164 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



fully the object of the Federation. The annual meet- 

 ing place and headquarters of the organization will 

 be decided later. It will, no doubt, be one of three 

 cities, Ogden or Salt Lake City, Utah, or Denver, 

 Colorado. 



The managers of the International 

 Congress Irrigation Congress that will hold its 



Invites 1916 session at El Paso, Texas, Octo- 



Irrigation bre 14 to 18, have decided to invite 



Managers all managers of Federal irrigation 



projects, all engineers in charge of 

 reclamation work and all heads of legal departments 

 connected with the many projects now under con- 

 struction, to attend this congress. The press bureau 

 of the Congress has sent out a call to this ef- 

 fect and among other statements says that this will 

 be the first time in the history of the Congress that 

 an opportunity has been given the delegates to meet 

 in a body all the practical men engaged in carrying 

 into practice the plans "outlined by the Congress at 

 their annual meetings since the systematic work of 

 reclaiming lands by means of stored water began 25 

 years ago." 



This call was probably written by one of the 

 office boys in the publicity department who evi- 

 dently was not aware of the fact that the Reclama- 

 tion Law was not passed until 1902, hence very little 

 work could have been performed prior to its passage. 

 The question which will confront those who are 

 familiar with the history of irrigation and the va- 

 rious methods adopted to secure the attendance of 

 delegates to the meeting is, who will pay the ex- 

 penses of each project manager, engineer, attorney 

 or others who may accept the invitation. Will the 

 settlers on the various projects be called upon to pay 

 an assessment for this purpose or will the expenses 

 of the various officials be paid out of the general 

 reclamation fund which would eventually be charged 

 up to the projects and in that way compel the set- 

 tlers to pay- whether or not they wish to do so? 



This is apparently an effort to bring the attend- 

 ance of a dying congress to respectable proportions 

 so that it may not be the laughing stock of the public 

 as was the last congress held at Salt Lake City, and 

 the migratory affair that was "pulled off" in Cali- 

 fornia last year. 



The writer of this call also ignores the fact that 

 Congresses held at Ogden, Boise, Portland and 

 Sacramento were packed by Government officials 

 who were there at the expense of the settlers and 

 who balked any move to pass resolutions in favor of 

 the settlers and put through resolutions in praise of 

 F. H. Newell, then head of the Reclamation Service, 

 and his co-worker, Gifford Pinchot, former head of 

 the Forest Service. 



If the managers of the El Paso affair attempt 

 any similar move at this year's meeting they will be 

 likely to feel something drop. This again brings to 

 mind the fact that Texas nor any of her citizens are 

 entitled under the provisions of the Reclamation Act 

 to any benefit from it in any form. 



The writer expects to visit El Paso soon and on 

 his return he may be in a position to further en- 

 lighten our readers concerning the deal that made 

 this condition possible. 



A plan is on foot to have Mr. O. E. 

 Thoughts on Farnham, secretary o/ the National 

 Betterment of Federation of Water Users' Associa- 

 Water Users' tions, visit all of the projects under 

 Condition Federal control at the time of the an- 



nual mass meeting on each project 

 and explain to the members the benefit to be ob- 

 tained by organization and concentrated action. A 

 plan will be outlined by Mr. Farnham whereby suf- 

 ficient funds may be raised by an annual assessment 

 of not over 1 cent an acre to enable the Federation 

 to send delegates to Washington when necessary, to 

 lay before the proper officials any complaints or 

 grievances. 



The work performed by the officers of the Fed- 

 eration in past years has brought good results and in 

 many instances eventuated in changing laws that 

 were burdensome to the settler which would have 

 terminated in putting many of them out of business 

 had relief been refused them. As every settler under 

 Government projects is aware, there is great dif- 

 ficulty and much red tape encountered in every at- 

 tempt on their part to correct wrongs. The local 

 representative of the Reclamation Service may be in 

 sympathy with the water users, but his effort to ob- 

 tain relief is often forestalled at Denver or Wash- 

 ington, and the men who are suffering are thereby 

 led to believe that the whole system is wrong. 



These conditions may be corrected only by di- 

 rect contact with "the powers that be." an expression 

 much used in Washington, but one that is only 

 vaguely understood by the man on the land. 



It is difficult for the layman to determine what 

 constitutes this stegnosis of official action on the 

 part of "the powers that be." The writer remembers 

 a conversation at Washington some years ago with 

 a prominent Senator on the subject of the repeal of 

 the desert, timber and stone and the commutation 

 clause of the homestead acts, and his statement at 

 that time was as follows : "The powers that be" ha"ve 

 decided that nothing will be done with either of 

 these acts this session. In that instance, "the powers 

 that be" could easily have been large interests who 

 were stealing land by false entries under these ex- 

 isting laws. That was fairly clear, but what be- 



