108 



THE IRRIGATION AUK. 



The Men on the Firing Line 



The officers and Executive committee of the National Federation of Water Users' Associations 



Earl B. Smith, Somerton, Ariz. 

 (Yuma Project), President. 



O. E. Farnham, Belle Fourche, 

 S. D. (Belle Fourche Project), 

 Secretary. 



Fulton H. Sears, Fallen, Nev. 

 (Truckee-Carson Project). 



Scott Etter, Carlsbad, 

 (Carlsbad project). 



N. M. Geo. E. Rodman, Sunnyside, 

 Wash. (Sunnyside Project), 

 Treasurer. i 



FISCAL AGENTS 



One of the Policies Which the National Federation 

 is Pushing 



"When requested by an association, the Secre- 

 tary of the Interior should appoint such association 

 as Fiscal Agent to collect all charges due, or to be- 

 come due, the Government from entrymen and land- 

 owners and remit the same to the proper authorities 

 under the act of Congress, approved August 9, 

 1912." 



Around this recommendation made to Secretary 

 of the Interior Lane by the National Federation of 

 Water Users' Associations and representatives of 

 other projects, not yet affiliated with the national 

 organization, is being waged today a desperate bat- 

 tle to crush out the bureaucracy, called the Recla- 

 mation Service. 



Upon this battle hinges the success of Secre- 

 tary Lane's new Reclamation Commission. In 

 granting or refusing this request. Water Users con- 

 tend. Secretary Lane must either declare himself 

 for democratic rule of the various Government irri- 



gation projects, with the Water Users having a 

 voice in the government, or he must place himself 

 on record as favoring the present bureaucratic 

 methods of governing the projects and the perpetua- 

 tion of the present vast organization of high salaried 

 men, whose salaries the settlers must pay, and who 

 are law unto themselves. 



Upon this battle hinges to a large degree the 

 life of the Water Users' Associations, created by the 

 government with specific purposes and duties, regu- 

 larly incorporated, and to which every settler on 

 the projects belongs. It was the announced inten- 

 tion and understood as the law, that these associa- 

 tions should, upon payment of a major part of the 

 cost of the water rights, take over the management 

 of the projects. F. H. Newell, chairman of the new 

 Reclamation Commission, his numerous assistants, 

 and various Secretaries of the Interior have spoken 

 oft and frequently of these associations and of their 

 importance in working out the ultimate success of 

 Federal reclamation. These same associations are 

 commonly styled among at least certain of those 

 same officials today as "departmental nuisances." 



Upon this battle also hangs the ultimate sue- 



