THE IHEIGATION AGE. 



75 



in most instances are certainly open to criticism. This 

 is the first step in the sacrifice of personal liberty and 

 voluntary action that characterizes the idea of govern- 

 ment irrigation control. 



The conspicuous feature of the Water Users' Asso- 

 ciation is that the subscriber is required to convey 

 through it to the Secretary of the Interior a lien or 

 mortgage on his property, or the property that he may 

 acquire through the exercise of his homestead right. 

 The object of this is to furnish the means of enforcing 

 obedience to all and whatever requirements that may 

 be deemed proper or expedient by the officials in charge, 

 and to force the payment of whatever charge or expense 

 that may be assessed against him. Up to this time it is 

 impossible to form any idea as to what the charges that 

 will probably be assessed against the land reclaimed 

 may be. There is every indication that the reclamation 

 service will fully sustain the reputation of the gov- 

 ernment for expensive construction, for it must be re- 

 membered that not only the actual cost of construc- 

 tion, but all incidental expenses of whatever sort (in- 

 cluding innumerable trips of an army of employes 

 across the continent) must be charged to the various 

 projects and eventually dug out of the ground by the 

 settler. In the aggregate these incidental expenses 

 would amount to a very respectable interest charge upon 

 the money invested in a Carey Act project. 



It does not matter, however, for whatever the cost 

 may be it will have to be paid by the water-user, and 

 it will have to be paid when due, for there is no pos- 

 sible way of escaping it or deferring it until he can 

 dispose of his crop, or until he make a turn to raise the 

 money in case of a crop failure. He certainly cannot 

 mortgage his land, as the government already holds a 

 mortgage upon it. He must meet this payment when 

 due the first year as promptly as he is expected to do 

 it in the tenth year, however hard he may have strug- 

 gled to make his sage-brush land produce something to 

 live upon, much less than raising a crop that will 

 enable him to meet his payments. 



To illustrate: Supposing a settler entered a 160- 

 acre homestead tract under a government project, and 

 assuming that the cost of his water amounted to $3 per 

 acre the average estimated cost his annual payment 

 would be $480, and add to this his maintenance assess- 

 ment, estimated at $1.50 per acre, his total annual pay- 

 ment would amount to $720. Before he could expect 

 to make this amount out of the land it must be fenced, 

 cleared of sage brush, plowed, supplied with irrigating 

 ditches, etc., and sown to crop, and this much would 

 have to be done in any event, but it is fair to presume 

 that he would have to have a house to live in, a barn 

 for his stock, a well, and a suitable supply of farming 

 equipment. Uncle Sam is popularly supposed to be a 

 benevolent being, but he is inexorable when it comes to 

 enforcing his laws, and his benevolence and generosity 

 cannot be relied upon in this case. To enter into a 

 reclamation project contract with him under these cir- 

 cumstances is a hazardous undertaking, unless the settler 

 is supplied with a capital of at least $5,000 to start with. 



Presuming that this settler and his neighbors con- 

 stitute the community under a three million dollar 

 project (and this is a modest estimate judging from the 

 official reports), they would have to raise annually 

 $500,000 to be sent to Washington. Is there any 

 farming community in Idaho that can raise three mil- 

 lions of dollars to be sent out of the state, even in ten 



years? It would bankrupt Boise Valley to do it with 

 all of its acquired wealth. 



Another condition that the water-user subscribes 

 to when he joins the association is that he agrees not 

 only to personally occupy and cultivate his land, but to 

 continue to abide there. He cannot hire any one to 

 take his place, nor can he rent it to another, and, 

 moreover, he agrees to limit his property holding to" 

 whatever acreage the government prescribes for him, 

 which may be any amount from 10 acres to 160 acres. 

 The only way to escape this restriction or bondage is 

 to sell out to some one qualified and willing to take 

 his place and move to a Carey Act project. 



The reclamation plan contemplates the election of 

 a board of directors by the water users' association, 

 which shall manage the affairs of the association, but 

 their acts will always be subject to the approval of the 

 Secretary of the Interior or his agent, which is to say 

 that the actual management and the administration will 

 remain in the hands of the reclamation .bureau. 



The ownership of the ditch, or whatever the works 

 consist of, will always remain in the government, which 

 means, of course, the control of the works will always 

 remain in the hands of the government's agents, and 

 the relationship of the water-user will be that of 

 "renter" rather than a co-owner, as in the Carey Act 

 project. 



Nearly all of the western states have devised a code 

 of irrigation laws based upon the principle of state 

 ownership, therefore state control, of all the sources 

 of water supply. These laws are so related and inter- 

 woven with all the affairs of the state polity that they 

 are pracically fundamental to the entire system of state 

 jurisprudence. These laws have been framed to suit 

 the local conditions that exist in each state, and are 

 too diverse to be harmonized or adjusted to suit any 

 system of national control or administration, and any 

 plan or theory advanced that would threaten to revoke 

 or revolutionize these existing systems and the existing 

 rights based thereon, would certainly meet with popular 

 disfavor. Therefore, it is entirely safe to say that the 

 state will always maintain an administrative control of 

 its water supplies. 



It is difficult to conceive how conflict of authority 

 can be avoided where the state is in control of the water 

 supply and the national government is in control of the 

 irrigation system. 



There are other phases of the national reclamation 

 act that appear to present problematical difficulties that 

 call for consideration, but it would be tiresome to refer 

 to them at this time. 



This is a time of popular acclaim for the reclama- 

 tion act. It is a far-reaching and beneficent experiment 

 on the part of the government, and it is to be hoped 

 that its ambitious and over-zealous sponsors will not 

 attempt to make it overshadow and obliterate the other 

 factors in the field of irrigation industry the Carey 

 Act, for instance. 



Send $2.50 for The Irrigation Age 

 I yea.r, and the Primer of Irrigation 



