THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



71 



taut sources of water supply demand 

 concerted and associated effort with 

 assembled capital of large sums. The 

 situation was first met by mutual asso- 

 ciations of water users, incorporated 

 or unincorporated, as deemed most 

 feasible. 



The private corporation for 

 profit also entered the field and 

 some of the most ambitious under- 

 takings with which we are familiar 

 were launched under that form. 

 That some of them were failures be- 

 cause of an attempt to reap huge gains 

 is undoubtedly true; and that many 

 of them failed because of ill advised 

 conception of the plan and a belief 

 that the land and the farmer could 

 bear and discharge almost inconceiv- 

 able financial burdens is also true. But 

 this last thought is applicable alike to 

 private, corporate, district, and gov- 

 ernment plans. We have learned a 

 great many things about irrigation in 

 the last few years and the most impor- 

 tant lesson is that any project under 

 consideration must be sound from 

 agricultural, engineering and financial 

 standpoints or else the undertaking is 

 doomed to failure from its inception. 

 I make the assertion without fear of 

 successful contradiction that in large 

 irrigation enterprises, given a well 

 conceived and feasible plan and suffi- 

 cient capital, a private water corpora- 

 tion will give the most efficient serv- 

 ice and the least dissatisfaction to the 

 water user and at the most moderate 

 charge of any of the larger agencies; 

 provided it is placed under proper 

 state supervision and control. Its effi- 

 ciency and service then rank with oth- 

 er great public utilities under like su- 

 pervision and control, such as light, 

 traction and rail utilities. 



But after all, ladies and gentlemen, 

 I am wedded to that system of pri- 

 vate enterprise in reclamation projects 

 and its methods of regulation and dis- 

 tribution provided by our state irri- 

 gation district acts and district drain- 

 age acts. Those acts and the theory 

 of those acts are entirely in accord 

 with the spirit of our institutions. 



Let me briefly recite^in case any 

 one here has not complete knowledge 

 of the subject how we form a dis- 

 trict, for we operate nearly the same 

 in irrigation districts as in drainage 

 districts. The plan is first conceived; 

 and then a petition is made by the 

 land owners asking to have all the 

 lands which are supplied by a com- 

 mon source incorporated as a district. 

 The county court whatever may be 

 its name considers the petition, and 

 if it deems it a proper one, submits it 

 to a vote of the land owners of that 

 district or of that territory, and they 

 vote upon it. In most of our district 

 acts two-thirds are required to incor- 

 porate; in many of the drainage acts, 

 only a majority. After that has been 

 done by one of several methods the 

 cost is estimated, and then the direct- 

 ors or supervisors of the district sub- 

 mit that question to a vote of the land 

 owners, and if there is a majority of 

 the vote in favor of issuing bonds in 

 the estimated amount, the bonds are 

 issued and sold. 



After the bonds have been voted a 



proceeding is brought in the court 



. having jurisdiction, and all questions 



regarding the validity of the district, 

 the validity of the bonds, and the va- 

 lidity of the inclusion of the land are 

 passed upon, and when the court has 

 approved all the proceedings, the 

 bonds are entirely valid and can never 

 be attacked again. Then the water is 

 distributed by the directors, elected 

 from among the people of the district, 

 and the payments are made upon the 

 basis of the benefits conferred upon 

 the land and the bonds are paid for by 

 assessments levied upon the land and 

 collected. 



In most of the irrigation districts 

 the construction costs are paid for by 

 a 20-year bond, and the first 10 years 

 the bonds only draw interest; at the 

 end of 11 years you pay 5 per cent of 

 the principal, and the next year 6 per 

 cent, and so on until the end of the 

 20 years, when the whole principal is 

 paid off and the debt is discharged. 



Now then, ladies and gentlemen, I 

 have no objection to our government 

 our federal government invading 

 the province of the people to the ex- 

 tent of building these large storage 

 dams about which Judge King has 

 spoken. That is not government ac- 

 tivity any more than it is activity on 

 the part of the government to dredge 

 your harbors and build your ship 

 canals, but when we come down to 

 the proposition of exercising that ac- 

 tivity in the intimate fields of endeav- 

 or, which ought to be performed by 

 private business concerns, we over- 

 shoot the mark and pass beyond the 

 proper power of any officer of the 

 government. 



I would not object to the mere 

 building of storage dams, and yet, that 

 brings a great cost upon the people. 



I was struck by one thought when 

 Judge King was talking. He spoke 

 agout the Roosevelt Dam; it is a mag- 

 nificent dam a great concrete struc- 

 ture, but what does it do? Why, when 

 the officers of the Reclamation Serv- 

 ice went into that valley they found 

 remnants of canals built by a prehis- 

 toric people, which, by gravity alone, 

 irrigated 100,000 acres without the aid 

 of any magnificent concrete dam, the 

 cost of which is to be charged back to 

 the individual acre. 



I am opposed to government con- 

 trol and government supervision, and 

 government intrusion and invasion of 

 immediate reclamation work, because 

 they tend toward peasantry and offi- 

 cial peonage, and toward the de- 

 thronement of the independent farm- 

 er and the staunchest of American 

 freemen. I am in favor of private en- 

 terprise because it tends to instill and 

 maintain in the manhood of this coun- 

 try that independent character which 

 has heretofore made the men from the 

 farm the chief bulwark of this nation 

 in times of economic and political 

 stress, and on all her fields of glory 

 to the present day. Amidst all the 

 contentions of policies and storms of 

 war the farmer has ever stood un- 

 bending, like the "unwedgable and 

 gnarled oak." 



We admire the genius and glitter of 

 war and are stirred by the passion of 

 patriotism. We acclaim the bright 

 tradition of the sword of Wallace and 

 the leadership of the dauntless Bruce 

 that come to us from the heathered 



hills of Scotland. We are thrilled by 

 the intrepid spirit of France, fighting 

 under the lilies of her kings, the eagles 

 of Napoleon, or beneath the banners 

 of the regnant republic; and we do 

 not forget the Fatherland and its 

 River Rhine of story and of song. We 

 reverence England's sculptored Hamp- 

 dens and Nelsons and all her truly 

 great, and the proud memories of our 

 own great and peerless soldiers and 

 sailors, and yet it is the boy from the 

 farm who is the mainstay of the na- 

 tion. [Applause.] The man who cul- 

 tivates his own acres, builds his own 

 home, and is attached to the soil by 

 ties of family and affection is the firm 

 rock to which the institutions of our 

 communities and the hopes of state 

 and nation must ever be anchored. 

 The "embattled farmers" stayed Brit- 

 ain's power at Lexington and their 

 shoeless feet crimsoned the snows of 

 Valley Forge; and it was the great 

 Washington, coming from the fields 

 of Mount Vernon, who safely piloted 

 the colonies through the storms and 

 whirlpools of war and revolution. 

 [Applause.] It was the boy from the 

 North who made the cause of the 

 Union triumphant, and he came from 

 the farm; and it was the boy from the 

 southern plantation who upheld the 

 falling fortunes of the South. It was 

 Lincoln, the immortal Lincoln, prod- 

 uct of the farm, who was and who is 

 typical of all that is best and greatest 

 in our national life; while the unriv- 

 aled Lee, from the fields of Virginia, 

 represented the ideals of the South 

 and was her great and peerless com- 

 mander. [Applause.] 



On Dec. 9, 1914, there was intro- 

 duced in the Senate of the United 

 States bill No. 6827, and since reintro- 

 duced as Senate bill No. 1922, entitled 

 "A bill relating to the reclamation of 

 arid, semiarid, swamp and overflow 

 lands through district organizations 

 and authorizing government aid 

 therefor." The genesis of this pro- 

 posed legislation is somewhat as fol- 

 lows: In April, 1914, upon the initia- 

 tive and invitation of Secretary Lane 

 a conference was held in the city of 

 Denver, Colo., for the purpose of dis- 

 cussing federal and state cooperation 

 to further irrigation work. This con- 

 ference was largely attended by dele- 

 gations from all the states interested 

 in the subject and by many officers 

 of the Interior Department. The 

 Washington Irrigation Institute in- 

 dorsed a plan submitted to it by Mr. 

 E. W. Burr of North Yakima, and my- 

 self that federal aid be obtained by 

 government officials examining any 

 irrigation district project, and if it 

 were found feasible, the United States 

 to purchase one-half of the bonds to 

 be issued, and the other one-half of 

 the bonds to be offered for sale to pri- 

 vate purchasers; it being believed that 

 the United States, having taken one- 

 half of the bonds and having certified 

 to the good character of the project, 

 the remaining one-half of the bonds 

 would find ready sale. I was selected 

 to propose that plan to the Denver 

 conference, and the plan so proposed, 

 at the time, met with approval. Later, 

 in the city of Washington, I took up 

 the matter with certain government 

 officers, and also with some senators 



