THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



205 



know that I desire to deny the charge. I would like to 

 sell out myself but cannot do so, for the reason that 

 suckers are not around trying to purchase such un- 

 certainties. I think there are as many American hard- 

 working citizens who have been attracted by the glitter 

 of government irrigation that have invested their all 

 and lost it all during these years of waiting on certainty 

 when each year the uncertainty became greater and 

 greater that have become tramps, as there are now 

 living on the project. 



In the report of the Water Users' Conference of 

 May 8, 1913, Senator Walsh of Montana used a good 

 portion of the day in addressing himself to the Secre- 

 tary on the interpretation of the law regarding the 

 "estimated cost" which accords with our views en- 

 tirely. He stated that under Mr. Newell's construc- 

 tion that any man who cultivated his lands did so at 

 his peril. Nor during the entire conference did any 

 man even attempt to answer Senator Walsh. Under 

 the existing circumstances agricultural prosperity on a 

 government project is next to an impossibility, espe- 

 cially in the sparsely settled communities of the far 

 West, with very limited markets and very limited 

 methods of transportation. On a ranch a short dis- 

 tance from mine, there are three years of cutting of 

 alfalfa that lies rotting in the stack and cannot be sold 

 for the cost of production and the owner cannot finance 

 the purchase of stock to eat it because he is denied, on 

 account of the government lien, access to the usual 

 money markets of the world. 



Again, until completion, users of water have to 

 rent their water without having any definite water 

 right. I inclose a copy of the rental contract for your 

 inspection and call your attention to clause 6 where the 

 "United States reserves the right to terminate this 

 contract at any time upon giving thirty days' notice." 

 We are expected to clear our land from the mesquite 

 timber, level the land and put into crops relying on a 

 thirty days' tenure of water. Is it reasonable to ask 

 a man to make such an expenditure relying on such a 

 tenure of water? Of course we well know the reasons 

 for that clause, which are, that when the day of ac- 

 counting comes we are expected to give a more specific 

 mortgage called a "Water Right Application," in which 

 we must agree to pay the total cost, and if our lands 

 are in cultivation and we demur, the water rental con- 

 tract will be terminated by notice and water shut off 

 until we come through. Did you ever see a more 

 effective club against a helpless individual like the 

 average man who is endeavoring to establish a home 

 for himself and his family? Is this the "square deal"? 

 Would such a thing be tolerated in Russia or darkest 

 Africa, and is not the great faith we have in our own 

 government our greatest weaknes's ? 



\<>w as to the Extension Act. To the man up the 

 tree it is most charitable, but in effect, it is a Trojan 

 horse filled with armed men to compel us to acquiesce 

 in the new construction of "estimated cost" ! Again, 

 the proposed re-valuation boards, on one of which 

 we are entitled to have one representative to two of 

 the government's representatives, and is therefore by 

 no meahs a board of arbitration, and if we appoint 

 a man on such board we will naturally be bound by 

 the findings. That is nothing but another Trojan horse. 

 This project, on due reflection has declined both propo- 

 sitions so far. 



I will invite your attention to Congressman Bor- 



land's remarks in the Congressional Record of Febru- 

 ary 17, 1915, page 4030. Mr. Borland is chairman of 

 the House Committee on Appropriations. 



"Mr. Borland: Mr. Chairman, I move to strike 

 out the last word. I want to say a word in regard to 

 the question of the increased cost, because that is one 

 of the features of the new Reclamation Extension law. 



"It was claimed originally as to most of these pro- 

 jects that an advance estimate had been given to the 

 settlers as to how much the project was going to cost 

 per acre, and that they had capitalized the water users* 

 associations upon that basis, and that was what they 

 were bound for. A controversy of considerable size 

 existed between the settlers and the Department on 

 that very question. The Department solved that prob- 

 lem in this way : The settlers in many cases wanted 

 additional time on their payments, or they wanted an 

 enlargement of their original projects, and when they 

 came to the department to ask either an extension of 

 time or relief from a default, or an extension, or new 

 work, or any other favor, the Department said to them,. 

 'Gentlemen, either you must agree to the increased cost 

 over and above what you claim was the limit fixed by 

 the Department when the work was begun, or we will 

 not do what you ask. In that way they compelled the 

 settlers to agree to the real cost instead of the original 

 estimate, which in all cases was too low and in some 

 cases was only 50 per cent of the real cost." 



The foregoing are the views of the actual settlers 

 who, endeavoring to produce from the soil, or who 

 would desire to do so if they were not shut out by the 

 above circumstances. But there are those who will not 

 listen to these views that are right here close at hand,, 

 and who are bankers and merchants and so-called Com- 

 mercial Clubs, who will tell you a different story. The 

 more money put into the project the better they are 

 pleased, for its expenditure makes good business in the 

 mercantile line. Every increased appropriation for the 

 porject is hailed with delight in our local press who are 

 supported by the advertising merchants, and the people 

 of the towns are always favorable to further appropria- 

 tions, though well knowing but caring less, that it must 

 all be dug up again by the producer the man the law 

 was intended to help. We farmers, and committees, 

 and men who argue like Senator Walsh does, are 

 dubbed kickers, agitators, socialists, etc., etc. so great 

 is their greed for greater and greater government ex- 

 penditures. The views of different men depend on 

 whose ox is being gored. We insist that no one has any 

 right in this controversy except the settlers on the 

 lands and the government, and if the question is only 

 to be discussed in town and city banquets with officials 

 of the Reclamation Service, and to which no producer 

 is ever invited, then such discussion is among people 

 who are not vitally interested and are attending to other 

 people's business besides their own. 



It is impossible in this communication to touch on 

 all that should be said as to what developed at the 

 Washington conference in even the Yuma project. I 

 will endeavor to have sent to you the pleadings in the 

 case of the Bell Fourche W r ater Users' Association 

 against the officials of the Service, and where the asso- 

 ciation got a temporary injunction in the state court, 

 affirmed in the U. S. District court, and again con- 

 firmed in the U. S. Court of Appeals. Those plead- 

 ings tells the human side of these questions. 



We have studied the question for years ; we have- 



