THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



241 



vide for any such charge; but law or no law, the 

 Reclamation gentlemen very adroitly laid the foun- 

 dation for a maintenance charge in 1906. In the 

 winter of 1905-6, a man named Ross, who was 

 Project Engineer at the time, addressed meetings 

 at Acequia, Rupert and Heyburn and told the set- 

 tlers of the benefits that would accrue to the project 

 if they would consent to have a maintenance charge 

 as well as a building charge ; that instead of paying 

 $26.00, or $2.60 per acre for ten years, how much 

 nicer it would be to have a building charge of 

 $22.00, or $2.20 per acre each year for ten years, 

 together with a maintenance fee of 40 cents for a 

 year or two, because, as the banks of the canals 

 became thoroughly settled, the whole works could 

 be maintained for fifteen or twenty cents an acre; 

 and what was still better, he looked forward to the 

 day when the proceeds from the electricity gener- 

 ated at the dam would more than pay for the 

 maintenance of the project. 



And at the time that Ross was singing his siren 

 song, for the purpose of sirenizing the settlers, and 

 finally getting them into the trap that he and his 

 superiors were preparing for them, he knew that 

 the Reclamation fund was depleted to the amount 

 of $100,000.00 in connection with this project, and, 

 furthermore, that the officials above him were con- 

 sulting the ablest lawyers in Washington to know 

 if they could increase the charge ; but not being 

 able to increase the charge with any appearance of 

 legality, they were still determined to "get" the 

 settlers. 



Accordingly, in 1907, they prepared what they 

 called water-right applications, which were in 

 reality cunningly prepared documents for the pur- 

 pose of making the settlers pay an "operation and 

 maintenance charge." They then issued "public 

 notices," saying that water could not be delivered 

 to any settler who refused to sign a water-right 

 application, because, as they said at the time, the 

 state law demanded it. 



After using force and fraud in getting us to 

 sign these documents, they told us later on with 

 the brazen effrontery of bushwhackers, that the 

 applications for water which we signed were con- 

 tracts, and that we agreed to pay whatever it would 

 cost to maintain and operate the project. They 

 then commenced in a lavish manner to charge 

 everything to maintenance, including drain ditches, 

 which they were then digging, or going to dig in 

 the future, any old time up to the sounding of 

 Gabriel's trumpet. They have forced some of the 

 settlers to sign documents freeing them from the 

 terms of their original contract. According to their 

 agreement with us they were to put the water on 

 the most available place on each farm unit. This 

 they refused to do. They have said to settlers on 

 high land : "You must sign these documents giv- 

 ing us the right to charge whatever it will cost to 

 put water on your high land or you will have to 

 pay the building charge of $22.00 an acre, operation 

 and maintenance for your high land whether you 

 ever get water for it or not." 



This is the kind of organized lawlessness that 

 we have been accustomed to during Ballinger's 

 and Fisher's respective administrations of Recla- 



mation affairs. We have been face to face with a 

 worse condition than that which caused the revo- 

 lution in this country in 1776. It is not only taxa- 

 tion without representation that we have been 

 struggling against, but misrepresentation as well. 



We feel a little embarrassed because we can- 

 not take as roseate a view of things things Recla- 

 mation as a good many other people, especially 

 the gentlemen of the Reclamation Service. A 

 stranger who would read the Reclamation Record 

 would be led to believe that he was missing the 

 bliss of heaven if he failed to get in on the ground 

 floor, or even up stairs, on a Reclamation project. 

 There are people who believed that this Reclama- 

 tion bunco game was intended in the first place to 

 be a blessing poured down on the heads of the dear 

 people, but if such was the intention we are sorry 

 to say that it has wandered far from the mark ; 

 that it has failed to hit the bull's eye, for instead 

 of a blessing, it is a curse today, because of the 

 maladministration of Reclamation officials. 



Unfortunately, we were credulous enough to 

 believe that the agents of the American govern- 

 ment would keep their contract with us when we 

 filed on this land, and not violate it as they have 

 so basely and so treacherously done, but what else 

 could be expected when a Secretary of the In- 

 terior will openly flout the law. 



In the Autumn of 1911, Mr. Fisher came here 

 on a special train, with all the insolence of a Rus- 

 sian autocrat, and the manner of a Bowery Thug, 

 and entered into a discussion concerning the "drain- 

 age," and told us with all the bravado of a drunken 

 prize fighter that he did not have any laws to 

 enable him to collect "drainage," but that he was 

 going to collect it until we found a law to stop him. 

 If Mr. Fisher did not have a law to collect "drain- 

 age," neither has Mr. Lane the statutory power 

 nor the moral right to do so. 



We hold that as this land belongs to the na- 

 tion, it is the duty of the nation to drain it. In 

 other words, that the cost of drainage should come 

 out of the Reclamation fund and not out of the set- 

 tlers' pockets. 



Why did the Reclamation Service, by means 

 of circulars and pamphlets, inveigle people to this 

 project, enter into a solemn contract with them, 

 keep it for two years and then break it? Why did 

 they deceive the people and then betray them? Why 

 didn't they tell us that this land would be forty or 

 fifty dollars an acre; and if they had done so, many 

 of us would not be here today, because we could 

 get improved land at that price, and not be forced 

 to undergo the hardships of pioneer life. 



It is an absolute fact that men and women have 

 deprived themselves of the necessities of life, and 

 that children have suffered for want of food be- 

 cause of the exaction of the Reclamation Service 

 on this project. 



Why did they wait for almost three years be- 

 fore they made any attempt to increase the price 

 of water, although they knew in 1906 that there 

 was a deficit of $100,000.00 connected in some way 

 with this project? 



These are questions that demand answers. Do 

 the men who were at the head of the Reclamation 



