

 clean fight against the encroachments of the forest bu- 

 reau whereby something like fifteen or eighteen millions 

 of acres of your best land will be completely lifted from 

 the market. Some of the papers of the State of Idaho 

 I notice are trying to give the impression that the dis- 

 tinguish senator stands alone in his position. If I, 

 as an alien, may be permitted to express my opinion, I 

 would say that the senator is not alone and it may be 

 learned by your good people later on that a more care- 

 ful scrutiny of the action of 'Forest King' Pinchcot 

 and his band of assistants would at this time be valu- 

 able; one feature that should not be overlooked is that 

 all this vast sum of money, secured under the leasing 

 laws and for the sale of timber from the 'reserves,' is 

 not turned in as is other money to the treasury of the 

 United States, but is held as a separate fund, a 'revolv- 

 ing affair,' and, as I understand the matter, this distribu- 

 tion is entirely at the disposal of the officials of the 

 forest bureau. No one for a moment questions the in- 

 tegrity of the head of that bureau, even though they 

 may at times be inclined to differ with him concerning 

 his ability to wisely expend that vast sum of money 

 without being subject to the ordinary methods adopted 

 by the Government in safeguarding its expenditures of 

 public funds. There is probably no other man in the 

 public service who is given such wide latitude, unless, 

 possibly, the President himself. When it is considered 

 that negotiations for the purchase of large quantities 

 of lumber running into millions of feet, as well as the 

 grazing privileges, as shown by a recent resolution in- 

 troduced by Senator Heyburn, amount to about $700,- 

 000 per annum, are carried on by the shrewdest men to 

 be secured by private interest competing for these priv- 

 ileges, and when the ambition and vanity of the chief 

 forester are considered, would it not appear to be placing 

 too much responsibility in an individual?" 



Send $2.50 for The Irrigation Ago 

 I year, and The Primer of Irrigation 



