198 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



tainted money which Hooker or interested members 

 of the Board of Governors may have already spent. 

 Better the Congress should die than that it should 

 be sold into slavery of the land boomers acros's the 

 border. 



George H. Maxwell was refused a 

 The twenty-dollar subscription to a fund 



Fall of to further the Newlands-Broussard 



George H. bill in Kansas City the other day. 

 Maxwell This man, who has eaten well, 



dressed like a millionaire and lived 

 without hard labor for the past fifteen years through 

 his ability to collect funds, will meet with many 

 other refusals of twenty-dollar contributions. He 

 seems to be at the end of his rope. Think of it 

 twenty-dollar contributions today. Once he picked 

 up $5,000 at a crack. 



Maxwell and his methods were thoroughly 

 exposed at the Denver irrigation conference. Gov- 

 ernor Carey of Wyoming and his fellow governors 

 did it so dramatically that the press wires fairly 

 burned in scattering the story over the country. 



.The lobbyist for the Newlands-Broussard bill 

 fumed and foamed and stormed. It did no good. 

 Thumbs are down in the West for all men of his 

 brand. 



The Reclamation Service bureau- 

 "We Pay- cracy is beginning to totter. Several 



rollers Must cogs in the wonderful political ma- 

 Stand chine, which F. H. Newell and his 

 Together" aids built up and foisted upon the 

 settlers, who are paying their sal- 

 aries, have been jarred loose. The National Federa- 

 tion of Water Users' Associations has succeeded in 

 tossing monkey wrenches into several portions of 

 the well oiled machine. THE IRRIGATION AGE has 

 added some telling blows. 



The self-confident, impudent attitude of the ma- 

 chine, we are told, is beginning to get on the nerves 

 of Secretary of the Interior Lane and there may be 

 some further shake-ups, and something more than 

 heads of minor officials may fall before he gets 

 through. The Secretary finds this machine bul- 

 warked behind Civil Service and bound together by 

 an unholy loyalty, born of desire to stay on the pay- 

 roll, no matter how big a bill may be piled up for the 

 Water Users to pay. 



This bureaucracy has been built on the principle : 

 "Blame no individual. If blame must be laid, blame 

 the whole system. Then when the blame is divided 

 among the thousands who make up the bureaucracy 

 no one will be very badly hurt." 



This is a most excellent system for the con- 

 struction of such a pay-roll machine as the Reclama- 



tion Service. Whether Director Newell, who is with- 

 out doubt one of the shrewdest politicians in Wash- 

 ington, was the creator of the main principle of the 

 bureaucracy, we cannot say, but we do know that 

 over his own signature, he has endorsed it. 



He did so when the Water Users on the Belle 

 Fourche, S. D., project complained because of a 

 stupid piece of work which robbed them of an entire 

 season's crops, and demanded the removal of R. F. 

 Walters, supervising engineer. Gates had just been 

 installed in the storage dam, when the Service de- 

 cided that they should be replaced by a more up-to- 

 date variety. The gates were torn out in the Au- 

 tumn, and all the Winter and flood waters were lost. 

 The following Spring, the new gates were put in. 



Under date of August 22, 1911, Director Newell 

 wrote the following letter concerning this serious 

 situation : 



Supervising Engineer, 



Denver, Colorado. 

 Dear Sir: 



Your letter of August 16 has been received re- 

 garding conditions on Belle Fourche Project. I am 

 greatly pleased to know that the recent rains have 

 helped matters. However, there will probably be 

 more or less attack and discussion of the subject and 

 it is very important that we have accurate facts con- 

 cerning the condition of crop production, particu- 

 larly as to the farmers on Indian Creek Flat and 

 elsewhere, who have practically no crop. 



In this connection also I should like to have 

 some estimate as to how much water would have 

 been available had we not attempted to install the 

 gates, but had saved all of the 20,000 acre-feet, which 

 I understand was turned out of the reservoir last 

 fall, together with the total flow of the river during 

 the winter, making deductions for losses by evapora- 

 tion, etc. 



In other words, I should like to know exactly 

 how much worse the conditions were than they 

 might have been had we held all of the water. 



In this connection, I am taking the stand that 

 if any mistake of judgment was made, it was not 

 one of any individual, but of the entire organization, 

 having to do with the determination of the proper 

 course of procedure. Whether any mistake was 

 made or not, the condition must be accepted by the 

 Reclamation Service, but we should know as near 

 as possible what were the conditions. 

 Very truly yours, 



F. H. Newell, Director. 



What would a private employer of high-priced, 

 skilled men do with a man who took such an atti- 

 tude as does Mr. Newell in this letter? How long 

 would he stay on the payroll? 



What redress did the Water Users obtain? 

 Although their crops had failed during the preced- 

 ing season, they were granted the deferment of only 

 one year's building charges. They were forced to 

 pay the operation and maintenance charges for both 

 years. 



