THE IEEIGATION AGE. 



135 



tion the service has dug 8,000 miles of canals, many 

 of which carry whole rivers, like the Truckee river, 

 in Nevada ." 



The remainder of the sad story about the 

 Truckee river carrying canal is kept a deep, dark 

 secret. The canal has been dug, and during flood water 

 periods carries most of the river, but in the sum- 

 mer, when the farmers on the Truckee-Carson pro- 

 ject need water for their crops, that canal is valu- 

 able for little else except as a monument to some 

 one's lack of brains. Director Newell, Chief Engi- 

 neer Davis, and some other high officials, have been 

 on the Truckee-Carson project many times, but 

 never yet have they been able to wave the magic 

 wand that will make the canal carry the Truckee 

 river when water is really needed. Instead, these 

 estimable gentlemen discovered, after they had 

 spent a fortune in digging the canal, that the set- 

 tlers along the Truckee river, with prior rights, used 

 up all the water, or practically all of it, before the 

 mouth of the government canal and the diversion 

 dam is reached. 



The bottom of the canal did get a bit wet last 

 summer because settlers on the Truckee-Carson 

 project were able to induce their big-hearted neigh- 

 bors along the Truckee river to let the government 

 project farms have the Truckee's waters for two 

 days a week. Being good citizens and anxious to 

 help their fellow men, the Truckee river farmers 

 did this to save at least part of the crops of the 

 homesteaders, down in the government project. 



It is possible that in time the Truckee-Carson 

 project will be so rebuilt that a storage reservoir 

 will be created to hold the flood waters of the 

 Truckee for the benefit of the government project 

 Water Users. Then this "river carrying canal" will 

 be of value, and worthy, no doubt, of a press agent's 

 laudations. 



Meanwhile, perhaps, a wise congress will have 

 relieved the Federal Water Users of paying the salar- 

 ies and expenses of reclamation press agents as well 

 as numerous other overhead charges, which on all 

 ^ther government works come out of the general 

 fund. 



to any benefits under the proposed measure. 

 The water right applications have been so drawn 

 as to make them nothing less than cut-throat mort- 

 gages. And now it is proposed to make these mort- 

 gages run twenty or twenty-five years more. If 

 certain officials of the Reclamation Service accom- 

 plish their purpose of perpetuating the bureaucracy, 

 which now rules the government projects and the 

 settlers, these mortgages are liable to be made per- 

 petual, a never ending security for operation and 

 maintenance charges. 



This must be changed. The economic fiction 

 that the settlers' right to have water supplied from 

 the government ditch to his land, is a liability, is 

 wrong. This water right is a franchise, an asset of 

 great value. It should be so considered. In cities, 

 franchises to run street cars or string light, power 

 or telephone wires are recognized as of tremendous 

 value, despite their accompanying obligations to the 

 government granting them, and are the basis for 

 bond issues of vast amounts. 



The right of a farmer on the federal project to 

 have water delivered to his land is, in proportion 

 to its producing power, of far greater value, and 

 this value should be recognized, instead of being 

 held as a constant impediment to his progress and 

 welfare. If this is done, and there are able heads 

 in congress who can do it, the federal projects will 

 quickly become independent; the farmers will have 

 the credit to which they are entitled and they will 

 be able to get money at will. 



We believe that the government has no moral 

 right to exact a mortgage on the land of the set- 

 tlers as security for the charges for water. The 

 settler should be permitted to prove up on his land 

 in accordance with the homestead laws and be given 

 clean and clear title to his holdings. 



The franchise to receive water which he owns, 

 should be sufficient security for the water right 

 charges. 



Careful study of the report of the 

 Federal Fletcher Commission on Rural 



Water Credits and the bill on this subject, 



User Is generally credited to the adminis- 



Forgotten tration, fails to reveal any help for 



the Federal Water Users. 



Under the proposed legislation only lands that 

 are unencumbered can be used as security for loans 

 in the proposed Farmers' Banks. As the reclama- 

 tion law is now construed by the Department of the 

 Interior, the Federal Water User is denied right 



F. H. Newell is to the average Fed- 

 The Sad era ^ Water User like a red rag before 



Plight of t ne eyes of a bull. This is too bad, 



Director and yet Mr. Newell is himself largely 



Newell to blame. No one but a remarkable 



dreamer; one who could spend mil- 

 lions without a thought as to where the millions to 

 pay the bills might come from, would have conceived 

 and dared construct the vast engineering monuments 

 to be found upon the Federal Reclamation projects. 

 If Mr. Newell had stuck strictly to engineering, the 

 Water Users no doubt would have forgiven him and 

 in the end might even have highly honored him, for 

 it is the nature of us Americans to take pride in our 

 great governmental works, even though we are aware 



