THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



295 



obtained in small amounts from many individuals, 

 and the railroads, as the largest and only absolutely 

 reliable contributors, have always been able to control. 

 There was, of course, no impropriety in the railroads 

 contributing to educate the Eastern public in regard 

 to irrigation, and in so far as they have interests dis- 

 tinct from the public they are entitled to a hearing, 

 but when' their contributions and control and the real 

 origin of the association were kept profound secrets, 

 and the concern paraded as a genuine public 'associa- 

 tion, the Chronicle submits that nobody has reason to 

 complain if it is called a fake association. The secrecy 

 which has always maintained as to the railroad control 

 is ground for reasonable belief that there were ulterior 

 objects in view opposed to the public interests. This 

 was much strengthened in the minds of those who 

 knew the facts by the character of the person in real 

 control of the institution, for he was one who had done 

 California infinite injury by beginning and conducting 

 through the press a most virulent war on the Wright 

 law and all bonds issued under it, declaring that not a 

 single bond issued under it was valid, the attack being 

 made while he was counsel for an irrigation district 

 which was seeking to avoid payment for its bonds, and 

 apparently for the purpose of terrifying bondholders 

 into a surrender of their claims for some nominal 

 amount. This course greatly injured the financial 

 credit of California communities, and when a person 

 of that kind was found directing a so-called association 

 created and organized as this was, and soliciting the 

 names of prominent men to give it standing by accept- 

 ing nominal offices carrying neither duties nor control, 

 there was evidently a concern which would bear watch- 

 ing." 



The Chronicle gives the association credit for cre- 

 ating an interest in irrigation and says that money was 

 spent freely and wisely to that end, but adds : 



"With the published policies of the association the 

 Chronicle has usually agreed. Of its ulterior objects 

 we are ignorant, but few will believe that if there were 

 no ulterior and unpublished objects there would have 

 been any secrecy in the source of the income. The in- 

 tense hostility to the association, however, which has de- 

 veloped in many sections of the West is not so much 

 due to fear of improper gains to the railroads from the 

 use of an apparently public association to promote 

 private ends as from the overbearing, dictatorial man- 

 nner of its only active officer, and his relentless persecu- 

 tion, in the name of the association, of every official 

 whom he can not control. At the last session of the 

 California Legislature telegrams from this person as- 

 sumed to absolutely dictate for what purposes money 

 should be and should not be appropriated, and they 

 were evidently taken by some legislators as orders to 

 be implicitly obeyed. It was the familiar crack of the 

 whip of the railroad boss, directing the railroad gang. 

 These telegrams could not be obtained for publication, 



but they were shown to men present in , Sacramento, 

 promoting a public measure in the public interest, to 

 convince them that they were up against the real thing 

 and might as well surrender, which they did. 



"It is tactics of this kind which are at the bottom 

 of the~ ugly feeling with which this alleged "associa- 

 tion" has come to be regarded, and there is evidence 

 which is conclusive, in our judgment, that the baneful 

 influence of the concern is quite as effective in some 

 departments of the National Government as in State 

 legislation. If the National Irrigation Association 

 will abandon the pretense of representing a popular 

 movement and come out into the open as the agent 

 of corporate interests it will be entitled to recognition 

 and hearing as such." 



This scathing arraignment of the National Irri- 

 gation Association is an unqualified indorsement of 

 the position taken by THE IRRIGATION AGE in this mat- 

 ter. We have always claimed that the National Irriga- 

 tion Association was not conducted for an honest pur- 

 pose, but was used as a powerful grafting machine for 

 the benefit of one individual. Now that the eyes of the 

 estimable gentlemen whose names have been misused 

 in connection with its officers have been opened it is 

 not likely that the National Irrigation Association will 

 ever have any further influence in the legitimate irri- 

 gation movement of this country. 



PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT CALLS A HALT. 



So rank had become the interior department's pol- 

 icy in segregating public lands for forest reserves that 

 Mr. Eoosevelt was finally called upon to stop the prac- 

 tice and did so the other day by issuing an order re- 

 quiring all such matters to be referred to the interested 

 senators and congressmen before withdrawing land 

 from entry. This curtails the power of the interior de- 

 partment and means a better administration of such 

 affairs. In Gunnison County one-third of its area was 

 lately withdrawn from settlement and the same dead- 

 fall fell upon Routt County while petitions galore were 

 presented asking for the enlargement of the Battlement 

 mesa and Uncompahgre reservations. This looks like 

 adding insult to injury when we consider that in the 

 former there exists a plateau sixty miles square upon 

 which no tree grows and only sagebrush abounds. A 

 few years ago some cute cattlemen about the size of Ed 

 Wetzel saw to the preparation of these lines and it looks 

 like inconsistency to see them fighting the reserve pol- 

 icy now. It is after all like the tariff outrage merely 

 a local question and the proposition to shut out the 

 settlers at this time should create no especial disturb- 

 ance in the cow camps, although. the whole thing be- 

 comes quite as farcical as one of Grover Cleveland's 

 historical messages to congress on the silver issue. 

 Denver Field and Farm. 



The Irrigation Age 1 yea.r a^nd the 

 Primer of Irrigation, $2.00. 



