108 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



cost has run far in excess of $10,000,000. As the 

 Reclamation Act limits the amount the government 

 can recover from the settlers to the estimated cost 

 of construction, the committee draws the conclu- 

 sion that the government's loss on this project to 

 date is nearly $7,000,000. In accounting for this 

 startling difference, the committee cites innumerable 

 instances of waste, extravagance and incompetence. 

 "No care seems to have been taken toward economy 

 and dispatch like that general in. private enter- 

 prises," says the report. "Expensive concrete works 

 were installed by one engineer, condemned by a 

 second and blown out with dynamite; the like 

 repeated a second time. Some of these works cost 

 $2,000 for each installation. The time of large 

 crews of men was wasted by camping them miles 

 from work and making four trips a day to and 

 from camp to the scene of operations. Owing to 

 ignorance or carelessness in mixing concrete, large 

 sections washed out when water was turned into 

 the canals." 



The business transactions of the service are 

 severely scored. Canals were purchased from cor- 

 porations at prices aggregating over $700,000, while 

 the actual farmers received $1 for a canal built by 

 them at great expense. The Indians on the Gila 

 were in effect cut down to receive water for 10,000 

 acres and this area mortgaged to such an extent 

 by the expense of operating pumps that, in the 

 opinion of the committee, it is only a question of 

 time until the remaining 10,000 acres are taken 

 from them. Reclamation Service work on the Gila 

 cost more than $500,000 and the committee states 

 that it was "disastrous to the Indians and valuable 

 only to land grabbers." 



A. J. Chandler, who, the report states, de- 

 frauded the government out of 18,000 acres of land 

 by the "dummy entry system," received $187,000 

 for a worthless canal and the Reclamation Service, 

 through that same canal, furnishes water to the 

 very lands of which the government was defrauded. 

 A contract by which the Pacific Gas & Electric 

 Company, a private Los Angeles corporation, is 

 given a monopoly of the electric power generated 

 at the Roosevelt dam, in violation of law, is dis- 

 cussed and the committee recommends that the 

 Department of Justice be instructed to institute a 

 suit in equity to cancel the contract and commence 

 such criminal proceedings as the facts warrant. 

 "The business transactions of the Reclamation 

 Service generally in Arizona have been conducted 

 in the twilight zone," says the report. "If actual 

 fraud does not exist, it can at least be said that 

 many of the badges of fraud are evident in these 

 transactions." 



The report dwells at length on the discrimina- 



tion by the Reclamation Service against the farmers 

 and in favor of the large land speculators. "Prior 

 to the coming of the Reclamation Service to Ari- 

 zona, the actual farmer had water for his land," 

 says the report. "The land grafter did not have. 

 And only by the storage of a large body of water 

 would it be made possible for these speculative 

 lands to be parceled out in small tracts at enormous 

 profits. The speculators enjoy 90 per cent of the 

 benefit and the pioneers assume 80 per cent of the 

 burden. The new farmers upon whom the specu- 

 lators unload pay the remaining 20 per cent of the 

 cost. The speculators are required to pay nothing. 

 The press bureau for glorifying these officials and 

 advertising the lands for the speculators is to be 

 saddled upon the farmers." 



A number of photographs "not taken by the 

 official stenographer" are submitted with the report, 

 showing the bad condition of the work of the service 

 on the Gila river. 



The committee states that the revelations made 

 of the conduct of the reclamation work in Arizona 

 prompted it to inquire further. The estimated cost 

 of construction of the twenty-five "primary pro- 

 jects," as reported by the Secretary of the Interior 

 to Congress, is $49,760,000. In 1910 the Reclama- 

 tion Service "estimated" it would cost $150,549,755 

 to do this same work. As the government's recov- 

 ery from the settlers is limited to the estimated 

 cost, the committee concludes that the government's 

 loss will be in excess of $100,000,000. "The 1910 

 guess at the cost is more than 300 per cent of the 

 original estimate," says the committee. -"Such dal- 

 liance with millions of dollars and other serious 

 matters by persons styled 'engineers,' but whose 

 mathematical work would discredit a village high 

 school, is calculated to breed contempt for the 

 government in the public minds." 



Of the completed projects, Garden City, Kan- 

 sas, Carlsbad and Hondo, in New Mexico, are de- 

 scribed as total failures, and Okanogan, in Wash- 

 ington, will cause a minimum loss of $4 per acre to 

 the government. 



In conclusion, the committee asks for the appro- 

 priation of $25,000 to make a complete investigation 

 of reclamation affairs ; asks that the President re- 

 move from office during such investigation Samuel 

 Adams, Assistant Secretary of the Interior; F. H. 

 Newell, Director of the Reclamation Service, and 

 L. C. Hill, supervising engineer at Phoenix. This 

 action is asked to "prevent possible obstruction of 

 progress by these officials." The committee also 

 recommends that civil and criminal actions be in- 

 stituted with reference to the dealings between the 

 Reclamation Service and the Pacific Gas & Electric 

 Company; that speculative lands pay the full value 



