IN MEM0RIAM ,-lAiN LIBRARY-AGRICULTURE DEI"! pS^aHffiiw THE UNFRIENDLY ATTITUDE OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT TOWARDS THE YUMA VALLEY ARIZONA July, 1907 MBRARY, AGRICULTURE DSft, THE UNFRIENDLY ATTITUDE OF THE oei tiers. Amaavits of Settlers and Business Men. Letter from President of Imperial Water Co. No.l. Severe Criticisms of the Recla- mation Officials by the Los Angeles Daily Times and the Imperial Daily Standard. Also by D. H. Anderson, editor of the Irrigation Age and Secretary of the National Irrigation Congress. Miscel- laneous Articles. Record of Flow of Colorado River for June and July 1906 and 1907 and Lastly the Call for an Irrigation Convention. PUBLISHED BY THE YUMA VALLEY CONSOLIDATED WATER USERS ASSOCIATION NOTE: ONE POINT GAINED In the call for the Irrigation Convention, published on pages 49-51 of this pamphlet, be noticed the statement that the Reclamation Service agreed to purchase a pumping plant Yuma for the sum of $6000 ; that they took a deed for the property and that after holding deed for two years, they placed the same on record without making payment for the plant. T then asked for possession of the property. On the advice of the company's attorney this reqi was not complied with. This information was received from such attorney on the evening of day that the request was denied, and is therefore reliable. About two weeks after the publication of this statement by the issuance of the call for Irrigation Convention, and after this pamphlet hod gone to press, the Reclamation Service j for the property. This is one of the effects of the movement of the people for the straightening out of crooked work of the Reclamation Service. One point has been gained. It is now publicly announced that the Reclamation Service have about concluded to purch the Farmers' Gravity Canal System and pay therefor $17,000 for property that cost $75,000, ; for which the Reclamation Service once agreed to pay the sum of $30,000 and then after farmers had signed up, they crawfished out of the agreement. THE UNFRIENDLY ATTITUDE OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT TOWARDS THE YUMA VALLEY ARIZONA Containing Correspondence with Government and Reclamation Officials. Statements of Representative Settlers. Affidavits of Settlers and Business Men. Letter from President of Imperial Water Co. No.l. Severe Criticisms of the Recla- mation Officials by the Los Angeles Daily Times and the Imperial Daily Standard. Also by D. H. Anderson, editor of the Irrigation Age and Secretary of the National Irrigation Congress. Miscel- laneous Articles. Record of Flow of Colorado River for June and July 1906 and 1907 and Lastly the Call for an Irrigation Convention. PUBLISHED BY THE YUMA VALLEY CONSOLIDATED WATER USERS ASSOCIATION TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Settlers of the Yuma Valley vs. Reclamation Service 3 Points in the Controversy to be remembered 7 An Appeal to the Secretary of the Interior for Relief 9 Reply of Hon. E. A. Hitchcock Secretary of the Interior. 11 Letter of Consolidated Water Users Association to L. C. Hill Supervising Engineer of Laguna Dam Project--- 14 Letter of Consolidated Water Users Association to President Roosevelt 19 Why the Canals of the Yuma Valley have not been operated 21 Affidavits of Settlers and businss men of Yuma Valley 25 Why the Imperial valley Settlers oppose the Reclamation Service Officials Letter from I. W. Gleason President of Imperial Water Company No. 1 .28 Oppressive use of power Irrigation Age 30 Laguna Dam Outlook Imperial Daily Standard 33 Reclamation Service scored by the Los Angeles Times 35 Miscellaneous Articles The Scope of the Reclamation Service work as provided by law 40 The Yuma Cont roversy - 40 A Brief Review of the Situation 41 Settlers Don't Rush In Irrigation Age 42 Congressman Smith Speaks 42 Irrigation in America 42 Accused of Knocking Imperial Daily Standard I"-' Vested Rights 43 Will the Laguna Dam Project be Completed 43 Misrepresentations by the Reclamation Service Officials 44 Criticise Reclamation Service -Imperial Daily Standard - II Secretary Garfields Personal Representative visits the Imperial Valley Imperial Daily Standard 4"> Is the Reclamation Act Unconstitutional.- Irrigation Age 45 General H. G. Otis on the Laguna Dam 46 The Los Angeles Times on the call for the Irrigation Convention 47 Call for an Irrigation Convention 49 The Colorado River Flood of 1907 a Record Breaker 52 ILLUSTRATIONS Scenes in Yuma Valley Contrast between five years ago and today Indian Corn during prosperous times of 1902 _. ( > Ranch of John Gandolfo Abandoned 6 Intake of the Ludy Canal in 1902 6 Ranch of Giles Cunningham Once valued at $75 an acre Sold at $25 6 As it was and as it is View of Ludy Canal 1903 from gate No. 5 Ranch of John Gandolfo Valued at $20,000 abandoned 10 Imperial Valley vs. Yuma Valley I. W. Gleason in Forresters Blackberry patch Ranch of S. E. Beach below Yuma formerly planted to wheat barley and alfalfa abandoned.- 13 Prosperity vs. Stagnation Imperial family and blackberry patch - t ^ Ranch of Archie Jordan Underpinning to house washed out Headquarters of Reclamation Service Officials at Yuma, Arizona, and the Settlers Pay the Freight 24 Prosperity vs Stagnation W. E. Wilsey's Ranch and family in Imperial Valley Ranch of O. P. Bondessen, President of Yuma County Water Users Association .._ 34 Imperial Valley vs. Yuma Valley Two year old grape vine, with good crop and a boy Prof. Yocum waiting for Government water Settlers of the Yuma Valley vs. Reclamation Service The treatment of the settlers of the Yuma Valley by the officials of the United States Reclamation Service in charge of the Laguna Dam Project, has been so unbusiness like and so unfair, and in such utter disregard of individual rights, that it has attracted the attention of the entire Pacific Coast. A presentation of the case to the public has become an absolute necessity, and an emphatic pro- test regarding such treatment to the authorities at Washington by the irrigation interests of the coun- try at large seems to be the only way by which the evils complained of can be remedied. The Reclamation officials are appointed by those higher in authority and it is but natural that the heads of departments should place confidence in their subordinates and therefore it requires a very strong case, backed by undoubted proofs and endorsed by an array of influential public sentiment that is overwhelming before the official ear of those high in authority can be reached. A brief resume of the situation here given will show clearly just what has been done and this will be followed by statements, correspondence and affidavits which will be ample proof of the situa- tion as herein outlined. The following summary of the case will give a clear statement of the facts: First: The Reclamation Service soon after its organization in 1902 began an investigation to ascertain what could be done to utilize the waters of the Colorado River for irrigation pur- poses. Second: They discovered that all the natural flow 7 of the river had been appropriated by the California Development Company and the Irri- "gation Land and Improvement Company, and much of it had already been diverted and used for a beneficial purpose by the Imperial Canal i system in California and the Ludy Canal System in Arizona. Third: That there was an abundance of flood water during the summer months that could be stored in reservoirs if suitable reservoir sites could be found and utilized; and thus all the flow of the Colorado River could be saved and dyevoted to a beneficial use. This is shown by the report of Arthur P. Davis, who made the investigation and reported to his superiors, which report was published. Fourth: Sites were selected for four large reservoirs, the lower one of which would be formed by building a dam one hundred feet high on the site where the Laguna Dam is now being constructed. This reservoir would be from one to ten miles wide and would extend up the river about one hundred miles. Fifth: It was found on further examination that there was no bed rock available at the sites of either one of the four proposed dams on which to make a foundation, and this plan had to be abandoned although it was one of great mag- nitude contemplating the expenditure in time of $22,000,000. Sixth: Up to this point the legality of the filing made by the California Development Com- pany or the Irrigation Land and Improvement Company had not been called in question, for the Reclamation Service had filed on 4,000,000 inches of the flood waters of the River, making the filings under the same laws on which prior filings had been based. Seventh: It now became evident to Recla- mation Service officials that one or both of the companies named must be deprived of its rights and be financially ruined or the Recla- mation Service must retire from the Colorado River. Eighth: The easy, if unscrupulous, way to accomplish this result was to deny them the right to use the water, injure their credit and then take away from them their customers, so that the Reclamation Service could have a free hand to rule or ruin. . ATTITUDE OF GOVERNMENT TOWARDS YUMA VALLEY Ninth: It was then that the Reclamation Service officials circulated the report that the Colorado River being a navigable stream, its waters were not subject to the appropriation laws of California and Arizona, and hence the settlers under the Imperial Canal in California and the Ludy Canal in Arizona had no right to use the water from those systems, and that they could only get a right to the use of water by coming in under the Reclamation Service. Tenth: Just how the Reclamation Service was going to be able to make a legal appropria- tion on the waters of a navigable stream under state laws, when other appropriations under the same laws were not valid did not appear. Eleventh: The Reclamation Service not only filed on the waters of the Colorado River and then declared that they could not be filed upon, because it was a navigable stream, but they planned to build four dams across the river at points where the stream was most likely to be navigated, thus entirely destroying what little navigability there was and then, to cap the cli- max, the Reclamation Service officials made ad- ditional filings on the waters of the stream when it was decided to construct the Laguna Dam. Twelfth: The Reclamation Service officials then went to the people of the Imperial Valley and by threats of taking the water away from them, succeeded temporarily in turning public sentiment away from the Imperial Canal water system to the Reclamation system, where a title to the water could be secured. Thirteenth: They also used the same tactics with the settlers in the Yuma Valley, but more successfully; for there they promised to purchase two of the three irrigation systems, and to oper- ate the systems pending the construction of the Laguna Proiect, thus furnishing the people with water from the old systems until the new sys- tem should be completed. Fourteenth: Under these promises they se- cured the signatures of the owners of about ninety per cent, of the land to be irrigated, but without such promises those signatures could never have been obtained. Fifteenth: When the estimates were made for the construction of the Laguna Dam System, J. B. Lippincott and his associates made the figures extremely low, either from engineering ignorance or so as not to discourage the settlers with the cost per acre of the entire SA'stem when completed. The estimate on the dam was about $900,000. The contractor, after spending $600,000, gave up his contract with a reported loss of $320,000, thus making the dam cost over $900,000 ("including the loss ) at a time when the work was not yet half done. Thus the dam complete will have cost about $2,000,000, which, is more than double the estimated cost. If other estimates on .the system prove to be equally low, the system when complete will have cost $80 instead of $40 an acre. Sixteenth: The officials promised to purchase the Farmers' Canal System for a price equal to actual cost of construction, but not less than $30,000 which was the amount of the indebted- ness of the company, but afterwards declined to either purchase the system or operate it. Seventeenth: They also agreed to purchase the pumping plant at a cost of $6,000. The deed to the property was executed and delivered and after it had been held by the officials for two years, it was placed on record and afterwards they demanded possession of the pumping plant without making the payment. Eighteenth: Thus by misrepresentation and false promises they succeeded in getting the land signed up for an unknown amount at first estimated at about $40 an acre, but now it is believed that the amount of the blanket mortgage will amount to twice that sum. Nineteenth: Six years ago the lands of the valley were the property of the Government. Under the influence of the old canal systems the lands were taken up under the Homestead and Desert Land Acts until practically all val- uable lands of the valley had passed into the hands of settlers and were worth from $10 to $50 per acre, and about 8,000 acres were brought under cultivation. Twentieth: The Ludy Canal system was con- structed at a cost of more than $500,000. It sold water rights for $10. an acre and furnished water at $3. per acre per annum. The affi- davits of settlers throughout the Valley under that system extracts from many of which are given in this pamphlet show that the settlers had, as a rule, an abundant supply of water and prosperity was the rule, with very few excep- tions. Twenty:first: Under the representations of the Reclamation officials the settlers had no right to the use of the water that had brought this prosperity. They were told they must sign up with the Reclamation officials by a given date or go without water for those who did not sign up by that time would not be allowed to do so later. SETTLERS VS. RECLAMATION SERVICE Twenty-second: The Irrigation Land and Im- provement Company, the owner of the Ludy Canal, was a solid corporation financially. Its stock sold at par and its water rights passed current in the Valley. It had a good credit and was rated high in the Commercial Agencies. Twenty-third: One serious obstacle in the way of attacking the rights of the Ludy Canal System to the use of the water of the Colorado River was found in the fact that the canals of the system were built over government land; that in accordance with law a map of the sys- tem was filed with the Land Department at Washington; that before this application for right of way over Government Lands was acted upon by the Land Department, the Reclamation Service had commenced its operations on the Colorado River; that the Reclamation officials protested against allowing that system to secure a sanction of its plans by the Department of the Interior, as such an ap- proval would give the company vested rights in the waters of the Colorado River that would prove an impediment to the Reclamation Service in its work, but it appears that prior to this time the Canal Company had so far completed its system and had delivered water to so many settlers over so large an acreage that the Govern- ment was compelled to approve the maps filed, even over the protest of the Reclamation officials. That approval stands today as a strong bulwark of protection to the company that is threatened with destruction. Twenty- fourth: Through false representations the settlers under that system were forced in self defense as they supposed to sign up with the Reclamation Service and thus mortgage their ranches for an unknown quantity, or as they feared, lose their all. Twenty-fifth: Having secured all the signa- tures obtainable the officials treacherously de- clined to carry out their part of the program by purchasing or even operating any one of the irrigation systems of the Valley. Twenty-sixth: The owners of the irrigation systems saw no reason for keeping up their canals as all their customers had been taken from them and there was nothing to work for, and without further growth and prospects there was no reason for further operating the canals as it must be done at a loss under such condi- tions. Twenty-seventh: The Farmers system became bankrupt and went into the hands of a receiver while many of the settlers of the Valley formed the Consolidated Water Users' Association for self protection and for the further purpose of leasing and operating the abanodned canal systems. This association made a contract with the Irrigation Land and Improvement Co. for a lease of the Ludy Canal System for the sum of ten dollars per year, by paying for all repairs and operating expenses. Twenty-eighth: Other settlers thought they saw nothing for them in the future and so. they abandoned their ranches and moved out, many going to the Imperial Valley, while the abandoned ranches of the Valley are growing up to brush again and lapsing back into their original desert conditions. Twenty-ninth: Yuma Valley four years ago was prosperous and the settlers were contented and happy, while the city of Yuma was pros- perous and flourishing. Today many of the farms are being deserted and the remaining settlers are discouraged while fighting for their homes with little hope of success. Thirtieth: It seems evident that the Recla- mation officials do not have any interest in the welfare of the pioneer settlers of the Yuma Valley, for if they abandon their places and move out, the officials think that a new set of settlers will come in at a later date and take up the abandoned ranches and by paying the Govern- ment the cost of the system they can secure homes at the expense of the earlier settlers who lost their all their lost ranches at one time being valued at from $2000 to $8000 for quarter sec- tion tracts. Thirty-first: The settlers in the Imperial Valley discovered the Yuma program and the bad faith of the Reclamation Service just in time to save themselves from falling into the same trap, and as a result, the picture in the Imperial Valley is a very different one, for prosperity is found at all points and real estate values are rapidly advancing, while the ranches of that valley are wealth producers. Thirty-second: The Pacific Coast has been developed so far by private enterprise. South- ern California in a third of a century has in- creased its population from 32,000 to over 500,- 000, and the basis of this increase has been irri- gation by private enterprise. Now that the Government has entered the field, the manage- ment or rather the mismanagement of the gov- ernment officials and their influence with pri- vate undertakings has been such that private capital as applied to irrigation enterprises has been driven from the field and as the operations 6 UNFRIENDLY ATTITUDE OF GOVERNMENT TOWARDS YUMA VALLEY of the Reclamation Service are limited irrigation projects will languish as a consequence. There- fore further development must cease unless there is a change of the present management. This pamphlet is issued in order to lay before the public and the authorities at Washington the actual condition of affairs brought on by the mismanagement and misrepresentations of the Reclamation Service so far as their work applies to the Colorado River. We also insist that justice to the Government at Washington, justice to the Rec= lamation Service officials and justice to the settlers who are losing their all requires that the proper authorities at Washington shall order a rigid and honest investigation of this whole subject, that the mismanagement may be corrected and that the homes of the pioneer settlers may be saved to those who have borne the heat and burden of the day in order to open up and develop this country, which at one time was sup= posed to be so worthless. Scenes in the Yuma Valley Contrast Between Five Years Ago and To-day Indian corn during prosperous times of 1902 16 miles below the Ludy Canal heading Ranch of John Gandolfo Improved by Mr. Wilkerson and abandoned. Intake of the Ludy Canal in 1902 View from the Colorado River. Ranch of Giles Cunningham, 5 miles south of Yuma 160 acres valued at $75 an acre four years ago but re- cently sold at $25 an acre. Points in the Controversy to be Remembered The settlers under the Laguna Valley Project have been unfairly treated by the Reclamation officials. The same is true regarding the settlers in the Imperial Valley. These troubles are care- fully analyzed in the following pages of this pamphlet. Following are the points at issue concisely stated: Fir.^t: The Reclamation Act of June, 1902, was intended as a means by which the Govern- ment could reclaim its own worthless desert lands and enable American citizens to make homes thereon, also incidentally to assist occas- ional settlers who might have located on such lands; but it was not its purpose to reconstruct arid rebuild irrigation systems that were success- fully supplying water to the lands under such systems. Second: The clear intent of that act was to create, not to destroy. Therefore the Recla- mation Service having in charge the construction of irrigation systems was not called upon to de- stroy the irrigation systems that had been built by the settlers or by Water Corporations, who had spent large sums of money in thus develop- ing the country and making it possible of settle- ment, without making just compensation for the property thus destroyed. Third: The Reclamation officials in their attempt to get a foothold on the Colorado River for the purpose of constructing an irrigation system that should utilize all the available water of the river and reclaim every available acre of arid land within reach of such irrigation system, conducted their work regardless of the property rights of the early settlers who spent years of time and large sums of money in order to convert the uninhabitable desert into fertile fields fit for the homes of American citizens. Fourth: In pursuing this line of policy they played football with the truth and represented or misrepresented facts as best suited their pur- pose to attain the ends sought, regardless of its effect on property rights or the homes of pio- neer settlers. Fifth: As evidence of this they filed on the waters of the Colorado river under the laws of the State of California, and the Territory of Ari- zona; then they declared that the waters of that river were not subject to the appropriation laws because it was a navigable stream. This was done in order to bankrupt the corporations that had secured through the appropriation laws prior rights to the waters of the river, and had built extensive irrigation systems that were the foun- ation of prosperous and profitable settlements were previously there had been nothing but desert wastes. This forcing the water company out of the river was done in order that the Reclama- tion officials might have a free hand to build a new system. It was done in utter disregard of truth, and in violation of property rights and homes that were being destroyed. They declared that the Colorado river was a navigable stream and yet went to work deliberately to plan for the construction of dams across the river at the very points where the river was most navigable, and then they filed again on the waters of the stream in violation of law as they had publicly construed it. Sixth. The Reclamation Service forced the California Development Company to secure a concession from the Mexican Republic in order to protect its contract with the settlers of the Imperial Valley and thus save the homes of ten thousand settlers and prevent the destruction of $25,000,000. worth of property. s UNFRIENDLY ATTITUDE OF GOVERNMENT TOWARDS YUMA VALLEY Seventh. When the California Development Company made its connection with the Colorado River in order to get water for the Imperial Valley settlers under its Mexican concession, it was discovered that the reports circulated by the Reclamation Service officials that the Com- pany had no legal water rights had so affected its credit that it could not secure the funds with which to build the head gates, and hence the runaway Colorado river, for which the Recla- mation Service is directly responsible. Eighth. The Reclamation officials made all kinds of promises to the settlers along the Colo- rado River in order to get them to sign up under the Laguna Dam Contract. Ninth. They agreed to purchase the Farmers Canal system at Yuma a at minimum price of $30,000. that sum being the amount of in- debtedness of the Company, which amount was guaranteed by individual settlers in the Valley settlers who will be practically bankrupted if they are compelled to pay this guaranteed debt. The Farmers Canal belonged to the settlers and was considered worth $75,000 on a basis of actual cost of construction. Because of that agreemerr'to purchase the Farmers Canal System the settlers under that system signed up their property and the Reclamation service then declined to either purchase the plant or operate it pending the construction of the Laguna Dam system. Tenth. They agreed to purchase a pumping plant that furnished water to a large area of the valley paying therefor the sum of $6,000. The owners executed a deed to the property and de- livered it to the Reclamation officials, asking for the pay. Those officials took the deed and promised to pay. After holding it in their possession for two years they placed the deed on record and soon after demanded possession of the property, without first paying for the same. They did not get possession, by advice of attor- neys. Eleventh. The estimates made by J. B. Lip- pincott and his associates as to the cost of the Laguna Dam were made at a low figure, in order to mislead the settlers who were eventually to foot the bill. Their estimated cost was about $900,000. The contractor, after doing a portion of the work, surrendered his contract at a re- ported loss of $320,000. Up to that date the government had expended $600,000 which made the dam cost $920,000 including the loss of con" tractors, and the work was then about half done* Thus the dam when completed will have cost nearly $2,000,000 more than double the esti- mated cost. It was estimated that the cost of the system would amount to about $40 per acre, on the lands to be irrigated. If the esti- mates made on the construction of the syphon under the Gila River, the tunnel through the Yuma Mesa and the distributing system to the 87,600 acres of land are as much too low as was that on the cost of the dam, the cost will amount to $75 or $80 per acre. And the settlers pay the freight. Twelfth. As a result of the misleading esti- mates and the failure to keep promises, to pur- chase and operate, existing irrigation systems, and the belief that the lands of the Valley are mortgaged to the Government for all they are worth, the settlers are moving out in large num- bers, leaving their homes vacant and their im- proved ranches going back to desert conditions again. Thirteenth. Evidently the recent severe criti- cisms of the Reclamation Service have reached headquarters at Washington, so as to cause a change of program there. The new Secretary of the Interior, Garfield, has sent an engineer to the Imperial Valley to look over the situation with a view to recommending a plan whereby the Government may obtain control of the Colorado River independent of the Reclamation Service. It is said that the Department of the Interior has decided that the Imperial Recla- mation project is one of such magnitude and is so far advanced as to be beyond the province of the Reclamation Service. Also, that the Colorado River problem is too important and of too great magnitude to be left in the hands of private corporations. It desires to have the river pass into government control without conflicting with the rights of individuals or the filings of water corporations having prior rights in the river. These are the main points that are elaborated in this pamphlet and to which the attention of the justice loving public is directed. It is to take action on these points that the convention is called to meet in Sacramento in August next, just prior to the meeting of the National Irriga- tion Congress a call for which convention is found in this pamphlet. An Appeal to the Secretary of the Interior for Relief On the 19th of March, 1906, 307 citizens of the Yuma Valley signed the following letter to Hon. E. A. Hitchcock, the then Secretary of the Interior, and the head of the Department under which the Reclamation Service was operating. In this letter the troubles of the settlers with the Reclama- tion officials were fully set forth. HON. SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR, WASHINGTON, D. C. MY DEAR SIR: We, the undersigned, residents and citizens of Yuma county, Arizona, regardless of political affiliations, representing all lines of industry, unite in memoralizing the Reclamation De- partment: That we are familiar with the canal systems of the Valley about Yurna and the growth and development of the lands under them. That the country in general was thrifty and prosperous ; all lines of business were in good condition and the lands under those systems were being de- veloped as rapidly as the financial condition of the settler would permit, until the Reclamation Department appeared and presented its plans for the further and future development under Government ownership by virtue of the Re- clamation act. We believed that the said act was broad enough and that the Department was fair enough to fully and ably protect the pioneers of irrigation who were the educators, demonstrating the value of this arid region, and that these pioneers would be protected with- in their lawful, just and equitable rights. We gave this Government movement our hearty and undivided support, believing that all systems would be unified under one great project controlled by the Government. We did not thus bind ourselves, however, until we had requested the Department to take up and oper- ate one or more of these systems and supply the land under them with water during the construc- tion of the Government works or system; all of which we were led to believe by representatives of the Relcamation Department, would be done to protect our homes, as the water right contracts that the land holders were required by the Rec- lamation Department to sign, absolutely elimi- nated the possibility of competition with the Reclamation Department, thus destroying the future of the Valley to all private enterprises for irrigation purposes. Since the land has been signed up to the Reclamation Department, the existing canal companies have given their time and energies to the adjustment of their claims with the Department and not to the furnishing of water to the lands under them. As there was not sufficient lands under cultivation to be profitable to such companies to furnish water thereon the development of land ceased. The land owner would not buy water rights from private canal systems as they had signed up with the Reclamation Department. The foregoing unfortunate condition has not only wrecked the canal companies of the valley but unless relief is had by opening and operating one or more of these canals by the Reclamation Department our homes will be reduced to a desert condition before the completion of the Government system. We fully realize that the many difficulties which confront the earnest and most praiseworthy efforts of the Reclamation Department, even with the flblo and efficient corps of engineers and em. 10 UNFRIENDLY ATTITUDE OF GOVERNMENT TOWARDS YUMA VALLEY ployes in its service connected with its project here, must necessarily defer the completion of the system and the serving of water thereunder for a great length of time, perhaps several years. We, therefore, most earnestly petition your department to immediately take over by lease, purchase or otherwise such of these systems as shall adequately supply the lands of the Valley with irrigating waters as our property has de- preciated in value in a larger sum than the neces- sary cost of taking over and operating one or more of these canals in the interim. Thus the farmers would add thousands of acres to the cultivated area and be prepared to use the water from the government system when completed. Whereas, if no relief is given the lands heretofore cultivated will have grown up again to brush, the settlers impoverished and compelled to seek employment to gain a livlihood away from home, and ultimately, when the government system is completed, the settler will not be prepared to use the water therefrom or to meet the obligations of his contract. We therefore pray that you give this petition your early consideration and the relief asked for. You will accomplish by this course the harmon- izing of all interests, which will permit the government to go ahead with its good work un- obstructed, restoring values to our property, bringing harmony out of 'discord, establishing confidence and prosperity and repairing the in- juries unintentionally inflicted. YUMA VALLEY CONSOLIDATED WATER USERS ASSOCIATION Yuma, Ariz., March 19, 1906 As It Was and As It Is View of the Ludy Canal in 1903 from gate No. 5. Ranch of John Gandolfo, ten miles south of Yuma, 320 acres valued at $20,000 now abandoned. Reply of Hon. E. A. Hitchcock, Secretary of the In- terior, to the Settlers of the Yuma Valley The letter to Secretary Hitchcock was forwarded to that official by W. H. DeBerry, the Pre- sident of the Yuma Valley Water Users Association at that time through Hon. George Turner of Washington, D. C., who was in position to properly present the letter and obtain a reply. Follow- ing letters were written by Secretary Hitchcock in reply to that letter. SECRETARY HITCHCOCK'S LETTER TO W. H. DeBERRY DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, WASHINGTON. MR. W. H. DEBERRY, PRESIDENT CONSOLIDATED WATER USERS' ASSOCIATION, YUMA, ARIZ. SIR: 1 received on May 2, 1906, from Hon. George Turner, a petition signed by H. Wupper- man and three hundred and six others, residents and citizens of Yuma county, Arizona, forwarded by you to Mr. Turner on April 7, 1906, to be pre- sented to me for immediate action and relief, and in this connection 1 enclose for the information of the petitioners a copy of my letter of the 29th ultimo to Mr. Turner, with copy of a report in the matter by the Director of the Geological Survey dated May 15, 1906. Very respectfully, E. A. HITCHCOCK, Secretary SECRETARY HITCHCOCK'S LETTER IN REPLY TO THE SETTLERS SENT TO HON. GEORGE TURNER HON. GEORGE TURNER, WASHINGTON, D. C. SIR: I received May 2, 1906, by your trans- mission, the petition of H. Wupperman and three hundred and six others, residents and citizens of Yuma county, Arizona, transmitted to you April 7, 1906, by W. H. DeBerry, President of the Consolidated Water Users' Association of Yuma valley, to be presented to me for immediate action and relief. The petitioners represent, in substance, t'hat the country was prosperous and the water systems were being developed as rapidly as financial conditions permitted until the Recla- mation Service formed plans for an irrigation project under the act of June 17, 1902, (32 Stat. 388), that they gave support to the government project, believing the irrigation systems would thereby be benefitted, but that since the land owners gave their adhesion to the public project the existing canal companies have not continued to furnish water to their lands because there was not sufficient cultivated land to render it profit- able to the companies and development ceased; that these conditions have wrecked the canal companies and are liable to reduce the petitioners' homes to desert conditions before the completion of the government system. Upon such facts the petitioners ask me to immediately take over by lease, purchase or otherwise, such of these systems as shall adequately supply the lands of the valley with irrigating waters as our property had depreciated in value in larger sum than the necessary cost of taking over and operating one or more of these canals in the interim. Thus the farmers would add thousands of acres to the cultivated area and be prepared for their water 12 UXFKIKXDLY ATTITUDE OF GOVERNMENT TOWARDS YUMA VALLEY from the government system when completed. Whereas, if no relief is given the lands heretofore cultivated will have grown up again to brush/ the settlers impoverished and compelled to seek employment to gain a livlihood away from home; ultimately, when the government system is com- pleted, the settler will not be prepared to use the water therefrom or to meet the obligations of his contract. We therefore pray that you give this petition your early consideration and the relief asked for. You will accomplish by this course the harmon- izing of all interests, which will permit the govern- ment to go ahead with its good work unobstructed, restoring values to our property, bringing har- mony out of discord, establishing confidence and prosperity and repairing the injuries unintention- ally inflicted. The petition was referred May 8, 1906, to the director of the geological survey, and on May 15, 1906, he reported that the Irrigation Service has always sought to arrange with existing canal companies to take and pay a ^reasonable price for any part of their existing works that could be utilized in systems to be constructed by the government; that it has not interfered with the operations of such systems and has encouraged their owners to keep them in operation. The report, a copy of which is furnished herewith sets out at considerable length the facts as to efficiency and defects of the existing systems in the Yuma Valley, and states that had the systems been in condition to furnish a water supply there is no reason why the owners could not have operated them and furnished the supply as well as the government. The truth of the matter is that the gravity systems were physical and finan- cial failures prior to the beginning of the govern- ment operations. The physical conditions have been so aggravated by natural causes that it is now apparent that there is no possibility of fur- nishing an adequate water supply by the repair of the gravity systems, and that the expenditure by the government for that purpose would be wasted. The quickest and only .efficient means of supplying water for any large body of land under present conditions is by the completion of the Yuma project. The intention of the officers of the Reclama- tion Service to recommend the purchase of one or more of the existing canal systems and incor- porate them in the government project has not been carried out because of the impossibility, of obtaining reasonable terms. The experience of the reclamation service in other projects shows that wherever there is an existing system which is%dequate for their needs the people will not subscribe to the Water Users' Association, even though the conditions of the subscription may afford some advantage in ad- dition to their existing rights. This is the cnsr with the Tempe canal system in the Salt River Valley; also under the canals of the Payette- Boise project; those in the Yakima Valley, and, in fact, in every project where there is an irriga- tion, system that furnishes sufficient water supply. The operations of the Reclamation Service are not destructive of successful enterprises. It is only in those cases where service is inadequate tfoat the water users under existing canals are willing to agree to take water from the Govern- ment project. The wreckage of the canal systems in the Valley was due wholly to conditions over which the Government had no control and was not in- fluenced in any way by the operation of the Gov- ernment. As above stated, the Government as a competitor would not have injured these systems if they had been in as good a condition as claimed. The petitioners indicate no irrigation system in the Yuma Valley that is capable of being suc- cessfully and practically operated nor, as ap- pears from the reports of the engineers of the Irrigation Service is there existing any such. If, however, such does exist, and the owners of such system will neither operate it nor dispose of it at a value at which the United States can take it, the remedy of its patrons whose interests are injuriously affected must be sought in the courts. If there are systems capable of opera- tion, and their operation is essential to the public welfare, they presumably hold their properties and franchises under obligations to operate them, and subject to control of the courts as other public utilities. At all events, no power of that kind is vested in me. The clear, general object of the Irrigation Act is the establishment of irrigation systems for the entire cost of which, including operation and maintenance, the United States is to be reim- bursed by ratable contributions of the owners of the lands reclaimed. It is clearly not the intent of Congress, and is not within the pro- visions of the Irrigation Act, to authorize con- struction of systems the cost of which the re- claimed lands can not reimburse, such a system is not within the meaning of the Act, practicable REPLY OF SECRETARY OF INTERIOR 13 The power of the Secretary of the Interior to acquire existing property is merely incidental to the general objects and purposes of the Act. The Secretary is not given power to acquire, or to take possession and to operate for temporary relief of its patrons, a system that cannot form and be utilized as a part of a system constructed under the Act. The petition points out no irrigation system that can be utilized as part of the Yuma project, at a cost that, included with the cost of the works to be constructed, may be reimbursed to the Government by the lands benefited nor yet any system that could be operated if it were acquired. It therefore presents nothing within my proper powers under the Irrigation Act. A copy of the report of the Director of the Geological Survey and of this letter is also fur- nished to W. H. DeBerry, President of the Con- solidated Water Users' Association, of Yuma valley, for information of the petitioners. Very respectfully, E. A. HITCHCOCK, SECRETARY. May 29, 1906. Imperial Valley vs. Yuma Valley I. W. Gleason helping himself to fruit in the black- berry patch on ranch of E. E. Forrester, five miles south- west of Imperial. Ranch of S. E. Beach, below Yuma, formerly pknted to wheat, barley and alfalfa abandoned. Letter from the Consolidated Water Users Association of Yuma Valley to Lewis C. Hill, Supervising Engineer of Laguna Dam Project The following letter written by authority of the Consolidated Water Users Association of Yuma Valley, Arizona, was sent to Mr. Lewis C. Hill, who succeeded Mr. J. B. Lippincott as Supervising Engineer of the Laguna Dam Project, in order to lay before him the facts of the case relative to the situation developed during the negotiations carried on between the settlers in the Yuma Valley and Mr. Lippincott while he was representing the Government. MR. LEWIS C. HILL, SUPERVISING ENGINEER, PHOENIX, ARIZONA. DEAR SIR: We, the undersigned, members of the Board of Water Users' of the Consolidated Water Users' Association of Yuma Valley, desire to call your attention to a petition circulated by and under our authority, and signed by 307 citizens of Yuma county, memorializing the honorable secretary of the Department of the Interior "to take up and operate a sufficient number of canals in the valley, by lease, pur- chase or otherwise, to supply the homes and home builders with water for irrigating purposes dur- ing the construction of the government plant, to the end that they should not be driven from their homes, as the result of the unsettled con- dition of the water supply, occasioned by the advent of the Reclamation Department in our midst. A copy of the petition is hereto attached, also the endorsement of the same by the Chamber of Commerce of Yuma County, Arizona, and also the resolution adopted by this Board of the Consolidated Water Users' Association of Yuma Valley, which will place you in a position to fully and intelligently consider our memorial to the Honorable Secretary and give it your favoral.le consideration and early endorsement. Our petition, though plain and pointed in re- lating the history of the Reclamation Depart- ment during the time of its operation in this lo- cality, and also of forecasting the financial re- sult to the land owner and citizen of this section, has been phenomenally and scrupulously cor- rect, as deserted homes and closed business houses, the depreciation of farm and town prop- erty, substantially verifies. That this unnatural condition is due to the unfair, unbusinesslike and unjust methods pur- sued by the Honorable J. B. Lippincott, ex- supervising engineer of the Yuma Project, his superiors or subordinates, cannot be success- fully denied. And instead of having the bene- ficiaries, or those who should be beneficiaries of this project, co-operating with your Depart- ment, it has by its own methods destroyed the unbounded confidence they once had; while with a due regard for business fairness and justice and respect for their promises, they could have held and maintained this high appreciation, thereby making co-operation mutually pleasant and profitable to the citizens of this locality and your Department. But with the resignation of the Hon. J. B. Lippincott from the responsible position of supervising engineer and the appointment of yourself to that position, comes the hope that there may yet be a solution of this vexing ques- CONSOLIDATED WATER USERS ASSOCIATION TO L. C. HILL 15 tion which is confronting the people under this project; and it is with this hope that we are presenting you with our grievances, to the end that they may be amicably adjusted, and in a limited way, the many and varied injustices repaired. We hereto attach a copy of the Honorable Secretary's reply to our petition, which undoubt- edly has its origin in the brilliant but deceptive intellect of ex-Supervising Engineer J. B. Lippin- cott, whose blighting and aggressive hand must have dotted every "i" and crossed every "t" contained in its verbiage, as we who are familiar with his address, either oral or written, detect in this as in others, his marked success in juggling the English language so as to make the truth appear a falsehood and a falsehood the truth, to the extent of deceiving many of the in- telligent who are not familiar with the facts and his methods. We cannot believe that the Honorable Secre- tary gave our petition his personal considera- tion to the extent so important a matter deserved, from the manner of reply we received to it. He has undoubtedly based his conclusions upon the representations of his subordinates, who have made an unscrupulous and relentless war- fare upon private rights whenever in conflict with, or in the way of the development of, their plans, and without regard to their just and legal rights and with the strong hand of this great and good government, over-riding all opposition to their narrow views and protecting themselves in oppressing the homes and home builders. Our petition was signed by citizens under this project, endorsed by the Chamber of Com- merce of Yuma County, the Board of Consoli- dated Water Users of Yuma Valley, and sup- ported by numerous affidavits from among substantial and honorable citizens of this County, who we are pleased to say from a point of honor, integrity, business fairness and financial ability, compare favorably with the most honored of your Department, and who have had the oppor- tunity of witnessing the growth and develop- ment of this country for years and can speak from observation and experience and not from information and conjecture. If the Reclamation Department will not listen to the above witnesses, they would not, in the language of the inspired writer, "listen to one though he be risen from the dead." What right had Mr. Director of the Geological Survey to advise the Honorable Secretary to the effect "that the irrigation service had always sought to arrange with existing canal companies to take over and pay a reasonable price 'for any part of their existing works that could be utilized in a system to be constructed by the Government?" He herein has expressed his own ignorance of the facts, or his intention to deceive the -Secre- tary, for the facts are that the Yuma Valley Union Land and Water Company consented to and signed stipulations and an agreement to settle with your department for their canal. The same was drawn by ex-Supervising Engineer J. B. Lippincott and the Water Users of Yuma Valley on the part of the Government, and signed by them on behalf of the Reclamation depart- ment, and also signed by the proper officers of the Yuma Valley Union Land and Water Com- pany. This contract was inspected and ap- proved at the Reclamation department's head- quarters at Los Angeles, Cal., was also approved by the Honorable Secretary; and Homer Hamlin, resident engineer in charge at Yuma of the gov- ernment works, authorized the Water Users' Association to have prepared and signed the proper conveyances preparatory to turning over the property to the government. The conditions of the sale were substantially as follows: The price to be realized by the Yuma Valley Union Land and Water Company was not to be less than $30,000, the amount of its interest bearing indebtedness, and as much more as the actual measurements figured at a reasonable cost of construction; and in no event to be less than $30,000, this amount to be paid on or im- mediately following the transfer of the property, to stop interest on its indebtedness, the balance, if any, to be paid in cash, or to apply the same in payment of the assessments levied to repay the government for the construction of the Yuma project. About the time the proper transfers were being prepared, ex-Supervising Engineer J. B. Lippincott, during one of his trips to Yuma, repudiated the entire arrange- ment, denying the existence of any stipulation in the matter, although his name was attached to it. It does look as if Mr. Director was either ignorant or deceitful in this matter. There have been repeated efforts by the above company to reach a settlement of their interests, but without any results. With this standard of business integrity, honor and justice, can it be strange that there has been no settlement of canal interests under the Yuma project? 16 UNFRIENDLY ATTITUDE OF GOVERNMENT TOWARDS YUMA VALLEY And by what process of business reasoning does Mr. Director presume that any canal com- pany would be expected to willingly sell a por- tion of its system at cost of construction and abandon the remainder with such a loss as would necessarily follow under the conditions of the contract that the land owners were required to sign under this project? Such methods are arbitrary and tyranical, and would not be tolerated in our courts be- tween private individuals or corporations. Is our government to become competitor in busi- ness affairs with such wholesale confiscation of private property and disregard of individual rights? This is the position of your department. Mr. Director is inconsistent when he says he has encouraged the owners to keep their canals in operation, and in the very next paragraph de- clares them to be a physical and financial fail- ure. Now if the latter is true, is not his recom- mendation ridiculous? The only encouragement the canals received from your department to keep them open was their threats to close them, which caused a vigilant watch on the part of the canal company. The simple plain facts are stated in our pe- tition, showing why the canal companies of the valley are not operating their system. What moral or legal right has he to encourage the canal companies to keep them open and serve our homes with water when his department has destroyed all possibility of past, or hope for future reward? And we divorced ourselves from every moral, and we believe every legal right to look to them for future delivery of water after signing the land under your contracts. We exchanged the obligation they owed us and were faithfully performing, for the larger and more extensive, and we believed more economical project of your department, in order to thereby unite divided energies, and with its promise to operate these systems in the interest of the home builders of the valley during the con- struction of the government system, which is all that we are asking for at their hands. What right has Mr. Director to say that the canal systems of the valley were a physical and financial failure, when at least one of these com- panies was thoroughly satisfied with its invest- ment, and had always met and was prepared to meet the rapid growth and development of the land under it? These facts were stated in our petition, fully substantiated by numerous affi- davits from our best citizens, and only to the end that the truth might be known and justice reached. Yet he stated they were a physical and financial failure and has cast a shadow over the honor and integrity of our citizens which merits their just indignation and can only be excused by his ignorance or stupidity. The fact is, this Association has leased the Gravity canals of the valley without money and without price, and operated them last season, not as a matter of choice, but to protect our homes from the encroachment of the desert and from the result of your department's broken covenants with the people. We repaired the Irrigation Land & Improvement company's canal, and operated and filled the gravity canals from it at a cost last season of about $2,000, until July 7, and with a comparatively small additional sum, aided with proper machinery, would have furnished an ample supply. This is the summing of "the physical condi- ditions from natural causes," and "the im- possibility from its results, the sand bars, etc., from the floods of unprecedented volume of recent date," and shows conclusively that your department has magnified the obstacles and de- fects of these canals with the same disregard for fairness, as they denied their merit. You may* ask, "Why do you not willingly operate these canals?" Because our homes require our resources and because it was no part of our agreement with your department. When we signed our land under your contracts we were supposed to return to our homes and be- come the consumers of water, and not the pro- ducers and deliverers, and your department's violation of its promise has brought want, pov- erty and destruction of property in our midst, and justly merits the indignation of the people. The arbitration commission referred to by the Director appointed by his department and in its employ, of whom J. B. Lippincott was the dominating spirit, moved in the sphere of dic- tators and not arbitrators, and would remind one of the trial of Emmet, for while in the pro- gress of the hearing conflicting testimony was being offered respecting the conditions of the Irrigation, Land & Improvement Company's canal, the attorneys for said company requested the commission to make a personal inspection of that portion in dispute, which was only four to six miles distant and could have been accom- plished in a short time, but they replied that they were thoroughly advised as to the condi- tions that existed. Why then the use of an ar- bitration commission, if it was not to satisfy formality and insult justice? Why this com-* CONSOLIDATED WATER USERS ASSOCIATION TO L. C. HILL 17 mission from among its employes, and not se- lected from disinterested business men? They were interested parties to the cause, the paid advisers of the department, and had undoubtedly arrived at a verdict before the commission con- vened. Therefore, what assurance can you offer that if an agreement had been obtained from the result of the commission, that it would have been kept any more sacred than the one they violated with the Yuma Valley Union Land and Water Co. with such profound indifference. These companies have sought every available opportunity to settle differences with your de- partment according to business methods. Of what significance a few paltry dollars when bought at such a price, and when money is being spent so lavishly in other directions but not a dollar to supply our homes with water, the pre- sumed end of all your efforts. And if our lands have these bills to pay, our voice should have something to say about its distribution, yet it is not respected in their council. Mr. Director labors hard to shift the res- ponsibility of these deplorable conditions to natural causes occasioned by overflows, but they become insignificant in their effects when compared with the broken covenants of his de- partment. While the canals are in need of repair and cleaning, they, as roads for a flow of water, are not as badly obstructed as the avenues of justice and fairness through his department. The Di- rector in relating the facts regarding the recent disaster of the California Development Co. with the Colorado river and the Salton sea, did not relate all the facts, and this neglect must have deceived the Honorable Secretary of the In- terior. While it is a fact that the bed of the river was lowered as related, it is also a fact that during the summer period the minimum flow of the river was nearly or quite double its flow of former years, thereby causing but little difference in the surface grade of the water at the Irrigation Land & Improvement Company's heading, and during these impractical times re- lated, commencing with March 17 and ending July 7, our Association successfully operated the gravity canals of the valley. Now, he did not advise the Honorable Secre- tary of this fact. Put up the wires and let the full light of truth and intelligent information light up the befogged minds of the heads of your department that they may act with intelligence and fairness. Now, if this little Association whose success has been beneath the notice of your department, only as an organ of the Irrigation Land and Improvement Co., did hold water during such a trying period, should not your department, with its vast resources, modern appliances and skilled engineers, accomplish a great success, and es- pecially so since the California Development Company's canal is under control and the river is on its natural course to the gulf? And if you only accomplish the same success as your predecessors whom you have declared a physical failure, we will willingly and truth- fully declare your efforts a success, for our fields will be green and our larders will be filled. Mr Director in his letter to the Honorable Secretary, of May 15, 1906, advises him on page 9, that "the quickest and most efficient means of supplying water for any large body of land under present conditions is by completing the government project. Now these were not the recommendations at the time of our adhesion to your contracts, but the requests of our petition were a direct understanding and pledge on the part of the representatives of your department. And in the very next paragraph of his letter he attempts to excuse himself by stating that the reason that the existing canals had not been in- corporated into the government project was be- cause of the impossibility to secure them on reasonable terms. This admission destroys the former "physical impossibility" argument, which we have thoroughly demonstrated by our associa- tion in opening and operating these canals, and it resolves itself into a purely money proposi- tion, and the Yuma Valley Union Land and Water Company had a stipulation as to price. How are you to reach conclusions with such an ill advised department, and especially when they turn a deaf ear to others than their employes? Now the director in his summary states that it is the "understanding of this office that this Association of Consolidated Water Users was organized for the specific purpose of urging upon the government the purchase of the property of the irrigation Land and Improvement Com- pany." We never asked your department to buy the property of the Irrigation, Land and Im- provement Company, nor any other company. We did not wish to usurp the authority nor invade the domain of the engineers of your department by making a recommendation of either of these canals, but simply requested you to take over and operate one or more of these canals by lease, purchase or otherwise, that water might reach 18 UNFRIENDLY ATTITUDE OF GOVERNMENT TOWARDS YUMA VALLEY our parched and impoverished homes. We have difficulties enough to overcome, contending with poverty, obstacles of nature and the arid condition of our soil, without any stumbling blocks being placed in our way by such malicious information. Moreover this accusation is as unfair as it is unbecoming. The sole purpose of our organiza- tion was simply to supply the homes of the valley with water, which became necessary by your department's violation of its agreement with the people. Our association is composed entirely of water users under your project, and most of us were among the champions of your cause. Ex- amine your records, they will show who we are. We are having trouble enough of our own with your elastic department, without championing the cause of a corporation that we believe is more able to cope with the unjust methods of your department than we are. We did send our me- morial to ex-Senator Turner of Spokane, Wash., in care of Happy and Hindman, having confidence in their honor and integrity to punctually for- ward it to his address in Washington, D. C. also in Turner's ability to properly and fairly present the same to the honorable secretary, and your reply is ample evidence to our minds that we were not mistaken. But if this charge is to again kindle into a flame the discord of local contention in our midst, it is mistaken. Your department championed the cause of the home and home builder while asking us to adhere to your con- tracts, and designated the canal companies as the water lords and barons whose only object was to exploit the products of our lands to their own selfish ends. But for business fairness and integrity in their capacity as public servants, they have shown more regard for justice than has developed in your department up to this date, to whose generosity we appealed for the use of their canals to tide us over the breach occasioned by your broken contract. No chance for your fire- brand here; the fuel has all been consumed. And we all realize that we have in your department the same domineering and autocratic spirit to con- tend with that the Wandering Jew, an humble peasant, had in the frozen regions of the Czar, and yet we are proud to say the cry of our citizens brings to their aid the combined power of army and navy to protect their property and rights. Are their rights any more sacred than ours who have cast our lot upon our own soil, beneath our clear sky and within the folds of the stars and stripes, the emblem of justic and equality? Why then these strange conditions and this exploita- tion of our rights and destruction of our property by a branch of this great government if not the re- sult of ill advice to the head of your department? With these observations occasioned by your department's methods, at what distant period in the process of evolution can we hope to wit- ness the completion of the Yuma project, and when completed, is there any assurance that it will be any more proficient and economical than the corporations we have abandoned? Judg- ing from the manner in which your depart- ment has kept and performed its obligations in the past, this question brings grave doubts to the most optimistic. The speculators are here with their gold, who are ready and willing to await your tardy meth- ods for returns, purchasing the homes of our discouraged ani impoverished neighbors at one- half the price they were worth at the time your department entered the field. Mr. Director tries to console us by referring to the amicable relations of his department under other projects. This does not inspire our jealousy, but regret that the same happy condition does not exist under this project. Let the honorable secretary turn his searching eye and purifying influence upon this project and see if he cannot find the cause of this unhappy condition in his own department. Mr. Hill, we regret very much that such a pointed review of the honorable secretary's letter in reply to our petition as well as the ad- visory one of the Director Chas. D. Walcott became necessary. We were in hopes that our petition would bring reconciliation and relief. We also realize the arduous and trying posi- tion you are called upon to fill, occasioned by the chaotic condition brought on by the unbusi- ness like methods of your predecessor. And we sincerely hope and trust that you will perform the many and trying duties of your office with honor to yourself and credit to your Depart- ment. We give you a hearty welcome, and with it the Assurance that the Association will heartily cooperate with you in bringing har- mony out of discord, and peace out of the past unpleasantness. In presenting you with this petition and re- view, we express our confidence that you will see to it that it will reach the Honorable Secretary with a recommendation commensurate with its im- portance and the responsible position you occupy. Hoping we may get a prompt reply, we remain, yours truly, CONSOLIDATED WATER USERS' ASSOCIATION. Yuma, Arizona, Dec. 19, 1906. Letter from the Consolidated Water Users Association to President Roosevelt, Laying Before Him the Facts of the Case Regarding the Laguna Dam Project Contract The Consolidated Water Users Association have spared no pains to get their complaints before the proper officials at Washington, and following is a copy of the letter set to President Roosevelt on that subject. HON. THEODORE ROOSEVELT, PRESIDENT, WASHINGTON, D. C. SIR : It is with a sense of keenest regret that we feel ourselves at this time compelled to call your attention to the bad faith and broken agreements, to the citizens, but more particu- larity to the settler and land-owner under the Yuma Project, by the maladministration of the Reclamation Act and by that department. Appreciating the benevolent motives that actuated the framers and supporters of this act, and to which you gave your support at that time with marked results, by your familiarity with the wants of the arid section, and with your sin- cere desire that its operations should be beneficial to the homes and home-builders of this arid section. With this knowledge of your sincerity, and the energy you have displayed in putting it in operation, makes this duty the more painful and more imperative. We had been in hopes that our differences could be adjusted through the officers of the Re- clamation Department until recently, but the}' have turned a deaf ear to our petitions and dis- regarded their pledges and agreements with the people, but we have now despaired of doing so, without intervention or recommendation on your rart. We hailed the Reclamation Department as our benefactor, desired to be beneficiaries of that act, and with the promise that the canal system would be unified under one great system con- trolled by the Government, we gave our adhesion to the project, but with the understanding that these systems should be incorporated into the Government system and be operated by the Reclammation Department, during the construc- tion of the Yuma Project, to supply our homes and the valley with water, that the growth and development of the country should not be re- tarded by an unsettled condition of the water proposition in our midst. Nor did they secure a sufficient percentage of the land, under their contracts, to guarantee the construction of this Project (with their skilled political methods, imported eloquence and threats that on a fixed date the books would be closed, and all land not then signed, would have to remain in the desert condition or rely on its own resources for water) until after a stipulation and an agreement with one of these canal companies as to the price of its system. The reading world is witnessing the mad rush of the Colorado River into the Salton Sea, largely if not wholly, due to the Reclamation Depart- ment's denial of the legality of the water ap- propriations from the lower Colorado river, and which will cost the government and the 20 UNFRIENDLY ATTITUDE OF GOVERNMENT TOWARDS YUMA VALLEY citizens and this project, before safety and con- fidence is again restored, a much larger sum than was asked for all these systems and their appropriations, within the possible scope of use- fulness of the Yuma project, which would have cemented the combined energies in one move- ment to reclaim this arid, fertile and extensive section. The government must proceed with its work as the destruction and discouragement of private irrigation enterprises is about complete. Tt would be impossible to get private capital to again enter this field after the shadow cast over it by the abandonment of it by the government, and our impoverished condition would prevent us from doing so. The country would again lapse into its primitive condition at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars to the settlers and the pioneers of irrigation enterprises. But a continuance of present methods of the Reclam- mation Department means a further destruction of our property and humiliation of our American spirit of fairness and justness, as we are now left in the desert, among the ruins of our former prosperity, with our now impoverished resources to supply our homes with water. We hope by giving our view of the historic fact, connected with the Reclammation Depart- ment, under the Yuma project, and enclosing you the correspondence between the Recla- mation Department and our association, which is hereto attached, that it will place you in a posi- tion to fully understand our differences, and make recommendations commensurate with the im- portance it deserves. With a sincere desire for an amicable ad- justment and an early reply, we are, yours very truly, CONSOLIDATED WATER USERS' ASSOCIATION. Yuma Ariz., January 26, 1907. Prosperity vs. Stagnation Blackberry patch and family of E. E. Forrester, 5 miles southwest of Imperial. Ranch of Archie Jordan, 14 miles south of Yuma. Flood washed the under-pinning from under the house. Why the Canals of the Valley have not been Operated The Reclamation Service officials in order to secure the signatures of land owners placing their lands under the Laguna Dam Project promised to purchase two of the three irrigation systems of the Valley and also promised to operate the three systems so as to furnish the settlers with water pend- ing the construction of the Laguna Dam System. The old companies could not be expected to op- perate them because large sums of money must be expended in order to make necessary repairs and this money would be thrown away because the systems were to be abandoned when the Reclamation system was completed. If the government did not operate these systems the settlers must operate them in an inperfect manner or not at all and in either event the settlement would deteriorate in- stead of becoming more successful. The Reclamation Service declined to carry out their contract and purchase the two systems and declined also to operate either one of them. The result is as pre- dicted and as things are going now the settlers will be so crippled financially by the time that the Laguna Dam Project is completed that they can neither pay for the system nor even pay for water from the system. Following is a fair statement of the case as to why the canals of the Yuma Val- ley have not been operated by the companies and have been imperfectly operated by the disap- pointed and impoverished settlers. The canals of the Valley along the Colorado River below Yuma have fallen short of the hopes and ambitions of their builders, not as a result from natural causes, or because of their inability to supply the lands under them with water nor from fear of not being able to make them a financial success, but because of the en- croachment of the Reclamation Department of the United States Government on the rights of these canals to the time honored privilege of using the waters of the lower Colorado river for the purposes of irrigation. This self-invited branch of the Government began its raid upon the prosperity of the valley by making geological surveys of this section, and they thus soon realized the possibilities of this vast delta when furnished with an abundant supply of water, which could be easily obtained. They studied the prospects of our soil and real- ized the possibilities of future developments under the canals already installed and in opera- tion. They realized nothing but what had been demonstarted by the pioneers who had long be- fore conceived its possibilities and demonstrated their sincerity by the construction and opera- tion of the existing canal systems that developed the latent possibilities of the soil and climate under the influence of irrigation by the fertile waters of the Colorado river. The Department had an object lesson before them and did not have to rely on speculative results. They could make their calculations from results obtained by the pioneers. The California Development Company officers frequently visited this valley in the early days of their enterprise of reclaiming the Colorado desert and converting it into the wealth produc- ing and populous Imperial Valley, in order to show prospective settlers what could be done un- der the favorable conditions existing in this val- ley. They came to show their customers an object lesson of our products and possibilities, because they had a soil of equal fertility and as equally susceptible of irrigation. This field was a large and inviting one but it was occupied. This last named fact aroused the jealously of the designing members of the Reclamation Department, who must have real- 22 UNFRIENDLY ATTITUDE OF GOVERNMENT TOWARDS YUM A VALLEY ized the importance of these canals in raising real estate values from a barren waste to homes valued at from $25 to $75 per acre, with a pros- pective value as stated by President Roosevelt in his message to Congress on the Salton Sea disaster, of from $500 to $1,500 per acre. These conclusions of the President must have been based wholly upon the results accomplished under these private systems of irrigation, as the government has never as yet turned the water upon a single acre of this great delta. Think of the fabulous value that has been added to this extensive but once barren and deso- late waste by the pioneers of irrigation. And yet the jealousy of the Reclamation Depart- ment would absolutely destroy these pioneer canal systems that have cost so much money and have so successfully demonstrated the value of the worthless lands that have been so successfully reclaimed, making valuable homes for themselves and families. Not only that but they have added insult to injury by referring to these irrigation systems as "physical and financial failures." But the present status of these canals origi- nated in the unreasonable interpretation put upon the Reclamation Act and also by the position taken by the Reclamation officials that there could be no. legal appropriation of water from the Colorado river by any of these pioneers of irrigation, who were condemned for selling water rights to the people when they had no legal ap- propriation on which to base such water rights. This naturally aroused the suspicions of the home-builder and awakened his desire to protect his home with a secure water right, especially as they were told that the water rentals charged by these Companies were excessive. It is not true that the canals of the Valley were incapacitated for serving the people by natural causes. These recent floods have gained more prominence than any of a former date because of the Salton Sea disaster, which was caused by the California Development Company in its efforts to avoid the effects of the attack of the Reclamation Service on its water appro- priations. That Company sought and obtained protection from the government of Mexico through a concession obtained from President Diaz and ratified by the Mexican Congress. In pursuance of this concession it opened up an intake below the International boundary line, but was unable to protect that intake by suitable head works because of its crippled financial condition caused by the attacks of the Recla- mation Department upon its water filings. The Salton Sea was the inevitable result. The California Development Company could seek protection from a foreign country because of the geographical location of the Imperial Vallej' and the conformation of the country, but the canals of the Yuma Valley could not thus seek shelter under a Mexican appropriation of water, and they had to submit to the deadly threat of the Reclamation Department and see their canals shorn of their rights through the de- cision of those government officials. The pioneer settlers of this Valley had a right to use the waters of the Colorado River, acting under the lawr passed by Congress supplemented by the acts of the Legislature of the Territory of Arizona. These self-made critics and judges of the law cajoled us into believing that the water rights bought from these canal companies were value- less and that their owners were the natural enemies of the farmers. They eloquently de- nounced such owners as the "water lords and barons of the desert," who would tax us beyond the point of endurance. Having confidence in the representatives of our Government and not doubting the truth and integrity of their statements, we adhered to their plans, hoping to unite divided energies and thus secure a perpetual and permanent water right for our homes. This course was pursued with the distinct understanding that these pioneer canal systems should be operated by the Govern- ment in order to protect our homes during the construction of the Laguna Dam project. Complying with their demands we became di- vorced from all the ties that existed between the canal companies and ourselves the land owners. Is it strange that these canal companies should have become inactive when the legality of their water appropriations were disputed and the lands under their systems were placed under the Recla- mation Department by the signatures of their owners, under a pledge or contract that the canals would be operated by the Government? Why call these canal systems "physical and fi- nancial failures" when the methods adopted by the Government representatives have caused their inactivity and our poverty? Under these conditions a perfect system under the most favorable conditions would become a "physical and financial failure." The Reclamation Department, notwithstand- ing its statement that the waters of the Colo- WHY CANALS HAVE NOT BEEN OPERATED 23 rado river could riot be filed upon because that river was a navigable stream, quietly proceeded in accordance with the laws of California and Arizona, and filed on the waters of that river, posting the same character of notices that were posted by those who filed on the water for the benefit of the settlers under the pioneer canal systems and recorded these notices just as other people had recorded their filings. Is it not strange that these rights secured by the Recla- mation Department under the same law, but several years later, should be more legal or se- cure than those of the old Canal Companies? The canals of the Yuma Valley could have been repaired, equipped and made serviceable throughout at an expense of ten thousand dol- lars, and they could have been successfully operated by the citizens or by the Companies, if the Reclamation Service had not promised to manage them under a stipulation to operate them during the construction of the Laguna Dam project. Their failure to fulfill their con- tract with the people has caused the chaotic condition that now exists in our water affairs, and which we thought had been carefully safe- guarded. The Reclamation Department criticises the imperfections of these canals, although they have been longer in making surveys and commenc- ing construction work on the new system than the old companies were in the work of construct- ing their systems and demonstrating the value and productiveness of the soil. Contrast our condition with that of the Im- perial Valley. They, under private canals, are thrifty and prosperous, exporting millions of dollars worth of products annually. While the farmers under the blighting influence of the Rec- lamation Department are in poverty, the Laguna Dam builders are importing pro- visions at a high price that would have been produced here at home by our people but for the broken covenants of the Reclamation officials. The provisions thus imported at high prices not only make the Laguna Dam irrigation system cost more than it should but these settlers who should have furnished the supplies at less cost must in the end pay for their imported supplies. The hemlock of patience is placed to our lips that their plans may be matured and executed in harmony. While we are being driven from our homes, they are saddling a burden on com- ing generations. What remains of our former prosperity but a skeleton? The noisy clatter of the frugal husbandman has succumbed to the silence and solitude of death. The happy conditions of the once prosperous people is that of wretched poverty. Whither has flown this life of frugality, and what has destroyed these happy homes and productive fields that were created, developed, and fostered under the old canal systems of the Valley before this unnatural disturbance? From whence proceed such fatal results? What causes have so changed the conditions of the country? Why have not these former conditions prevailed to this date? With these meditations and a brief review of the recent history of events that have developed these conditions with which many are familiar, we find that the origin of our troubles started with the attack on our water rights and the substitution of one water system for another with no one to care for and manage the old system during the years that the new one was being constructed. We were offered what seemed to us to be the strongest hand possible to assist us in our effort to protect our homes and to enlarge the producing area of this section of the territory. The government was to place our feet on a solid foundation, but through the broken promises of the Reclama- tion Department we have received treatment from their hands similar to that shown by the treacherous Joab who, feigning friendship for Amasa, took him by the beard with one hand to greet him with a kiss, but with a sword in the other, slew him. These are strange conditions, originating from the bad faith of a branch of our Government, a result undreamed of by the confiding people under this project. And yet the strangest fea- ture is that a few insist on patience, while others are in want of the necessaries of life; but the leaders in the former class are under salaries and are not dependent on the products of the valley for a livlihood. The Reclamation Department promised us figs but have given us thistles bread and they gave us stones. They were profuse in promises to better our conditions and to extend the areas of productiveness. They lamented our bondage to corporate control and eloquently portrayed our Edenic condition under Government manage- ment. Our imaginary wrongs were magnified, our prejudices were excited by imported speak- ers and skilled political methods, and our cred- ulity was successfully worked upon. Having implicit confidence in our government and the integrity of its representatives, we became cred- ulous and susceptible to their plans and gave 24 UNFRIENDLY ATTITUDE OF GOVERNMENT TOWARDS YUMA VALLEY our adhesion to their contracts not however, until we were safeguarded by stipulations sup- posed to be ample to protect our homes and the prosperity of the community, but which have been turned down by the power that created them. These pictures of wonderful beauty have be- come transformed into a delusive mirage our pleasant dreams have turned to horrible night- mares. There is an old adage that no one is above or beyond the control of the law. But here is a practical exception to this time-honored adage. The law becomes perfectly flexible by means of department rulings and is warped and twisted like a reed before a cyclone to suit con- ditions and contingencies as they arise. It does not become any man to make himself wiser than the law. But they overcome this embarrassment by grinding out department rulings to suit their convenience. "The creature is dictating to the creator." "The tail wags the dog." "A king can do nothing but what he can do by the law." The Reclamation Department has become a C/ar and the people are the serfs. "No man is punished for the crime of another." This Headquarters of Reclamation Service Officials at Yuma, Arizona, and the Settlers Pay the Freight "Their livery is of the most costly material and latest pattern and their tables are sumptously spread with the fat of the land mostly the products of foreign climes, while our attire is of the shabbiest fabric and our tables are scantily spread with the impaired products of our own land reduced to this poverty by the broken covenants of the Reclamation Department." AFFIDAVITS OF SETTLERS AND BUSINESS MEN L'O is a law and not an axiom. The peopl under this project, however, are being punished for the sins of the Reclamation Department through the mal-administration of the act creating the department. Our deserted and desolate valley is a solitary ghastly witness of its crime and a humilation to our government. Some two thousand years ago, according to sacred history, there was an unfortunate man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho who fell among thieves. The people of Yuma in passing down Bondesson Avenue, by way of the Recla- mation Department, have met like treatment at the hands of J. B. Lippincott and his busi- ness associates. This people have been sand bagged to the, point of extermination. The priest and the Levite have passed on all sides of our deserted and desolate homes times with- out number. The}' have heard our cry and disregarded our prayers, with the same indiff- erence that they have their pledges. It is pos- sible that our old and accursed, but imaginary enemies^ the private canal companies are yet to become the Good Samaritan? We were the children of promise, with the Reclamation Department acting as the Goddess of our prospective paradise the protector of our rights and homes. Beautiful dream but a horrible delusion and an aw T ful deception. We were cajoled into trusting her with our inheri- tance. Then she became a capricious step- mother, and we the Isrealites of the Twentieth Century. They are living sumptously at the expense of our property. They are robed in the authority of a Czar, created by their own Department rulings. They are unbound by contract and ungoverned by law conditions that are un-American and foreign to our form of government. Yes, we prefer the fleshpots of our former prosperity and our unincumbered homes of former times, rather than follow these strange gods of the desert to further extremes. They are not entitled to be called a Moses, for they suffer not the affliction with the people. Their livery is of the most costly material and latest pattern and their tables are sumptously spread with the fat of the land mostly the products of foreign climes, while our attire is of the shab- biest fabric and our tables are scantily spread with the impaired products of our own land reduced to this poverty by the broken covenants of the Reclamation Department. This Department is not a Saviour for they saved nothing for the home builder; but a Luci- fer who was ready to sacrifice our former para- dise to gratify their inordinate ambition. Caught in the jaws of this department the time honored home builder and pioneer is ground to desperation and despair. R. H. THEILMANN, President Consolidated Water Users Assn. Affidavits of Settlers and Business Men of Yuma Valley Following are a few extracts from the affidavits duly executed and placed on file with the Interior Department, showing the condition of the Yuma Valley during the past few years and the effects on that business condition exercised by the Irrigation Land and Improvement Company, and the disas- trous effects of the operation of the Reclamation Service during the past few years. Louis Essleburn, a resident of the Valley for 28 years and for 8 years last past in the livery business, says: "The settlement, growth and development of the Valley has been due to the construction of the I. L. & I. Go's, canal and their reliable water supply. The land under this system a little over one year ago was selling from $10 to $50 per acre, due to the successful operation of the system. The country was thrifty and pros- perous, due to the fertile soil, good climate and a reliable water supply, and without this system there would be no greater population in the Valley at the present time than there was when the I. L. & L. Co. began the construction of its canal. That the business of Yuma has trebled since the advent of the I. L. & I. Go's, canal, but about one year ago prices began to decline because of the Reclamation Department appearing as a com- petitor to the canal companies of the Valley, which has wrought disaster to them and depre- ciated town and farm property. Business is at a general standstill and will remain so until there is a satisfactory settlement of the water proposi- tion." 26 UNFRIENDLY ATTITUDE OF GOVERNMENT TOWARDS YUMA VALLEY 0. C. Johnson, dealer in general merchandise, swears to practically the same state of affairs. diaries E. Lewis, a farmer in the Valley, says: "Am acquainted with the Yuma Valley and the canals of the I. L. & I. Co.; that the lands farmed under their system have had sufficient water, excepting during the latter part of 1904; that the said canal would have been a financial success had it not been for interference from the Reclamation Department." S. H. Johnson, a farmer, says: "Have lived in the Colorado Valley below Yuma continuously since 1898 and have been raising aflafa every year, from 10 to 50 acres, and to the best of my knowledge and belief the I. L. & I. Co. have supplied their customers with water regularly, except when cleaning out the canals." John Lyall, a farmer, says: "The I. L. & I. Co. has used every means in its power to promote the welfare of the Valley and without their water the Valley would still be practically in its natural state." S. F. de Corse, an electrical engineer by pro- fession, and a resident of Yuma for 28 years, says: "The settlement, growth and development of the Valley has been wholly due to the construc- tion of the I. L. & I. Co's. canal and its reliable water supply. During the last year prices have declined, owing to the unsettled condition of the water proposition caused by the Reclama- tion Department." U: S. Smith, a real estate agent, residing in Yuma and Yuma Valley for six years, says: "That at the time the L L. & I. Co. com- menced its construction the land under this system was in a state of nature, most of it being open to squatters and at no market value; and the lands under this sytsem advanced in value to from $10 to $50~ per acre, owing to the safe and reliable water supply of the I. L. & I- Co. * * * Prices have de- clined in the last year, owing to the unsettled condition of the water proposition." 1. F. Marshall, a settler in the Valley, says: "My land being west of the natural channels and in going to and returning from Yuma, it is necessary for me to cross the system of the I. L. & I. Co., and it was always running water and generally full." Charles D. Breedlove, who has been a resident of the Yuma Valley for five years, owns 160 acres of land and has signed up with the water users' association, while he had a water right deed for 30 acres of his land in the I. L. A: I. Co's. Canal, says: "I have taken water from the I. L. & I. Co. canal for the past three years and the water service has been entirely satisfactory." R. H. Cochrane says: "I am working for the I. L. & I. Co. and have been since November, 1904, and that I was work- ing during the high water periods of 1905 on both day and night shifts. That no time during said high water periods was the water level below Head Gate No. 1 within 3 ft. of the water level above the Gate, and that said Head Gate No. 1 was not open at any time during said high water periods." Joseph D. Bell, a resident of Yuma Valley for 14 years, and the owner of 140 acres of land, signed up with the Water Users Association, and says: "The settlement, growth and development of the Valley has been wholly due to the construc- tion of the I. L. & I. Co's. system and its reliable water supply, without which the Valley would be as destitute of population as it was at the time it began its construction, as it has been the only reliable water supply except the pump system. I am a stockholder in the Yuma Valley Union Land & Water Co. but feel it my duty to make this affidavit in the interest of justice only." Isaac Polhamus, a resident of Yuma County for 48 years, says: "That he is well acquainted with the I. L. & I. Co. and with the territory through which said company's canals run. That the land under their system of canals has had an abundant sup- ply of water from said canals except such time as they were cleaning out their canals and mak- ing necessary repairs." Jose L. Molina, a resident of Yuma for 27 years, says: "Am a resident of Yuma, Yuma County, Ari- zona; am engaged in the merchandise business at Yuma; am well acquainted with the Yuma Valley and the canals of the I. L. & I. Co. That the land farmed under them have an abundant and full supply of water; that the said canals have been the principal sources of water for irri- gation purposes and have done more than any or all other water systems towards the develop- ment of the Valley. The system has been oper- ated successfully since the year 1901 and has always been considered a financial success." NOTE: This same statement of facts is also sworn to by Henry H. McPhaul, a resident of the Valley for 8 years, engaged in mining and farming. W. A. Bowles, a resident of the Valley for 3 years and engaged in general merchandise. P. B. Hodges, a resident of the Valley for thirty years. John Gandolfo, a resident of the Valley for twenty-eight years, engaged in general mer- chandise business. K. F. Sanguinetti, a resident of the Valley AFFIDAVITS OF SETTLERS AND BUSINESS MEN 27 for twenty-two years, engaged in a general mer- chandise business. L. E. Carr, a resident of the Valley for six years. W. H. Shorey, a resident of the Valley for ten years, engaged in business at Yuma, A. C. Jordan, the owner of 160 acres of land under the I. L. & I. Go's, canals, says: "Have farmed 50 acres continuously since the year 1901, and have had an abundant and full supply of water to irrigate my land, save and ex- cept a period of about one month being between the dates of December 20th, 1904, to January 20, 1905, being the period when said company was engaged in cleaning and repairing their canal." NOTE: This same statement is sworn to also by James H. Hobbs, the owner of 160 acres with 45 acres under cultivation. By F. L. Despain, the o\vner of 160 acres with 40 acres under cultivation. By C. E. Yarwood, the owner of 200 acres with 80 acres under cultivation. By Antonio Preciado, the owner of 100 acres with 15 acres under cultivation. By Thomas Lyall, the owner of 160 acres with 40 acres under cultivation. By John Lyall, the owner of 160 acres with from 30 to 110 acres under cultivation. L. D. Johnson says: "I have been zanjero for the I. L. & I. Co. since and inclusive the year of 1900 to the pres- ent time. That I have had a sufficient supply of water for the patrons of said company during all of this time, with the exception of a period, of about one month, which was from about the 20th of December, 1904, to the 20th of January, 1905; that the patrons of said company have had no cause for complaint." E. D. Rudolph, re'sident of Yuma County, says: "Have farm land under the canal of the I. L. & I. Co. and received water therefrom since the year 1901, until August, 1904. That I had dur- ing all of such time a full and abundant supply of water to irrigate my land. That during said time the canal has been operated successfully and entirely satisfactory to me." Sam. Rudolph, of Yuma County, says: "I have farmed continuously since my resi- dence and took water from the I. L. & I. Co. and had at all times a full and abundant supply. Said canal has been operated successfully and to my entire satisfaction." Charles E. Lewis, a resident of Yuma Valley for six years, and a farmer, says: I am familiar with the canal systems of the valley about Yuma, and the growth and de- velopment of the land under them. That the country in general was thrifty and prosperous and all lines of business in good con- dition. That the lands under these systems was being developed as rapidly as the financial con- dition of the settler permitted them, until the Reclamation Department appeared and pre- sented its plans of further and future develop- ment under Government ownership under the Reclamation Act. Believing that the Act was broad enough and the Department fair enough to fully and amply protect the pioneers of irrigation, who were the educators, demonstrating the value of this arid region would be protected in their lawful, just and equitable rights, I, with others, gave the. Department my hearty and undivided support , believeing that all systems would be unifie dunder one great project controlled by the Government. Not, however, until we had requested the Depart- ment take up and operate one or more of these systems and supply to the lands under them with water during the construction of the Government, system, which we were led to believe would be done by representatives of the Reclamation De- partment to protect our homes in the interim time. The water right contracts that the land hold- ers were required to sign by the Reclamation Department absolutely eliminated the possi- bility of competition with the Department and by these contracts the future of the valley waa destroyed to all private irrigating enterprises.. That when the land was signed up under these systems to the Reclamation Department the canal companies turned their time and energy to the adjustment of their rights with the Depart- ment and not to the furnishing of water under them, as there was not sufficient and under cultivation to be profitable; the development of the land ceased, the land owners not desiring to buy water rights from the canal system and pay thirty-five or forty dollars per acre to the Reclamation Department also. The method pursued thus far by the Recla- mation Department has not only wrecked the canal companies of this valley about Yuma but if pursued in will reduce the homes to a desert condition before the completion of the Govern- ment system. Our lands have declined in value. Had I known this course was going to be pursued, I would not have signed my lands under their contracts." Frank H. Stanley, of Brawley, Imperial Valley, California, makes affidavit as follows: "During a trip of F. H. Newell to the Imperial Valley, and often a mass meeting held at the town of Imperial, did hear said F. H. Newell, the director of the Reclamation Department say to a party of five or six, of which number he was one of them, when in the conversation it was brought up how to get rid of the California De- velopment Company, "that it might be neces- sary to .turn the valley back to a desert in order to accomplish their purpose.' ' Why the Imperial Valley Settlers Oppose the Recla- mation Service Officials The following letter from I. W. Gleason, President of Imperial Water Company No. 1, to J. E. Ludy, Vice-President and General Manager of the Ludy Canal System in Arizona below Yuma, ex- plains the situation very clearly and forcibly and places before the public the reasons that have guided the settlers of the Imperial Valley in their opposition to the program as outlined for them by the Reclamation Service officials: IMPERIAL WATER CO. No. 1. OFFICERS: I. W. GLEASON, President. W. A. VAN HORN, Vice-President. E. R. BAKER, Secretary. LEROY HOLT, Treasurer. L. F. FARNSWORTH, Superintendent. Imperial, Cal., May 30, 1907. Mr. J. E. Ludy, Yuma, Arizona. My Dear Sir: You have asked me why a large proportion of the people of Imperial Valley are now opposed to the entrance of the Recla- mation Service here, and have apparently pre- ferred to take their chances with the California Development Company backed by the Southern Pacific Railroad Co. In 1904 a large majority of our people, depend- ing on the promises and representations of Rec- lamation Officials, were desirous of turning our system over to the Service UNTIL we found it impossible to secure from them any reasonable assurance that our rights would be respected It finally became evident to us that we would have to acquire title to our lands over again under the terms of the Reclamation Law, after we had fully complied with the desert land law and were entitled to receive patent on approximately 200,000 acres of Government land. It appeared to us that with the exception of the appropriation made by the people of Yuma valley, we had a prior right to the waters of the Colorado River, and it became evident that the Reclamation Officials with all future appropria- tions on that river would compel us to bear the burden of expensive reservoirs which will some day be necessary in order to conserve and utilize the summer floods. It was claimed by Reclamation officials that our system must in the end be an absolute fail- ure because of the sediment filling the canals where our water was diverted from the Colorado River. That the Laguna Dam was for that reason an absolute necessity, and that the only value in our present system was the value of such portion of our distributing canals as they might be able to utilize in the Government sys- tem, and hence all expenditures made by us for water rights and canals, and all rights acquired thereunder was a dead loss, and thus it appeared that with the exception of the value of such part of our distributing system as they might see fit to utilize, we must pay as much for the new sys- tem as if such expenditure had never been made, and must acquire all right and title to our lands over again under such terms as would drive out and permanently expel from our valley most of the men who had invested their time, money and enthusiasm to make this valley what it had become. This attitude of the service toward our rights and interests became pretty well established in the minds of a few of us in 1904. They did not seem fair or just to us and we raised the question whether they were friends, or enemies in dis- guise, and when the matter came up for consid- eration again in 1907 we determined to require the Reclamation Officials to declare their inten- tions before we lent them any assistance or sup- port. LETTER FKOM I. W. GLEASON 29 Congressman Smith finally "smoked them out" and got official confirmation of our worst fears along these lines, and by 1907 their state- ments concerning the accumulation of sediment had been abundantly proven false. In fact the unfriendly attitude of the Service toward our rights and interests, and the reason for it became pretty well understood. Such statements as that reported made by engineer Hill before the House Committee on Irrigation that " Imperial Valley could NOT be supplied with water through our concrete head- ing while the Government system was being in- stalled" was looked upon as both false and ma- licious by nearly all people who had interests in the valley, and could only be accounted for on the theory that it was the aim of the Recla- mation Service to bring Imperial Valley down to the condition of Yuma Valley in order to ef- fectually DESTROY the rights we had acquired and give them the "FREE HAND" they were demanding. These facts coupled with the condition in which they had placed Yuma Valley, and many other things not necessary to mention here, forced us to look upon the Reclamation Service as the most dangerous enemy Imperial Valley had, and the cause of many of the adverse conditions under which we have been compelled to struggle for existence. I am reliably informed that Director of the Geological Survey Wolcott wrote in substance the President's Message to Congress on Imperial Valley. It is characteristic of the attitude of the Reclamation Service toward our interests and indicates that the President has not yet found the Reclamation officials out as we know them. The people of Imperial Valley do not now be- lieve that we have any use for Laguna Dam. We believe that its cost, together with a $6,000,000 canal to carry the water from it to our lands would be a useless expenidture of a vast sum of money. We believe that our problem is to build and maintain a levee that will keep the Colo- rado River out, except such part of it as we may wish to admit through the present concrete heading, and this problem would be in no way lessened by the use of Laguna Dam. This concrete gate is built on solid rock, not on sand, and after closing the break the last time the greatest amount of water needed for 130,000 acres now under irrigation only required the opening of one of the ten gates about half way open. We hope and believe that Laguna Dam built on the sand will hold and stand the test of the floods, but no one can say that it is as certain to do so as our concrete gate, and we have no in- clination to trade a sure thing for one that is less certain. We appreciate your services in helping us to show up the Reclamation Service in its true light, and will be glad to assist you if the oppor- tunity comes of helping you to get reasonable consideration of your rights and interests. I understand that the Members of Congress were very indignant when they found that the $2,000,000 asked for to help out Imperial Valley by the Flint bill was in reality to help out the Reclamation Service and to be an entering wedge for further and still greater appropriations direct to help out their plans and carry on their various uncompleted projects and was turned down cold by the House when that feature became known, and hence it w r ould not appear that the prospect for assistance by direct appropriations by Con- gress was very good at the present time, but it is as good or better than it would have been if this appropriation had been made and Imperial Valley included with your project together with the vast expenditure of money that it would have called for. Our interests must always be closely connected even if under different systems and we can often be of great service to each other, and it is our desire to do all we can to establish the most friendly relations between the people of this and Yuma Valley. Most sincerely yours, I. W. GLEASON, President Imperial Water Co. No.L Oppressive Use of Power The Irrigation Age of May 1906 publishes a fair review of the situation in the Yuma Valley, and although these points are mostly covered in other articles in this pamphlet, we reproduce the article in full as it presents the facts in a very honest and forcible manner. During the past year many complaints have come to us concerning the manner in which the Reclamation Service has been handling affairs in connection with development work along the lower Colorado River near Yuma, Ariz. So many complaints were forwarded recently that the editor decided to visit Yuma and secure data from those interested. A careful study of the situation coupled with talks with individuals in and near Yuma brought out many interesting facts. More than two years before the Reclamation Law was passed by Congress the Irrigation Land and Improvement Company, of Yuma, Ariz., had begun irrigating lands in the Yuma Valley, taking the water therefor from the Colorado River. It had made appropriations of the water of that river, and acquired, by purchase and as- signment, prior appropriations, under the laws of the territory of Arizona, making the first ap- propriator in time the first in right. The men who put their time, money and labor into this irrigation work were offered by Arizona the further inducement that such enterprise should be exempt from taxation for the term of fifteen years. Before the reclamation engineers went into that district, the I. L. and I. Company had water running in more than forty miles of main canals and ditches, and was irrigating more than 4,000 acres of theretofore arid lands. It had submitted to the Commissioner of the General Land Office, for approval, its plat showing its system of canals, reservoirs, etc., and the same was approved by Secretary Hitchcock on the 30th of October 1903, thus giving that company title to the land required for said canals, reser- voirs, etc. This approval was given and these rights acquired, in the face of opposition which was interposed by the Reclamation Service, the latter claiming that the Government might want to enter that field, and the approval of the plat would confer vested rights to pester the Govern- ment in its enterprise. Furthermore, many locators under the desert law were allowed to prove up on their claims in that valley by showing that they had a water right from the I. L. and I. Company for a perpetual supply of water. In the Yuma Valley, below the main canals of this company, lie about 50,000 acres of land, for the irrigation of which the main canals, res- ervoirs, settling basin, etc., had been constructed before Newell's men got into Yuma, and organ- ized the Water Users' Association. The work of further extensions would have been, at slight relative cost to the company, and was proceed- ing, and would have been continued as rapidly as the settler could get ready to improve his land. In the month of February, 1904, the town and county of Yuma were enjoying a prosperity never known before or since, greater than they will know again in the next five years, if the past and present methods of the Reclamation Bureau continue in force. By that time said I. L. & I. Company had expended, in money and labor, on its plant approximately $300,000. Its en- gineer and general manager, J. E. Ludy, had then been working for four years, asking and receiving from the company only a bare sustenance, ex- pecting to reap a rich reward in the enhanced value of his large holdings of stock. All the other stockholders felt the same confidence in the ulti- mate success of the enterprise. The writer, at the time of his visit, learns that in those days, farmers marketing in the town of Yuma their crop of alfalfa, were netting about $50 per acre on their irrigated lands, which were a part of that great Arizona desert less than two years before when the Reclamation Act was passed. At this time, and with a demonstration by private enterprise of what irrigation could ac- complish in that valley, Newell's men entered the field, organized the Water Users' Association, and started out on their mission to accomplish the undoing of the I. L. and I. Company. Where slander and libel were inadequate bull-doxing methods were employed. The Standard Oil Company and John D. Rockefeller never em- ployed more unconscionable methods to ruin a competitor in the oil field than have been used by Newell, Lippincott, et. al., down in the Yuma Valley. The people were told that private en- terprise could not cope with the difficulties of that river; that use, or appropriations of the waters of the Colorado River, by private persons or con- OPPRESSIVE USE OF POWER 33 cerns, were invalid, because the river was a navi- gable stream; that the Government was going to install a plant which would have the right to use the water, under a system capable of coping with all difficulties and that those who did not desert the private concern and agree to take water from the Government would not get water when the private concern had been put out of commission, as it inevitably would be. By such methods further extensions by the I. L. and I. Company became impossible. What the poor settler down there needed most was the loan of money on his claim to enable him to improve it. This money, but for Govern- ment interference, would have been furnished. The I. L. and I. Company, at that time, was in such good standing financially that a trust fund of two or three hundred thousand dollars was to be raised on the bonds of the company, and this money loaned to the settler, which would have been the means of rapidly filling up and improv- ing the valley. Before the organization of the Water Users' Association the water right certificates of the I. L. and I. Company passed almost as current among the people, banks and stores in Yuma, as money. After the Reclamation folks began their campaign of extermination to all private concerns, those certificates became discredited. It did not take a prophet to see that, in a conflict between the United States Government, in the hands of men drunk with suddenly acquired power, and blind to individual rights and justice, that there could be nothing but utter ruin to the . private concern. These events brought out a few heroes, men who avowed a willingness to stay with the private corporation, that had pioneered the way, and gave the valley its first gleam of real prosperity, and lose all with that company rather than accept the grace held out by the Reclamation Service as a reward for moral cowardice. But there were others more selfish, and less heroic, who considered it the bet- ter part of valor to surrender at once to forces that in the end must inevitably conquer, whether right or wrong. And so the I. L. and I. Com- pany was bottled up like Butler in Burmuda, unable to go forward or backward, with con- tracts requiring it to furnish water to lands con- stituting about a tenth part of the entire irri- gable district the receipts for maintenance not sufficient to pay the necessary expense of keep- jng the system up to a proper degree of efficiency, f&tlt was first reported that the Reclamation Service would put a dam 80 or 100 feet high across the Colorado River, twenty miles or more above Yuma, and in that way reclaim many, thousand acres of Mesa lands, which could not be reached by canals on the natural level of the river; and glowing pictures were held out of an immense power thus to be created, which would be used in transportation and pumping water on still higher levels. The first literature issued among the people in that valley held out allur- ing prospects, and in that literature and at public meetings, it was broadly .intimated that any citizen who would remain loyal to a private irrigation concern, who would still consider him- self bound by any previous contract with it, must be regarded as an enemy to his country. Irrigation in that valley by private enterprise had theretofore looked good to them. Fifty thousand acres of that rich delta irrigated and cultivated meant much to the people in Yuma County. But this prospect, toward the realiza- tion of which more than 5,000 acres had been reclaimed, paled into insignificance in compari- son with that great scheme of raising the Colo- rado River 80 or 100 feet and converting it into a great power, and carrying the water over the great area which it could thereby reach. When the local enthusiasm had been brought as high as the proposed dam, and a proper Socialistic sentiment created, to the effect that the Gov- ernment should forcibly take possession of any- thing it needed to promote its greater enter- prise, and pay nothing for the same, the dam suddenly, and without comment or explanation, shrunk down to one only ten feet high. But, whether ten or one hundred feet be the height of the same, the I. L. and I. Company could not cope with Uncle Sam, and early sought an opportunity to say so, and to ask that it be permitted to retire from a field which the Govern- ment claimed for its own, and asked to be com- pensated for its outlay. It was informed that the Water Users' Association could make no agreement which would bind the Government; neither could the Reclamation engineers. The Secretary of the Interior was written to for ad- vice in the premises. In this letter of inquiry the Secretary was told of the efforts made by the I. L. and I. Company to find some one to ne- gotiate with, and also of the claim that one Morris Bien was making in behalf of the Water Users' Association that all appropriations of water of the Colorado River for irrigation pur- poses were void, because the river was a navi- gable stream, and therefore the company had nothing of value. There was inclosed to the Honorable Secretary a brief given the president of the company, reviewing the adjudications of the courts on the subjects of appropriations of water of navigable streams, and as to the extent of the title which the United States has in the navigable waters of the States and Territories. This letter and brief were referred to Mr. Newell's bureau, and in due course a reply came, rebuking the impertinence of one who would deign to lay before the Secretary of the Interior a brief relat- ing to the subject of irrigation in Arizona which did not emanate from Morris Bien, who is an evolution from the engineering service to a legal adviser of that service of the Government. In that brief the question was discussed as to whether it were possible for the waters of the Colorado River to be exempt from irrigation service by private enterprise, because the river is a navi- gable stream, but when the United States Gov- ernment wants to appropriate the same water and more for the same purpose, the river becomes a non-navigable stream. The only answer vouch- 32 UNFRIENDLY ATTITUDE OF GOVERNMENT TOWARDS YUMA VALLEY safed to this question was that it is "irrele- vant." In other words, "It's none of your busi- ness." It would be interesting to quote from subse- quent correspondence with that branch of the Government, called "U. S. Reclamation Service," of which Mr. Newell is chief, but lack of time and space forbids to follow it further than to say that this correspondence was made necessary in order to find some one, if possible, with whom the I. L. and I. Company could negotiate with preliminary to its giving up that territory, with all its hopes and promises, to the conquerors. In the course of this correspondcne the I. L. and L Company was alleged by the U. S. Geological Survey office to have been accorded a hearing long prior to the time of this correspondence; with having gone into the district after the Reclamation engineers had entered the field, and by means of lapsed and illegal appropriations of water, attempted to obstruct the Government, etc. These state- ments were afterward admitted to be erroneous. An offer was made by the I. L. and I. Company to submit to arbitration the valuation of its property, or to the decision of the Court of Claims, both of which were denied, but instead, a com- mittee of engineers, in the selection of whom it was allowed no voice, was sent down to view the premises, hear evidence and report to the Hon- orable Secertary of the Interior. They reported that the system was a physical and financial fail- ure, and recommended the payment of $45,000, on condition that the payee out of that amount, . would settle for water certificates issued, amount- ing to the par value of over $130,000. The eighth section of the Reclamation Act pro- vides that the work to be done under it should not interfere with the laws of any State or Terri- tory relating to the control, appropriation, use or distribution of water used in irrigation, or any vested right acquired thereunder. In vain has this provision of the law been appealed to, to protect those whose money and labor have gone into what is better known as the "Ludy Canal System." After financial and physical success have, by the methods above recited, been made impossible, this ex parte committee taunts the company with the fact that it has not had strength enough to cope successfully with the Federal Government with its millions of money and armies of men. Forcible possession has been taken by the en- gineers of lands owned in fee by the I. L. and I. Company. The engineers wanted to construct a levee along the river. Under a provision in the patent for this land, reserving a right-of-way for an irrigation canal, the officers proceeded to construct the levee, claiming it to be one bank of a canal. A precedent for this conduct is reported to have been made in North' Carolina, by an old justice of the peace, who was applied to for a search warrant by a man who had lost a turkey. After examining his form book, he told the appli- cant that he could not find a form for search war- rant for a turkey, but he did find one for a pig, and he proposed to issue a search warrant for a pig, and he said, "while you are pretending to look for a pig, you may find your turkey." The private concerns engaged heretofore in reclaiming that God forsaken desert are not the only sufferers from the destructive methods used by Government Engineer Lippincott and those under and over him. Business stagnation and bankruptcy have succeeded the era of activity and prosperity which they found in and have driven out of the valley. Paralyzed by the pres- ence and uplifted club of this Government Go- liath, the private concerns lack the heart, means or object to keep their properties up to efficiency. Canals and ditches are becoming overgrown with willows and choked with weeds, while crops are famishing for water, and farms relapsing hack into desert places. The owners of these lands now realize they have let go the song bird they had in hand for two vultures hovering over the valley. Already they are circulating and signing a pe- tition to the Government, in which they say, among other facts, that "Under these private systems of irrigation the country was being rapidly developed up to the time when the Reclamation Service came into the field, and in fact continued until the uncer- tainties of their position with reference to a final determination of their rights, the private com- panies, not feeling justified in perfecting their irrigating systems; from that time the develop- ment of the valley practically ceased; without a water supply the lands would deteriorate and go back to their primitive conditions. These facts are self evident." Many land holders signed up with the Govern- ment only after being assured that these canals would be taken over and operated in the interim , and their rights and improvements protected. It is said that nearly every man in the town of Yuma and Yuma County has signed this petition. Thus disappears the only palliating apology that could have been made for perpetrating these wrongs, vi/., that if Peter was being robbed it was for the benefit of Paul. Peter has not con- sented to the robbery, and Paul now declines to be implicated, even as accessory after the fact. The people who are being crucified by the policy herein criti^ed, are as good law abiding citizens as can be found in the whole United States. No one of them, before this experience, could have been made to believe that any department of the Federal Government, in time of profound peace at home and abroad, would use its power in such way as to destroy private property and rights. It has been said that republics are un- grateful. If this conduct, which seems to meet the sanction of Secretary Hitchcock, is approved, it must be added that republics are dishonest, and that all our constitutional guarantees of pro- tection to private rights, "are as sounding brass and tinkling cymball." There is no better school for anarchy than the oppressive use of power by those who are called upon to administer the af- OPPRESSIVE USE OF POWER 33 fairs of government. There is no surer way to make a good law unpopular than to make of it an instrumentality of oppression and wrong. It is our intention to furnish later information in detail regarding the work and methods in and around Yuma and other centers of Federal ac- tivitv. The Imperial Daily Standard of March 18, 1907, publishes a statement from a prominent engi- neer which has attracted widespread attention. Following is the article and statement in full. Some things are being talked among eminent engineers about Laguna dam that have not ap- peared in print. One of the most eminent engineers connected with irrigation work in the state, unknown in Imperial valley, said a few days since: "In building Laguna dam the government is facing four great problems. These are: "Building a dam without a foundation, "Constructing an inverted syphon under the Gila river, " Protecting its conduit system with dykes. "Making an economic success of the enter- prise. "I have talked with many other engineers re- garding the engineering problems, there and I find that among those who know the details of the work there is very grave fear that all the money being invested will prove to have been wasted. "Laguna dam is not designed to store water, but to hold the water to a high enough level to force it into the canals. It is expected that silt will rise to the top of the dam. From the crest of the dam down to the river bed below the dam there is to be a shoot down which the water will fall one foot in twelve. "Now, this dam is being built on the quick- sand bed of the river, without a foundation, and at time of high water it seems almost certain that it will run with such force down the incline as to bore a deep hole in the river bed. This done, the dam will be undermined and gradually tumble in. You can hardly find a conservative engineer who will declare that the dam will stand a single flood, and a number of the most capable men connected with the work have quit, not caring to have their names connected with the work. "But serious as is the problem of the Laguna dam, the inverted syphon to be built under the Gila river presents an even more serious problem. The debris of a river bed is not unlike a glacier, in that way down to bed rock it has a steady motion down stream. Piles driven twenty feet into the ground have, in some instances, with a single flood, moved twenty or more feet down stream, still standing erect. To build a syphon which must be rigid, in the moving mass of debris which composes the bed of the Gila river, is an engineering task of the utmost risk, with the chances all on the side of failure. "Having built the dam and the syphon, there remains the problem of protecting the canals, which must parallel the river for several miles. This is not the greatest problem, but it is one which will entail heavy expense. "The three problems are matters of engineer- ing. The fourth is one of finance, or the econom- ics of irrigation. "When work was begun on Laguna dam it was estimated that it would cost $1,000,000. Now 40 per cent of the work is completed and the $1,000,000 is spent, while it is estimated that the contractors lost $400,000 on the work before surrendering it. If 40 per cent of the work cost the contractors $1,400,000, it is natural to sup- pose that the total cost of the completed clam will be about $3,500,000, and to this is to be added the cost of the inverted syphon, the conduit sys- tem, dykes, etc., and the works can hardly be co.mpleted for less than $6,000,00, to cover 20,000 acres in California and 50,000 acres in Arizona. This implies an expense of $75 an acre for that land, which is not prohibitive exactly, though it practically destroys all present value in the land to be irrigated. "This money must be refunded to the govern- ment in ten annual installments, making $7.50 a year besides the cost of delivery, which is esti- mated at $3 an acre a year. The farmers under the system, if everything goes well, will thus have an annual water tax of about $10.50 an acre a year for ten years. "But if the dam or syphon should be destroyed, as many of the best engineers expect, the cost of rebuilding must be added to the burden the farmers will have to bear, and this must prove destructive to the farmers dependent on the system. "It is for these reasons that the engineers look on the Laguna enterprise as the most hazardous one undertaken by the reclamation service. "In engineering work, as well as in all other lines of constructive work, there should be pro- vided a wide margin of safety. "In its economic aspect there is entire absence of a margin of safety in the Laguna project, and it looks as though the reclamation service realizes this fact and is trying to force Imperial Valley to share the burden. "The fact that engineers not now connected with the Laguna enterprise, but who have been connected with it, are still working desperately to this end shows that they realize that their reputations are at stake. 34 UNFRIENDLY ATTITUDE OF GOVERNMENT TOWARDS YUMA VALLEY "You know as well as anybody that some one is hiring men to carry on a propaganda in Imperial valley in behalf of the government project. No one knows who is paying the salaries of these secret service men. It is not probable that they are being paid out of government funds, and it is only a matter of conjecture who is paying them. It must be some one or more persons who are willing to sacrifice Imperial valley to prevent the Laguna dam project becoming the greatest en- gineering fiasco of the West. "If you take the trouble to check up the mat- ter, you will find that the plan as outlined im- plies placing on Imperial valley about 88 per cent, of the cost of the Laguna .project. By bringing 400,000 acres of Imperial valley land under Laguna dam, there would be provided a margin of safety for the project, for your valley could if necessary pay for the rebuilding of the dam several times if it should go out repeatedly. Of course, it doesn't matter whether you need Laguna dam or not. The question is whether you will pay for it." The engineer who expressed himself as above cast considerable light on the situation. It is true that the reclamation project is a dead issue with the people of this valley. They only give it thought when the spies of the service try to force it on public attention. But every few days there is some development to indicate that the men whose reputations are at stake on La- guna dam are still at work. The most active of these enemies of the valley evidently is J. B. Lippincott of Los Angeles. Mr. Lippincott has no interest in this valley. He has no interest in Laguna dam aside from his former connection with it, and yet he is quietly and persistently working to force this valley under the reclamation service. Mr. Lippincott is in the employ of Los Angeles city. One would naturally think he would have enough to do to attend to the affairs of Owens river, without meddling where he has no right to interfere. Then one would think that the people of Lo& Angeles would object to an employe of that city following a policy of bitter antagonism to a country like Imperial valley, which should be on friendly terms with Los Angeles. The attitude of this engineer comes dangerously near putting official Los Angeles at warfare with the farmers of Imperial valley, and it seems to the Standard that the people of Los Angeles can hardly afford to allow that condition of affairs to continue. Prosperity vs. Stagnation Ranch and family of W. E. Wilsey, 4 miles southwest of Imperial. Ranch of O. P. Bondessen, Preside! of Yutna County Water Users Association, near Summerton, 12 miles south of Yuma. The Reclamation Service Scored by the Los Angeles Times No paper on the Pacific Coast has watched the progress of work in the Reclamation of the great Colorado desert and the control of the waters of the great Colorado River more closely and more in- telligently than has the Los Angeles Times. Allen Kelly, a very competent writer on the editorial staff of that paper has made many trips to the Imperial Valley and up and down the Colorado river to keep track of the work being done by the Reclamation Service and others in connection with that great work' In the issue of the Times of June 30, 1907, Mr. Kelly gives the public a statement of the situation at that time, giving commendation and criticism where they belong, and treats the subject so intelligently and fairly that the article, although a lengthy one, is given here in full. The criticisms of the Reclamation officials confirm fully the charges made in this pamphlet and justify the Yuma Valley Consolidated Water Users Association and the settlers of the Yuma Valley in the course they are pursuing in their efforts to get justice at the hands of the Government. Fol- lowing is the article in full: IMPERIAL VALLEY FULLY PROTECTED Greatest Flood Ever Known in the Colorado Makes No Impression on Col. Randolph's Levee River Scour- ing Out Its Old Channel. BY ALLEN KELLY The dams and levee built by Epes Randolph and his aids to close the break of the Colorado River and protect the Imperial country from another invasion by the runaway river have stood the test of the greatest June flood on record wihout developing the slightest weakness, and the Imperial Valley is absolutely safe. When I met Thomas Hind, the engineer in charge, at the lower heading, where the big break occured and was closed in the very teeth of the furious river, and asked how matters stood, he replied: "All right, except that we haven't had enough water, I'd like to see the river five feet higher before I leave the levee." And that was not bombast. He meant it seriously. I went over every foot of the fifteen miles of levee, from the upper heading, where the water comes into the Imperial Canal, to where the last load of gravel was dumped at the end of the embankment on the Paradones, and then I understood why Thomas Hind yearned for higher water in the Colorado. Although the river has been discharging past Yuma the greatest volume of water recorded in thirty years, the flood has barely wetted the lower part of the levee, and in some places never has touched the bank at all. A five-foot rise would not endanger the work, but it would pack and solidify the bank and demonstrate the invul- nerability of the Imperial Valley's defenses. SAFETY ASSURED. The builders of the dams and levee never had any fear that the river would carry them away or make a break in them. They only feared that a great flood might go around the end of the levee and attack the canal in the rear, but the Colo- rado itself has averted that possible danger by deepening its old channel and swinging it over toward the Arizona side. The Randolph levee is not parallel with the river, and does not act as a retaining bank to choke the flood into a narrow bed. From the end of the rock dam, which closed the break, the levee turns sharply away from the river, leaving a wide expanse of timbered bottom land between itself and the river bank. The lower end of the levee is five miles from the river. When the Colorado overflows, it does not rush in swift flood against the levee, but spreads out into a wide and shallow lake in the woods. Although the fall of the land is about 36 UNFRIENDLY ATTITUDE OF GOVERNMENT TOWARDS YUMA VALLEY three feet to a mile, the heavy growth of cotton- wood and underbrush retards the flood and re- duces its velocity. If the levee were close to the bank and parallel to the government levees on the Arizona side, the river would be confined, and the levees would have to resist direct pressure and erosion. As the problem was not protection of bottom lands from overflow, but was, rather, pre- vention of the cutting of a new channel into the Alamo, the engineers were not obliged to fight the river at close quarters. They could retreat, draw the enemy into the forest, where he could not mass his forces, and beat him in detail. THE COLORADO TAMED. That the overflow did not pass around the end of the levee and break back toward the channel which was cut last year is a fact accounted for by the renewed vigor with which the Colorado has set itself at work to dig a deep way to the Gulf. It is as if the yellow monster admitted itself baffled in its attempt to devour the Im- perial Valley and rush on to Salton Sea, and were working off its wrathful energy in a headlong rush to the Gulf. The old channel, which shoaled rapidly and nearly filled with silt while the river was running to Salton, has been scoured tremendously by this year's flood. Evidence of the deepening of the old river bed is found in the figures relating to height of water at Yuma and the lower head- ing, and to volume of discharge. Since 1904, the volume of discharge has been greater than before by from 50 to 75 per cent. The. highest water in 1904 was 26.5 feet at Yuma, and the greatest discharge was 51,050 second feet on June 25 of that year, when the gauge reading was 26 feet. The gauge does not mark the depth of water in the river; it marks the height of the surface above an established datum level. The bed or bottom of the river changes greatly in level, as it silts or scours, and there may be deeper water when the surface level is twenty-six feet than when it is thirty feet. The volume of water passing Yuma is indicated in the figures showing discharge in second feet, which means so many cubic feet of water passing a point in one second. On March 20, 1905, the Yuma gauge read- ing was 30.3 feet, and the discharge was 110,842 second feet or 5,542,100 miner's in- ches. On June 19, 1905, the height was 29.15 feet, but the discharge was only 94,319 second feet, showing that the channel had silted up considerably in the meantime. On November 30, 1905, came the sudden "flash rise" of the Gila, bringing the Yuma gauge reading up from 19 feet to 31.3 feet in four days, and the discharge up to 102,700 second feet. It will be seen that while the water rose just a foot higher than the flood of March 20, the volume of water was less by more than 8,000 second feet, the difference being due to filling up of the chan- nel with silt during the low-water period inter- vening. The November flood .was of short du- ration and did not scour the channel much. In June, 1906, there was some scouring. On June 3, the height was 28.8 feet, and the dis- charge was 84,200 second feet. On June 27, the discharge reached the maximum for the sea- son of 99,200 second feet, but the height was only 28.1 feet. During the three years 1904-5-6 there were but two days in succession of more than 100,- 000 second feet discharge. This year the June flood has been the great- est in volume ever recorded, the discharge having been above 100,000 second feet for ten success- ive days up to June 26. Here is proof of the scouring and deepening of the Colorado at Yuma and below: On June 4 the gauge at Yuma showed 29.2 feet, and the discharge was 77,700 second feet. On June 8 the discharge increased to 80,100 second feet, but the river surface had fallen to 27.4 feet. On June 22, the gauge showed 29.1 feet, a tenth less than on June 4, but the discharge was 108,- 000 second feet, proving that the river had deep- ened and that the velocity had increased. During the week from June 17 to June 24, more water passed Yuma than ever before in the same length of time since records were kept. But for the deepening of the channel, the water would have risen to 32 or 33 feet and perhaps higher. That the river has deepened its old channel opposite the former break at the Lower Heading is shown also by comparison of figures. On March 8, 1907, the height at Yuma was 27.4 feet and the discharge 68,700 second feet. The height of water above the Hind-Clarke dam was 115.36 feet above sea level, the datum level adopted. On June 4 Yuma gauge 29.2 and discharge 77,- 700 second feet, the height at the dam was 115.7. On June 8, with a discharge of 80,100 second feet, the height at the dam was only 114. On June 22, with a discharge of 108,000 second feet, the height was only 114.9. The water at the Lower Heading was five and a half inches higher ' on March 8 than on June 22, although the river was carrying nearly 40,000 second feet, or 2,- 000,000 miners' inches, less water. Obviously, the old river bed has been scoured, so that its carrying capacity is almost doubled. A MODEL LEVEE. The absolute safety of the Randolph levee is shown in the facts that its lowest point has been seven feet above the highest water in a season of unprecedented flood of the Colorado, and that not a stroke of work was required to strengthen, repair or protect the bank. The levee is a model of thorough, substantial construction. It was built by railroad men, not by theoretical engineers, and in some important features it violates the laws laid down by the formalists, laws which take no account of differences in conditions. The levee is an embankment, nine feet high above the ground level and ten feet wide on the top, built of the natural soil and covered with a layer of coarse gravel a foot or more in thick- RECLAMATION SERVICE SCORED BY THE LOS ANGELES TIMES 37 ness. There is a "muck trench," six feet wide on the bottom, under the levee. The books say that a muck trench, which is an excavation back-filled with thoroughly mixed and puddled sand and clay, should be under the outer or river-ward slope of the levee. The railroad men made their muck trench under the inner or land- ward slope, thereby incurring the derisive criti- cism of young engineers of the Reclamation Service. APPLIED COMMON SENSE. The railroad men, having little reverence for formulas, and defining engineering as "applied common sense," reasoned that an impervious bank on the river side would keep water from ever getting to the inner side of the foundation, and therefore that portion of the work would remain dry and loose, whereas a muck trench under the inner slope would perform its func- tion of preventing water from passing through the foundation and at the same time permit the first high water to soak into and puddle the outer section of the levee, making the entire foundation as solid as if the entire width had been muck-ditched originally. The railroad men took into account the char- acter of material in which they worked and the conditions which confronted them. Their levee, not being close to and parallel with the river, is not exposed to the erosive action of a swift flood current. The water rises slowly against its face and soaks in instead of rushing along and wearing away the slope. The heavy timber and brush, covering the bottom lands right up to the foot of the bank, prevents wave action and checks the current. A levee along a river bank is exposed to different conditions. TRADITION IGNORED. In another feature of construction the rail- road men went contrary to engineering tradition and precedent, and for good reasons. They made their "borrow pits" inside instead of out- side the levee. Those pits are the excavations from which earth is "borrowed" for building the embankment. Where the function of a levee is protection of lowland from overflow, the land being valuable and usable right up to the levee, there are reasons for taking material preferably from the river side. In this case, the function of the levee is prevention of channel-cutting by a runaway flood, and the lands to be protected are many miles away. It was of vital importance to the builders that the work should go on during a flood season. If they took their material from outside, the first overflow would stop the work and the levee could not be raised to meet the rising waters, whereas if the borrow pits were inside, men and teams could continue work regardless of the overflow. By leaving a bench or "berm" forty feet wide along the inner foot of the levee and between the bank and the borrow pits, the excavations would not weaken the bank or affect it in any way, and if they should be filled by seepage no harm would be done. Outside borrow pits, on the other hand, take away the protection afforded by tim- ber and brush, break up the compact surface soil and invite the formation of erosive currents and eddies against the face of the levee. EXPERIENCE AND THEORY. Col. Randolph and his aids have had much ex- perience in building railroad embankments and in fighting rivers, and what they know about such work they have learned by doing it and not from school text books. They applied their experience and common sense to the job, and the young engineers of the Reclamation Service jeered and raged at their inside borrow pits. All the levees constructed by those young men have outside borrow pits, and it costs a heap of money to protect the pits and prevent the currents induced by them from destroying the levees. And the money and the frantic hustling when high water comes do not always avail. The government levees on the Arizona side of the Colorado, for example, are broken in many places and cannot be repaired until the flood subsides. Had the work on the Southern Pacific levees been done according to government plans from the start, it would not have been completed at all, and today the railroad men would be fighting another break of the Colorado and the Imperial Valley would be in greater peril than it was a year ago. The Reclamation Service engineers did succeed partially in their persistent efforts to interfere with and "boss" Col. Randolph's job. They first declared that it was impossible to close the break of the Colorado with a rock-fill dam. They went on record with positive predictions of the utter failure of Col. Randolph's work. It was not being done according to' the text-books and the formula, and therefore it could not be done successfully. But it was done to their chagrin and disappointment. The impossible was ac- complished. The most remarkable engineer- ing feat on recod was achieved by the practical railroad men, who presumed to ignore the ad- vice of Uncle Sam's talented young engineers. GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE. It might be supposed that the lesson would be heeded and that the Reclamation Service would abstain from further meddling with the Imperial Valley protective work and attend to its own perplexing problem of the Laguna dam. But the brilliant young men could not keep their hands off. Those borrow pits still worried them, and they got in their work through Wash- ington and New York. Presumably it was represented to Mr. Harri- man that the government would take the levee off his hands and pay him for the work, but only on condition that the work remaining to be done should be in accordance with government plans. On the very heels of Col. Randolph's triumphant 38 UNFRIENDLY ATTITUDE OF GOVERNMENT TOWARDS YUMA VALLEY success, which discredited all the predictions and recommendations of the government en- gineers, came positive orders from Harriman that in the remainder of the levee work the borrow pits should be outside. The railroad engineers protested, expostulated and explained, but to no purpose. The order was curt and positive, and it had to be obeyed. CONDEMNED FOOLISHNESS. For the last three or four miles of levee work, the borrow pits are outside, and there the only evidences of tendency to induce currents, eddies and erosion anywhere along the levee are seen. The protective growth was destroyed and the firmer portion of the soil was removed, exposing to the water a bed of silt that dissolves like salt. Col. Randolph inspected the finished levee a few days ago, and when he saw the outside borrow pits and evidences of their weakening effect he said: "That is the damndest foolishness I ever saw." But that was not all the foolishness. The government engineers recommended and Harri- man ordered the construction, inside the levee, of spur banks, 500 feet apart, at right angles to the levee, 300 feet ong, 50 feet wide on top, and four feet high. The theory was that in the event of a break in the levee, the outer ends of two of the spurs could be connected to form a bay and check the flood. That is office theory. Prac- tical common sense says that it would be no more difficult to stop the break at the levee than to build a new bank between the ends of the spurs. Also, the construction of the spurs would involve the moving of more material than was placed in the levee itself, and would cost more. It would be easier and less expensive to double the width of the levee or to build another parallel levee inside the first. The spurs are equivalent to building 1100 feet of bank to protect 500 feet of the levee. The recommendation was so absurd that Ran- dolph ignored the order and kept his whole force at work finishing the levee. A week or ten days ago, the Reclamation Service engineers met at Yuma and gravely rescinded their recommenda- tion. OBJECT LESSONS. The intact, unthreatened rock dam and gravel covered levee built by the railroad men is a standing rebuke to officious meddlers and kin- dergarten engineers. Across the river, govern- ment levees riddled and torn, flooded ranches, wrecked irrigation systems and rich farming districts put out of business for years by failure of the Reclamation Service to make good its promises, emphasize, by contrast with the em- pire saved by Col. Randolph and his builders, the difference between official and private methods of doing things. From the headgate to the end of the Randolph levee a railroad has been laid upon the top not a makeshift construction track, but a thor- oughly built, well-ballasted railway fit for the heaviest traffic. A telephone line runs the whole length, with stations a mile apart. When the water is high, men patrol the levee in gasoline track automobiles, arid if danger threatens they can telephone to the heading, where a trainload of rock stands, ready to be rushed to the breach. Heavy gravel trains passing frequently over the line have helped greatly in making the levee solid. The work is absolutely secure, but the builders have taken no chances during the Hood season. In a few days, the camp will be broken, the engineers will leave, and only a few men will remain to patrol and watch the levee. All hands could have gone to the beaches three months ago, but the force was kept on the ground as an ex- treme precaution and an assurance to the settlers of Imperial Valley. WHERE OFFICIALISM FAILED. An attempt to examine the effects of the flood upon the levees on the Arizona side below Yuma was not wholly successful. The levees broke in March, and they are still broken. Water has flowed in behind them, flooding the roads and farms, and it is impossible to reach the levees- from the country roads remaining passable. Four or five miles below Yuma, the road nearest the river ends abruptly at a break. Below that point everything is a disorderly tangle of sloughs, pools and flooded lands. The Reclamation Service undertook to take care of that country, took charge of the private irrigation systems and promised to protect them and supply the ranchers with water. Because of the failure to complete the Laguna dam, the government has been unable to keep its promise, the irrigation canals are wrecked and many farm- ers are ruined. The Reclamation Service could not do what it planned with the best of intentions. CROSSING THE GILA. I drove from Yuma to Laguna dam on the Arizona side in the night, crossing the dry bed of the Gila and keeping well back from the Colo- rado to avoid the overflow and back-water sloughs. There was some water on the road, and at one place the horses hesitated to go through a black, forbidding lagoon. Being urged, they plunged in, and a most awful stench arose from the disturbed pool. The water had been there r doubtless, for two or three years, and it was utterly rotten. It smelled like a dead whale. Also it was deep enough to flow through the buggy box. The noisome pool recalled to mind the awful bog which engulfed Carver Doone. Avoiding the water on the return trip resulted in wandering for several miles through dense brush and final extrication by striking the Gila levee and using its crest as a road. Where the bottoms were overflowed two years ago, a dense growth has sprung up, demonstrat- ing the remarkable fertility of Colorado silt. In less than two years, cottonwood trees have grown, on land that was as bare as a floor, to a RECLAMATION SERVICE SCORED BY THE LOS ANGELES TIMES 39 height of twenty feet and a thickness of five and six inches at the butt. Similar growth has started already back of the Clarke-Hind dam, where the flood raged on its way to Salton Sea last January. LAGUNA DAM THREATENED. No destx action has been caused by the flood to the works at Laguna dam, but construction has been suspended and will not be resumed until September. The escape was a narrow one, however. The danger point is on the California side, where the river rushes into a bend above the dam and then swings outward toward the open way between the dam ends. When the flood was at its highest, the bank protecting the work was washed away while the working force was at dinner. The men came out to find the railway track fallen into the river, and but a few inches of dirt remaining to keep the water out of the excavation below the cement walls. An alarm was given by all the steam whistles on the works, and everybody rushed to the breach, laborers, engineers, clerks, storekeep- ers, train crews and vagrant Indians. By furious work the breach was closed before the last de- fenses gave way, and the dam was saved. The track has been replaced, and continuous dumping of rock repairs the damage done by the rushing waters. All the excavations are flooded with still water, engines, derricks and pumps are submerged, and there is nothing doing at Laguna but protectiv work. Since the contractors threw up the job and sold their plant to the government, consider- able progress has been made in the construction of cement core walls, but there is a wide gap to be closed, and the hardest work will come when that is attempted. Whether or not the dam will survive a Colorado River flood is a question that nobody can answer with certainty. That the cement core walls will be an element of strength is generally doubted, because the menace to the dam is not pressure from above, but cutting at the foot of the apron. AN ENGINEERING MYSTERY. No engineer has yet given a convincing reason why the cement walls are introduced in the dam, or shown that they serve any purpose other than the consumption of funds. Why a rock fill, similar to that which closed the Colorado break, would not solve the problem of the Laguna dam, nobody has yet explained. Such a structure could be completed in one season and for a million or so less than the cost of the dam now being built, and it would stay. That is the opinion of many engineers and of railroad men who have proved their right to have an opinion on the subject. Up to date the Laguna dam and the Yuma project are problems to be solved, and they are not working out as they were planned. In time arid in money, the w^ork, which is not half done, has exceeded the total estimates, and since the job was bound up with government red tape, nobody ha^ been able to figure out when the dam will be done, or what it will cost. DIFFERENCE IN METHODS. An illustration of government methods, as contrasted with private control, occurs to mind. When an employe of the contractors was injured on the work, he received free treatment in hos- pital, wages w r hile disabled and an indemnity , if permanently injured. One of the government employes was badly hurt some time ago, and is still in hospital. His pay stopped the instant he was hurt, and he got only five hours' wages for that day. He does not get a cent while in hospital, and every man on the works is assessed a dollar a month to maintain the hospital and pay the doctor. The people of Arizona, especially those whose farming operations have been suspended by the failure of the government to keep up irrigation works taken over by the Reclamation Service, the settlers of Imperial Valley, and all others interested hope that the Laguna dam will be a suc- cess. But it is not difficult to perceive why the Imperial Valley refuses to .hand over its canal and its lands to the Reclamation Service, and prefers to rely upon the railroad's practical levee builders for protection. Col. Randolph's work has been tested by the greatest flood that ever came down the Colorado,, a flood sufficient to cover 800 acres a foot deep with water every hour, and Imperial Valley is absolutely safe. Between 30,000 and 40,000 miner's inches of water is passing through one bay of the cement headgate into the Imperial Canal, the other ten bays being closed tight. The lagoon between the Hind-Clarke dam and the river is filling up with silt, the bars even now showing above the water, where last winter were whirling torrents and rushing floods. In another season or two, there will be hardly so much as a scar left to show where the Colorado tore through its banks. SALTON SEA. Water is still flowing into Salton Sea by way of New River. It goes down the Paradones from the Colorado to Volcano Lake, and thence a part flows northward through New River and a part southward by way of the Hardy Colorado to the Gulf. The inflow to Salton Sea, is now about 1500 second feet, and apparently it is sufficient to compensate for evaporation, as there is no perceptible subsidence of Salton Sea. The in- flow does no injury to Imperial Valley, however, Salton Sea probably is a permanent institution; at least, it can be kept at about its present level, or preferably a little lower for safety of the rail- way, with little trouble and no harm, and it surely tempers the desert wind to the settler and to the traveler. The water is full of fish, and the shores of the sea are haunted by hosts of aquatic birds. Some day there will be winter resorts on the western shore of the sea, under the shelter of the mountains, in the finest winter climate in the world, and steamboats will ply from the railroad to hotel landings. Miscellaneous Articles and Statements Explanatory of the Situation as Between the Settlers in the Yuma Valley and the Reclama- tion Service Officials Following is a collection of articles which present various phases of the question at issue be tween tne Yuma Valley Settlers and the Reclamation Service which will be of interest to those who are seeking to obtain the facts of the case: THE SCOPE OF RECLAMATION SERVICE WORK AS PROVIDED BY LAW. It seems that a careful reading of the law of June, 1902, providing for the reclamation of arid lands that the Reclamation Service are doing work not contemplated by the law creating that service. Section 8 reads as follows: "Section 8. That nothing in this act shall be construed as affecting or intended to affect or to in any way interfere with the laws of any state or territory relating to the control, appropria- tion, use or distribution of water used in irriga- tion, or any vested right acquired thereunder, and the secretary of the interior, in carrying out the provisions of this act, shall proceed in con- formity with such laws, and nothing herein shall in any way affect any right of any state or of the federal government or of any land owner, appro- priator or user of water in, to or from any inter- state stream or the waters thereof. Provided; that the right to the use of water acquired under the provisions of this act shall be appurtenant to the land irrigated, and beneficial use shall be the basis, the measure, and the limit of the right." It is undoubtedly a usurpation of power for the Reclamation Service to interfere in any way with a settlement where the people have an irrigation system even though that system is not as perfect as it might be made by the unlim- ited use of money. Especially when by the exercise of such usurpation of power, property rights are destroyed without just compensation. The Reclamation officials attempted to over- throw the Imperial Canal system to such an ex- tent that the settlers were compelled to sign a document which provided, "We hereby band ourselves together for mutual protection and agree not to sign any contract looking to the purchase of water rights or the transfer of any of our rights and interests until a body of representatives men selected by our board of directors. * * * shall have secured a reasonable recognition of our rights and an agreement with the Secretary of the Interior and shall have submitted the same to us with their approval." The Imperial Valley was saved by this intelli- gent and vigorous action on the part of her lead- ing citizens. It seems that the Reclamation Officials are able to do indirectly that which they are pro- hibited by law from doing. The law cannot interfere with vested rights but the officials can destroy the value of those rights and then the work is easy. THE YUMA CONTROVERSY The people of Yuma are somewhat divided in their sentiments towards the Reclamation Serv- ice. A very large portion of them are in open sympathy with the Yuma Valley Consolidated Water Users' Association and openly criticise the Reclamation Service officials for their course in breaking faith with the people and making promises they evidently never intended to ful- fill. Another portion of the people are still connected with the Yuma County Water Users' Associa- MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES AND STATEMENTS 41 tion the corporation formed through which the Reclamation officials could treat with the people. This class of citizens find that the peo- ple of the valley are bound hand and foot to the Laguna Dam Project and cannot help themselves. They mostly keep quiet because they think it will do no good to struggle under the circum- stances. 0. P. Bondesson is President of this last named Water Users' Association and is said to be draw- ing a salary of $1000 a year for his services. He is endeavoring to serve the Reclamation Servcie to the best of his ability and his name frequently appears in print in such defense. Following is an extract from a letter written by A. E. Baldwin in response to one of Mr. Bon- desson's published articles. Mr. Baldwin is one of the victims of the situation and speaks feel- ingly. His letter appears in the Yuma Enter- prise under date of May 6, 1907, in which he says : I cannot resist the temptation of commenting on Mr. Bondesson's recent articles and his posi- tion in defending the Reclamation Service. He has invited discussion and appears to be willing to instruct the yeoman in the mysteries and strange business methods of this Service, having shared in the bitterness of their policy and wit- nessed its blighting effects among us. He has not answered the first and important question, "Why the canals of the valley have not been operated by the Service as agreed?" He is over- flowing with advice to the farmers and wields his big stick of threats at the business men of Yuma, who have undoubetdly felt the sting of our poverty keenly, resulting from the unkept promises of the Reclamation Service. This anesthetic of patience and plausible promises has been worked to its limit, it fails to produce crops and stay the encroachments of the desert. It is water we want and must have, and if this glass house of our's, of which Mr. Bondesson is so thoughtful, does not furnish ample shelter for its builders, the sooner this fact is known and the house remodeled to our needs, the better, even if in the operation a few '"stones' are passed through the windows of this now useless struc- ture. He persists in trying to attract the attention of the public from the true issue to that of un- loading the Ludy canal on the people, which is no part of the controversy, but the greatest bur- den the people of Yuma valley have ever had to bear, is the destructive methods of the Recla- mation Service and his now impotent Associa- tion. Before the Reclamation Service meddled with our water affairs, the country was thrifty and prosperous; all lines of business in good condi- tion; farms were being rapidly developed; land had advanced from a barren waste to property valued at from $25 to $75 per acre. Is it con- sistent to call the basis of such progress failures? If we are to make our conclusions from the old adage, "by their fruits you shall know them," then the word "success" should be written in capital letters opposite these old canal com- panies, and "inefficiency" opposite the present management. You had better quit trying to sand-bag these old canals, as you bring to the minds of the people their former prosperity, grown and fostered under their influence. These canals had never been viewed as a "physical and financial failure" until they had been thus branded by the jealous en- gineers of the Reclamation Service. Mr. Bondesson can well afford to recommend patience and pocketing our losses and disappoint- ments, while he is filling and nursing a useless position at a salary of $1,000 a year, but this is poor consolation for those who are driven from their homes by the policy of the Service he is defending. We traded horses up the road of progress, ex- changing one that was serving our purpose fairly well, for a larger and apparently more service- able one but "balky," and he instead of advanc- ing, is backing our homes into the desert. Mr. Bondesson's articles are well worded and lengthy, but hungry affairs, when we are in search of information or argument in defense of his position. His lamentations for the people, remind us of a paid mourner at a funeral. A BRIEF REVIEW OF THE SITUATION. R. H. Theilman President of the Yuma Valley Consolidated Water Users Association in reply to a letter published by 0. P. Bondesson who speaks for the Reclamation service says : "Now, what are the issues before the people of this valley? We have virtually mortgaged our homes and our property to get irrigation water upon our land. That was nearly three years ago. We were promised assistance in keep- ing the existing canals in good condition while the work was going on, to enable us to become our own supply producers, and to enable us to get a larger quantity of land in shape to receive the government water when it arrived. The levee was to be completed at the earliest possible moment. The difficult problem of the Gila crossing was to receive the most serious and judicious attention. Common sense and scien- tific forethought would say that this was a prac- tical program. How has it been carried out? Not one cent of assistance from our mortgage secured money has been devoted to help main- tain the already existing water supply. Even the well defined promises of the Reclamation Service were denied and ignored. Even the water appropriated by the canals under the Terri- 42 UNFRIENDLY ATTITUDE OF GOVERNMENT TOWARDS YUMA VALLEY torial law was declared to be illegally obtained, In lieu of any beneficial work, what has been done? Three or four sets of "preliminary" surveys at an expense that would three times over have put the canals in shape to prepare the valley for re- ceiving the government water. The levee has been completed in part, and just at the critical juncture, when settlers were beginning to take advantage of its protection, the force of workers was transferred beyond the river to work for those not under the Reclama- tion Service, and the result is that the hard pressed farmer of our valley has seen his crops of waist- high barley ruined by the flood let in at the gap left by the incompetence of our should-be pre- servers. The Gila crossing has not been touched; and by the way the funds are being reduced the question arises: Will it ever be reached before the funds are exhausted? Arid when we ap- proach the task of the tunnel through the mesa, which is to carry all the water for the lower valley, we reach a phase of the real issues that we fear will tax even the ponderous capacity of Mr. Bondesson as a straw man smasher. Let us get at the real situation, as expressed in the following, found in the last clause of Presi- dent Roosevelt's message on the Colorado River, January 12, 1907: "If Congress does not give authority and make adequate provision to take up this work in the way suggested, it must be inferred that it acquiesces in the abandonment of the work at Laguna and of all future attempts to utilize the valuable public domain in this part of the country." Senator Flint's bill contained the President's recommendations and was de- feated. Did the President mean what he said? If he did, where do we stand? SETTLERS DON'T RUSH IN. The Irrigation Age in its issue of May, 1907, in reviewing the practical workings of the Recla- mation Act says: Recent developments under the reclamation law tend to show that a grave error was made in omitting from that law some provision which would assist in colonizing the areas under differ- ent government works throughout the West. It is a well-known fact that the Truckee-Carson Project, which was completed last } r ear, and was extensively advertised as the first project opened up under the reclamation law, is not receiving the attention of homeseekers which its soil, climatic conditions and w y ater supply warrant. This work was well advertised through the maga- zines of the country all of which gave it unusual prominence owing to the fact that it was the first project completed under this law, and it was reasonable to suppose that no difficulty would be encountered in colonizing the area under the canal. Varying conditions have, however, left this project with few r settlers and a serious prob- lem confronts the government in the matter of a return of the money expended on this work, which under the law was to be used for other works, as it was paid in by the settlers, at the rate of 10 per cent annually on the cost of each acre reclaimed. It is very evident that where there are no settlers and where money is not turned back to the government as was anticipated under the law, serious criticism may be brought out against the law itself, and unless some provision is made whereby this money is returned to the Recla- mation Service for use on new projects, the whole enterprise is liable to be discredited by a scrut- inizing public. CONGRESSMAN SMITH SPEAKS. A correspondent of the Imperial Daily Standard contributes an article to that paper under date of February 20, 1907, from which he quotes from Congressman Smith as follows: "A new system of canals will be built and La- guna dam will be a part of it. The cost will be $8,000,000 and possibly twice that. "Payments heretofore made for Water rights will not be credited on the cost of the new sys- tem. "Desert entrymen will not get water rights for more than 160 acres each. "Non-resident land owners will not get water rights at all. "Probably no patents will be issued until the new works are completed." To sum up, Mr. Smith says: "No priority in the use of water is recognized. It is quite clear that if the present system is cast aside and the appropriation of water is not utilized the water rights which the farmers have thought they owned will vanish. The first point to be decided by the land owners is'whether or not they want to lose what they have spent for water rights and canals and start all over again to pay for a new and very expensive system." IRRIGATION IN AMERICA. During the four past years the irrigation area of the United States has increased 1,704,889 acres. At present there are in this country thousands of miles of canals, representing a vast expenditure of money and labor, arid carrying water upon more than 8,000,000 acres, which are producing each year crops w r orth $100,000,- 000. This area of artificial productivity is more extensive than the combined area of Massachu- MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES AND STATEMENTS 43 .setts and Connecticut, and it is never disturbed by drouths or other uncertainty of the weather. All this is in an arid or semi-arid region in the West which, a short while ago was looked upon as a worthless desert. Statement published in 1905. ACCUSED OF KNOCKING. The Imperial Daily Standard of March 22, 1907, answers back an attack from the Yuma Mouthpiece of the Reclamation Service in the following vigorous style: "O. P. Bondesson, president of the Yuma Water Users' Association, in an article in the Yuma Sun, charges the Standard with knocking Yuma valley by its comments on the faulty con- struction of Laguna dam and the engineering problems which the government is confronting in its project. The Standard is free to admit that if Imperial valley was not in a degree menaced by the La- guna project, it would be better that the facts in the case should not be developed by an Im- perial valley newspaper. The facts are, however, that seeing the straits facing the government project, men whose repu- tations are connected with that project are re- sorting to desperate means to coerce Imperial valley into sharing the burden of that project and thus save it from impending disaster. When these men have discovered that their :schemes are impossible of fulfillment and that this valley is determined to remain absolutely free from entanglement with the government project and these men cease to work against this valley, the Standard will no longer consider it its duty to expose the frailty of the government project. Possibly Mr. Bondesson can assist in calling off the government dogs which have been bark- ing so lustily at Imperial valley and which are still following their old practice." VESTED RIGHTS. The Act of Congress of June, 1902, providing for the reclamation of arid lands, in Section 8, provides: "That nothing in this act shall be construed as affecting * * * * any vested rights acquired thereunder, and the Secretary of the Interior in carrying out the provisions of this Act shall proceed in conformity with such laws." W. A. Richards, Commissioner of the Land Office in a letter to the Register and Receiver of the Land Office, located at Tucson, Arizona, under date of March 13, 1903, quotes from a letter written by Chas. D. Walcott, Director of the Geological survey, while discussing the applica- tion of the Irrigation Land and Improvement Co. for right of way for canal and reservoir of the Ludy Canal System as follows: "If this project were carried out and canals were con- structed the parties would acquire a vested right to the use of a considerable amount of the water of the Colorado River, and such rights w r ould cause an increase in the cost of reclamation of these lands by the Government." Under this statement of fact, Commissioner Richards denied the application of the Irriga- tion Land and Improvement Co. It appears, however, that the Ludy Canal was practically built before the Reclamation Act was passed and water was being delivered through it, to a large number of settlers and to a large acreage of land, hence the Secretary of the In- terior at a later date was compelled to reverse Land Commissioner Richard's and allow the ap- plication. This gave the company according to Charles D. Wolcott, director of the Geological Survey, a vested right to the use of "a considerable amount of the waters of the Colorado River." In fact, it gave the company a vested right to all the water it could carry, deliver and use for a bene- ficial purpose under its appropriation. But again we quote from a letter written by Charles D. Wolcott, Director of the United States Geological Survey, to J. E. Ludy, under date of January 7, 1904, in which he says: "As a gen- eral proposition it can be stated that the depart- ment will not under any circumstances attempt to take possession of vested rights or of any property which may be needed without making due compensation therefor." And yet the Department went to work delib- erately to destroy the value of property that had cost a half million of dollars, so as to get it out of the way of the Reclamation Service program, in face of the fact that it had a vested right in the waters of the Colorado River. WILL THE LAGUNA DAM PROJECT BE COMPLETED? President Roosevelt in his message to Congress, January 12, 1907, regarding the Salton Sea dis- aster, recommended that Congress make an ap- UNFRIENDLY ATTITUDE OF GOVERNMENT TOWARDS YUMA VALLEY propriation to be used in controlling the waters of the Colorado River. He concluded his mes- sage with the following very suggestive sentence: "If Congress does not give authority to make adequate provision to take up this work in the way suggested, it would be inferred that it ac- quiesces in the abandonment of the work at La- guna and of all future attempts to utilize the valuable public domain in this part of the coun- try." Senator Flint of California introduced a bill to carry out the wishes of the President. It passed the Senate without opposition but when it reached the House, it was sidetracked and the program as outlined by the President was aban- doned. The question now naturally arises, "Will the Laguna Dam project be continued to comple- tion or will the administration conclude to let the work stop?" Evidently the President concluded when send- ing that message to Congress that if the Colorado River was not controlled, the Laguna Dam would not stand, and that if it was controlled by any other power than the one which contemplated the consolidation of the Imperial Settlement with the Laguna Dam project, the burden of this project would be too great to be shouldered by so small an acreage and that ruin therefore would overtake the settlers in the Yuma Valley. It seems to be a settled fact now that the Colorado River has been controlled by the Cali- fornia Development Company with a prospect that a move will be .made to have the United States and Mexico unite in making that control more solid and permanent. It is also now definitely understood that the Imperial Valley settlers will never consent to place that Valley under the control of the Recla- mation Service as at present constituted and under the policy now being enforced. poration. This Board of Governors issued an address to the people entitled "National Irriga- tion Why you should favor it." This address was issued under direction of the Reclamation officials and made statements and promises to the people that were authorized by such officials. Here are some of them: "Nothing but a dam across the river forming a stupendous settling basin which will take r perhaps, a hundred years to fill with earth will obviate this difficulty. [The silt problem]. And the Government is preparing to build the dam." "A canal taken from the top of a 60 or 80 foot dam would water all the mesa, add thousands oi homes, more thousands of inhabitants and an immense amount of business of every kind. It would transform the desert to a paradise, build a city and give every modern comfort and con- venience to the people." They made their plea under a promise of a "60 or 80 foot dam" but finally concluded to build an eleven foot dam. It was going to take a hundred years to fill the reservoir with silt but they are content with a reservoir that can be filled with silt in a few days. Again, they put down the cost of the system in the following figures: "Canal built by the Government for the people no profit exacted. First ten years, 160 acres water rights signed for at $15 per acre, actual cost, say, $10 peracre r $1600. Water at $1 per acre for ten years, $1600 Total expense for 10 years $3200. *To be paid in ten equal payments. Out of debt." After the first ten years the cost of water is estimated at 75 cents per acre per year. What are the facts? Instead of costing $10 per acre, it was conceded before work was com- menced that the cost would be $40 per acre, and now the system is costing twice as much as ex- pected, which will raise the price to $80 an acre and the end is not yet. Eight times the original estimate. MISREPRESENTATIONS BY THE RECLAMA= TION SERVICE OFFICIALS. When the Reclamation Service Officials com- menced the work of reclaiming the Yuma Valley ninety pe- cent, of which was in private owner- ship they formed the Yuma County Water Users Association, composed of the men who owned land to be irrigated by the Laguna Dam Project. This Association chose a Board of Governors to transact the business of the cor- CRITICISE RECLAMATION SERVICE. Under the above heading the Imperial Daily Standard treats the movement now being made to hold a Convention that shall insist upon a, careful investigation of the work being done by the Reclamation Service officials. The Standard says: An effort is being made to hold a conference preceding the National Irrigation Congress at MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES AND STATEMENTS 45 Sacramento to express criticism of the recla- mation service and demand that it be investi- gated and evil features be corrected. In the newspaper articles being published to this end, an editorial from the Standard criti- cising the service is being widely quoted. This paper has at no time hesitated to criti- cise the reclamation service for the attitude it has shown toward Imperial valley, and it has nothing to withdraw from what it has said. But with all the criticism which the service has merited and has received, the Standard does not believe that it is in accordance with good policy to organize warfare on the service, and it is not believed this movement has that in view. The politicians who have managed that de- partment of government have failed in many important particulars to rise to the level desired. The hard and fast rules which have governed the service have unfitted it to meet the full needs of the time. But what this valley arid all arid America wants is constructive, and not destructive work. If the reclamation service has failed, criticism of it should take the form of improving the service. The fact that grave mistakes have been made does not change the fact that the reclamation of the arid public lands is the greatest work of internal improvement in which any government ever engaged. In putting forth energy in the criticism of the service, the West cannot afford to show the evils that have been developed without at the same time pointing the way to better service in the future. The activity of the reclamation service was designed to meet the requirements of an unset- tled country, while much of the most essential work is in sections that are at least in part in- habited. In attempting to apply its methods to settled communities, the service has wrought great hardships. A little ordinary common sense demands that either the practices of the service shall be broadened to fit all conditions or that additional governmental organization be worked out for those great tasks for which the reclamation service is not adapted. Thought bestowed on this line can do great good for the cause of irrigation, while an on- slaught on the reclamation service without sug- gestion of improvement can do only lasting harm. The signers of the call and the Standard fully agree as to the mode of proceedure. It is not proposed to oppose the policy of the government in its work of reclaiming its arid lands but to insist that the Reclamation Service shall keep within the spirit of the law and if necessary to have that law so modified as to avoid some of the evils regarding which complaints are so justly made. SECRETARY GARFIELD'S PERSONAL REP= RESENTATIVE VISITS THE IM= PERIAL VALLEY. The Imperial Daily Standard of June 7, 1907, gives out the following statement: "Engineer Grunsky, personal representative of Secretary Garfield of the Interior Department, is in the valley on a mission of the utmost im- portance. It is nothing less than to find a satisfactory solution of the problem of permanent control of the Colorado River by the government out- side of the Reclamation Service. Mr. Grunsky, who is one of the most eminent engineers in the country, does not hesitate to let it be known that he considers the Reclamation Service illy adapted to handle the Imperial Valley problem. This, he holds, is true because the valley is too far advanced to fit into the reclamation pro- ject, and because the Reclamation Service now has in hand all the work for which funds are available. Believing this, Mr. Grunsky, has been sent here by Secretary Garfield to go over the local situations carefully, and report on the situation and the proper solution of the problems. The details of Mr. Grunsky's project are not known in full but they include a treaty with Mexico whereby the United States can enter on Mexican land to control the Colorado river, and to secure a direct appropriation from Con- gress for this work. This implies the control of the Colorado in the same way other rivers are controlled, and it is not believed that Mr. Grunsky's project im- plies placing the burden of this work on the people of Imperial valley. This is about what the people of the valley thought was intended last winter when Congress was called on for an appropriation to control the river. That was followed by interference by the reclamation service, which sought to force this valley against its will and at the destruction of all the work that had been done, under the general reclamation scheme. According to that program the valley w r ould have been forced to pay, not only for its own work, but for the La- guna dam, which it does not need. The work done by the California Development Co. last winter has given the valley temporary security, and yet it is recognized that there is need of still greater work to make it certain that there will never be a repetition of the break in the river. In seeking a solution of the financial, politica engineering and economic problems related to the control of the Colorado, Mr. Grunsky's mission is one of the first importance." 46 UNFRIENDLY ATTITUDE OF GOVERNMENT TOWARDS YUMA VALLEY IS THE RECLAMATION ACT UNCONSTITU= TIONAL? The Irrigation Age for June, 1007 comments editorially on the recent decision of the United States Supreme Court touching the water con- troversy between the States of Kansas and Colo- rado as follows: Witliin the past month western papers have devoted considerable space to the decision of the United States supreme court as handed down in opinion of Justice Brewer in the Kansas-Colorado case. The suit was brought by the state of Kan- sas to restrain the citizens of Colorado from di- verting the waters of the Arkansas river for pur- poses of irrigation, the complainant alleging that numerous irrigation ditches in Colorado had so reduced the volume of water as to render a once navigable stream almost dry; to diminish the manufacturing power; to lower by about 5 feet the surface of the stream and entirely cut off water for irrigation in western Kansas. The reply of Colorado was that it had exclusive right to the waters flowing through the state, and re- fused to acknowledge the navigability of the Ar- kansas at any time. The decision of the court is essentially a vic- tory for the defendant state, although" it was found that the flow of water into Kansas had been diminished, and that portions of the Ar- kansas river valley had suffered. To more than offset this loss is the fact that the diversion of the waters has transformed large areas of Colorado's lands from barren wastes to fertile fields. The amount of water which Colorado may use, how- ever, is limited and the suit is dismissed "without prejudice to the right of the plaintiff to institute new proceedings whenever it shall appear that through a material increase in the depletion of the waters of the Arkansas by Colorado its cor- porations or citizens, the substantial interests of Kansas are being injured to the extent of des- troying the equitable apportionment of benefits between the two states resulting from the flow of the river" The most important feature of the decision, however, is the intimation that the national reclamation act, under which the government is now spending some $40,000,000, is unconsti- tutional. Justice Brewer does not specifically say so, but declares that Congress can only legis- late in respect to such matters as are enumerated in the constitution. The power to legislate with respect to irrigation of arid land was not one of the enumerated powers granted by the constitu- tion. The authority of Congress to irrigate its own lands, or that portion of the country wherein the property benefitted is chiefly that owned by the government, is unquestioned. But, the opinion holds, "we do not mean that its (congress ) legislation can override state laws in respect to the general subject of reclamation." Of course the decision opens the way for suits to be brought by private corporations to restrain the government from entering upon irrigation projects which might interfere with private un- dertakings. In fact one such suit is now pending that brought by ex-Senator Turner of Wash- ington on behalf of an Arizona company to res- train the government work on the Colorado river so that the corporation may use the water for irrigation purposes in California. It is not unlikely that the Twin Falls company in Idaho will bring a similar suit, as there is prospect of a conflict between the government and private enterprise along the Snake river. General H. G. Otis on Laguna Dam General Otis of the Los Angeles Times, having been rriticisd by a member of the Reclamation Service for the unfriendly attitude of his paper The Los Angeles Times towards the Laguna Dam project and other works of the Reclamation Officials, writes an explanatory letter to a friend in Phoenix, Arizona which is published in full in the Phennix Republican of July 27, 1907, We extract the following: What the Times has published in regard to the Laguna darn has been published in good faith, without malice, and for justifiable ends. The enterprise is a great and costly one, but it is not above criticism; the engineers of it, even if they be engaged in the reclamation service of the government, are not above criticism; and being a government enterprise, the manner in which the work has been done is open to the ani- madversions of the intelligent engineers and other critics whose conclusions we have published. It is well and widely known that the Times supported, during years and years, the projects of the reclamation service on the great Colorado river of the west, and, in fact, throughout the entire arid region. The paper has been fore- most in that regard. It was only after mat- ters arose in connection with that service which were properly the subject of public criticism that the Times exploited the defects and the defi- ciencies in the construction of the Laguna dam which have been alleged by engineers and others not connected with the government project. It is also true that the attitude of some of the recla- mation officials became at one time adverse to- wards the Imperial enterprise, which the Times has always encouraged. Naturally, criticisms were made on that account also. For this course I do not feel called upon to make either apology or excuse. The Los Angeles Times on the Call for the Irrigation Convention On the llth of July after the call for the Irrigation Convention to meet at Sacramento, Cali fornia, on the 31st day of August, 1907, had been signed by the Yuma Valley Water Users Associa- tion, the Los Angeles Times reviewed the situation in the following forcible article endorsing the move being made calling for a vigorous investigation of the Reclamation Service by the Government. IRRIGATORS AGGRIEVED Serious charges against Reclamation Service Convention of dissatisfied settlers called Yuma Valley accusations of dishonesty. An investigation of some of the operations of the Reclamation Service is urged by settlers of Yuma Valley, who have issued a call for a con- vention of water users, to meet in Sacramento on August 31, two days before the opening of the National Irrigation Congress, for the purpose of considering the shortcomings of the service and preparing a petition to the President. The call is signed by the officers of the Yuma Valley Consolidated Water Users' Association and fif- teen settlers, and purports to express the views of a majority of the settlers along the Colorado River. It is charged by these men that the Recla- mation Service made false representations to the settlers in the valley in order to secure their sig- natures to contracts mortgaging their homes to the government for an unknown amount, and that the estimated cost of the irrigation works to be constructed was grossly misrepresented. The estimated cost of the Laguna dam was $900,- 000, and J. G. White & Co. took the contract to build it. After expending $600,000 of govern- ment money and $320,000 of their own, the firm was permitted to surrender the contract without penalty, the plant was turned over to the gov- ernment, and the Reclamation Service is going on with the work, which was only half done when J. G. White & Co. abandoned it. It is asserted that the completed dam will cost nearly $2,000,000, and that the siphon under the Gila, the Yuma tunnel and the distributing canals will bring the total cost of the project up to the equivalent of $70 or $80 per acre of land under the system. This, it is charged, practic- ally covers the entire value of the property mort- gaged, leaving no equity to the settler, and be- cause of the discouraging prospects people are leaving the Yuma Valley, nearly one-half of the irrigated land has been deserted and the valley is reverting to the desert. DISHONESTY ALLEGED The Yuma Valley settlers make the specific accusation that Reclamation Service officials positively agreed that the government w r ould purchase two of the canal systems that furnished water to the farmers, and operate them pending completion of the government system; that a contract for the purchase of the Farmers' Canal was made and approved by Secretary Hitch- cock, but was repudiated later, and the settlers were told that the government would neither purchase nor operate the canal. It is charged, also, that the Reclamation officials agreed to purchase a pumping plant for $6000; that their action was approved by Secretary Hitchcock; that a deed to the property was executed and de- livered on explicit assurance that the money would be paid; that the officials retained the deed for tw r o years and then placed it on record, and on June 1, 1907, demanded possession of the property, although the purchase price still re- mains unpaid. The signers of the call for a convention of ag- grieved irrigators say: "We are firm believers in the wisdom and ef- ficiency of the Reclamation Act passed by Con- gress and signed by President Roosevelt in 1902, provided that such act can be honestly adminis- tered in the interests of the people. "We believe that President Roosevelt desires to have that act honestly administered, but as yet we have been unable to reach his official ear in such a manner as to cause him to order an in- vestigation into the abuses which could be so easily unearthed here in this valley by a com- petent commission. "We are cognizant of the fact that this same Reclamation management endeavored to get 4S UNFRIENDLY ATTITUDE OF GOVERNMENT TOWARDS YUMA VALLEY control of or destroy the irrigation system of the Imperial Valley, even to the extent of publicity declaring on the streets of Imperial, that it might be necessary to turn the Imperial Valley back to desert again in order to accomplish their purpose. "We are creditably informed that the settlers under the various other reclamation systems have been treated in a manner very similar to the treatment to which our settlers have been subjected." "Therefore we ask that all settlers under the reclamation projects and all those who are in- terested in the reclamation of the arid lands of America, and those who sympathize with such settlers, take an interest in seeing that they are properly represented in the National Irrigation Congress to be held in the city of Sacramento, Cal., from the 2nd to the 7th of September, 1907." IMPERIAL VALLEY'S GRIEVANCE. The unfriendly attitude of officials of the Rec- lamation Service toward the Imperial Valley is treated at length in a pamphlet, compiled and published by an Imperial newspaper. It is shown that those officials have "knocked" the valley and the work of the California Develop- ment Company persistently for years. They pronounced the soil of the valley worthless and reported that it would not germinate seed; they obstructed in every way possible the irrigation project for reclamation of the valley; they de- clared it impossible to check the runaway Colo- rado with a rock-fill dam; and they did their ut- most to induce the government to confiscate the valley lands and attach them to the Yuma pro- ject to save that scheme from financial failure. A BELATED KNOCKER. As late as April, 1907, after the break in the river had been closed and the security of the pro- tective works built by the Southern Pacific had been established, L. C. Hill, supervising engineer of the Reclamation Service, published an article full of . misrepresentations of the work of the California Development Company, in which he "predicted" the failure of efforts already success- ful, and again urged that the Imperial Valley be turned over to the Reclamation Service. Ex- tracts from Engineer Hill's article are given in the pamphlet, with these comments: "The falsification of facts which this eminent political engineer uses as the warp and woof of readible fiction shows the animus of the article. It is the old, old story of desperate determination of the service to coerce Imperial Valley into com- ing to its relief and thus saving the Laguna dam project from becoming the most gigantic engineer- ing failure in the history of the West. "He failed to speak of the farmers below Yuma, where the farmers were beginning to prosper and the cultivated area was spreading rapidly until the blighting touch of the so-called Reclamation Service fell upon them, and the land relapsed to desert, and the wrecked farmers packed their few belongings in wagons and moved on to seek a land where there was no government bureau ready to sand-bag them and rob them of their last dollar. "There is no more pathetic story in all the wild West than this, heard almost wherever the Rec- lamation service has obtained a foothold, of the ruin and absolute desolation brought to the irrigated farms by the politicians sent out in the name of. reclamation for the ostensible object of making the wilderness to bloom, but in reality to draw fat salaries for their incompetent service, willing to sow desolation where they expected to plant homes, if only their big salaries roll on in endless procession." CHANGES DEMANDED. Yuma and Imperial valleys will be repre- sented in the Irrigation Congress and in the con- vention of dissatisfied settlers at Sacramento, and doubtless the mistakes of the Reclamation Service will be dealt with vigorously. In the words of the Yuma call: "It is proposed to place before this convention a proposition to memorialize the President to order a thorough examination of the Reclama- tion Service, to the end that the facts of the case may be made public; that such changes may be made in the personnel of the service as the facts may require and that proper restrictions may be placed upon the service and proper rules adopted by the government for its guidance that will give the public confidence in this great work of reclaiming our arid lands and making homes for American citizens and their families." Call for an Irrigation Convention. The following call for an Irrigation Convention to meet in Sacramento, Califor= nia, on Saturday August 31, 1907, to consider matters connected with the work of the Reclamation service was published in circular form and sent to about 500 newspapers in the arid West and it was also sent to leading members of the Irrigation Congress, many United States officials and others. To the friends of Reclamation of arid lands through- out the arid regions of the United States: The undersigned, representing the wishes and expressing the sentiment of a majority of the settlers along the Colorado River ; located under the flow of the Laguna Dam Irrigation Project now being built by the United States Govern- ment, being dissatisfied with the management of the Government Reclamation Service officials, ask you to co-operate with them in an attempt to remedy the evils complained of. The Reclamation offiicials induced the owners of land under the proposed Laguna Dam Irriga- tion System to sign away their property rights and interests by false promises and misrepresen- tations, and because of this we have banded our- selves together for self protection, and have formed the YUMA VALLEY CONSOLIDATED WATER USERS' ASSOCIATION, for the pur- pose of protecting our rights and getting justice at the hands of the Government. We charge and can prove that the Reclama- tion Service made false representations to the settlers in the Valley in order to secure our signa- tures to a contract whereby we have mortgaged our homes to the Government for an unknown amount, and that the estimated cost of the irri- gation works to be constructed were grossly misrepresented. We charge that J. B. Lippincott and his as- sociates representing the Government estimated that the Laguna Dam would cost about $900,- 000; that a contract to construct the dam was made with a responsible firm; that after doing a large amount of work that firm surrendered its contract sustaining a loss of about $320,000; that up to the present time there has been paid out on the work of construction about $920,000, of which amount $600,000 was paid by the Gov- ernment and the remainder was the loss sus- tained by the contractor; that the work at this point was about half done. Thus the dam when completed will have cost nearly $2,000,000, to say nothing of the syphon under the Gila River, the tunnel through the Yuma mesa and the dis- tributing canal system to irrigate the 87,600 acres of land the total cost of which it is now believed will aggregate not less than $70 or $80 per acre. We charge that the said J. B. Lippincott posi- tively agreed on behalf of the government that it would purchase two of the canal systems that furnished water to the farmers of the Valley and to operate the same pending the construction of the Government systems thus furnishing the Valley farmers with water to save our crops and homes; that this was done as an inducement in securing the signatures of the settlers to the con- tract placing our lands under the irrigation sys- tem to be constructed, and that the Reclamation Service officials have declined to make good their promises. We charge that, acting under the advice and direction of the Reclamation Service officials, the Yuma Valley Water Users' Association a creature of the Reclamation Department, contracted with the owners of the Farmers Canal to purchase that system at a cost to be deter- mined but in no event to be less than $30,000; that the system was estimated as being worth 50 UNFRIENDLY ATTITUDE OF GOVERNMENT TOWARDS YUMA VALLEY about $75,000 based on the actual cost of con- struction; that 'the system was in debt to the ex- tent of $30,000, hence the minimum price fixed in selling the system to the Government; that this indebtedness was guaranteed by resi- dents of the Valley and the settlers in selling de- sired to protect these men who had risked their property interests in order to build up and de- velop the resources of the Valley; that the build- ing of the Laguna Dam system would absolutely ruin this canal property because the settlers under that system had signed up to help pay for and to take water from the Governmental sys- tem under the agreement that the old system was to be purchased by the Government and operated by the Government pending the con- strnction of the new system; that officials of the Reclamation Service afterwards reported that such contract had been approved by Secretary of the Interior Hitchcock; that still later the con- tract was repudiated and the settlers were told that the Government would neither purchase nor operate the Farmers system. We further charge that the Reclamation of- ficials also agreed to purchase a pumping plant that furnished water to settlers owning a large acreage, paying therefor the sum of $6,000, and that such action was approved by Secretary of the Interior Hitchcock; that the owners of the plant executed a deed conveying such property to the Reclamation Service, which deed contained the usual clause acknowledging the receipt of the purchase price, and tendered it to the Recla- mation officials .asking for the payment of the $6,000; this amount the officials promised to pay and the owners parted with the deed with the explicit assurances that the money would be paid, but' the officials failed to pay the money ,and after retaining possession of the deed for about two years, they placed the deed' on record and, on the 1st day of June, 1907, demanded possess- ion of the property, although the purchase price was still unpaid. Possession was not given, by advice of attorneys. We also desire to represent that, because of the misrepresentations made by the Reclama- tion officials, and their dishonest treatment of our settlers, people are leaving our valley in large numbers, and that nearly one half of the irrigated land has been deserted, and the land is going back to desert conditions again. We further state that a petition signed by 307 of our settlers has been, sent to the Secretary of the Interior at Washington, asking for relief, but as yet getting none. The cost of the Laguna Dam irrigation system now promises to be so great that it practically covers the entire value of the property mort- gaged, so that there is no equity left if the settler desires to move out and leave his property. We are firm believers in the wisdom and ef- ficiency of the Reclamation act passed by Con- gress and signed by President Roosevelt in 1902, provided that such act can be honestly adminis- tered in the interests of the people. We believe that President Roosevelt desires to have that act honestly administered, but as yet we have been unable to reach his official ear in such a manner as to cause him to order an in- vestigation into the abuses which could be so easily unearthed here in this Valley by a com- petent commission. We are cognizant of the fact that this same Reclamation management endeavored to get control of or destroy the irrigation system of the .Imperial Valley even to the extent of public declaring on the streets of Imperial "that it might be necessary to turn the Imperial Valley back to desert again in order to accomplish their purpose." We are credibly informed that the settlers under the various other reclamation systems have been treated in a manner very similar to the treatment to which our settlers have been sub- jected. Therefore we ask that all settlers under the various Reclamation Projects and all those who are interested in the Reclamation of the arid lands of America and those who sympathize with such settlers take an active interest in seeing that they are properly represented in the Na- tional Irrigation Congress to be held in the City of Sacramento, California, from the 2nd to the 7th of September 1907. In order that all such delegates may have an opportunity to confer with each other and dis- cuss the vital questions in which we are all in- terested and take appropriate action regarding the subjects discussed, we hereby invite all such delegates who believe that the Reclamation Serv- ice should be thoroughly investigated by the Government, with a view to correcting the evils complained of in this call, to meet in conven- tion in the City of Sacramento, California, on Saturday August 31, 1907 at 10 o'clock a. m. It is proposed to place before this convention a proposition to memorialize the President to order an examination of the Reclamation service, to the end that the facts of the case may be made CALL FOR IRRIGATION CONVENTION 51 public; that such changes may be made in the personnel of the service as the facts may require, and that proper restrictions may be placed upon the service arid proper rules adopted by the Gov- ernment for its guidance that will give the public confidence in this great work of reclaiming our arid lands and making homes for American citi- zens and their families. We also ask that steps be taken at such con- vention to place the entire question before Con- gress if such course shall be deemed expedient. The convention will also be competent to con- sider such other questions connected with this subject as may be brought up for consideration and to take such action as the merits of the case may dictate. YUMA VALLEY CONSOLIDATED WATER USERS' ASSOCIATION. By R. H. Thielman, President, By James H. Hobbs, Director By C. E. Yarwood, Director By Joe Williams, Director By Thomas Lyall, Director Endorsed by the following Settlers: Thomas L. Despiars W. C. Despiars Geo. W. Crane M. Morris Henry Bandy R. D~ Breedlove J. G. Barklev John Syverson J. B. Marrs E. L. Crane Robt. Sexsmith A. E. Baldwin M. B. Fair J. C. Jones T. A. Jordan Dated at Yuma, Territory of Arizona, this 15th clay of June, 1907. The undersigned, without reference to the particular charges made against the officials of the Reclamation Service by the Yuma Valley Consolidated Water Users' Association, unite in the above call for the proposed convention, believing that a conference of all parties interested in the questions would result in good to the service. I. W. Gleason, President Imperial Water Com- pany No. 1. Peter P. Hovley, President Imperial Water Company No. 4. R. T. Perry, President Imperial Water Com- pany No. 6. Imperial Land Company, by F. C. Paulin, President. California Domestic Water Company, Wm. C. Learmont, Secretary, Whittier, Cal. Lem Allen, St. Clair, Nevada. J. B. Verplank, St. Clair, Nevada. We, the President and Secretary of the "ROUND VALLEY WATER USERS' ASSO- CIATION," DO HEREBY ask that the CON- VENTION be called, and that certain evils and injustice that have been imposed upon the peo- ple in the name of "Reclamation" be investigated and corrected, ;i,nd for this call we hereunto set our hands and seals. GEO. A. CLARKE, President. Attest: FRED R. SMITH, Secretary. Imperial Valley vs. Yuma Valley Two year old grape vine in Imperial Valley, graph taken June 5, 1907. Photo- Residence and ranch of Prof. Yocum waiting for Gov ernment water, twelve miles south of Yuma. The Colorado Flood of 1907 a Record Breaker The Colorado River Flood during June and July of 1907 makes a new record so far as records go in connection with floods in this remarkable stream. In order to show the comparison in the now during the season of 1907 as compared with that of 1906 the following table is given as taken from the records of the Geological Survey. The record for the months of June and July are given in height of gauge and second feet, as follows: June, 1906 June, 1907 DAY DIBCHA.O, 1 --28.60 81,800 28.45- 72900 _>_- -.28.60 84,000 28.90... 76,200 3 28.80 84,200 29.10.. 77,000 4... __ -28.60 87,200 29.20- 77,700 5-._ --28.30 82,400 29.15 77400 6 27.95 91,100 28.90,. _ 87,100 7 -_-27.60 89,800 28.30... 83,300 8 - -27.40 89,000 27.70_ 80,100 9 _ -27.40 86.700 27.25- 77200 10 -_27.45 85,300 26.85.- 72,200 11_- --27.30 82,100 26.95- 72,700 12 27.10. __ .74,000. __ .27. !."> 81800 13 26.90 65,800 27.45._ 86,500 14 .,26.70 65,000 27.95_ 90,400 15 .-26.75 70,000 28.05 94,400 16 26.95 80,600 28.25 . 97100 17 26.95 80,600 28.55... 100,800 18..- 26.90 80,800 28.85. __ 104,600 19 26.80 80,400 29.10_ 105,900 20 26.70 80,100 29.15 106 300 21 26.75 79,800 29.15._. 106,300 22 26.85 80,400 29.10-.. 108,000 23 27.30 83,000 29.00. 109,500 24 27.60 91,000 28.90. _ 113,400 25 -.27.80 96,600 28.85_ 114,400 26 __27.85 96,400 28.75 114700 27 _.28.10 99,200 28.70._- 114,800 28 --28.05 97,100 28.60-. 115,000 29 ..27.85 92,000. ---28.40--- 115,400 30.. --27.30 79,300 28.40 115,400 July, 1906 July, 1907 1 - -26.50 74,200 28.30. _ 112,800 2 25.55 68,000 28.05. . 111,000 24.35 60,400 27.55 110,400 4 23.35 52,200 27,10 109,500 6... ...22.85 48,100 27.40 109,500 6__ _ _22.40 44,600 27.35. __ 107,000 7..- 22.00 41,900 27.35- . 107,000 - .21.90 41 ,100 27.50- - 108,100 9 -.21.85 40,400 27.70. 109,600 10 -.21.85 39,500. _. 27.XO 110,400 11-- 21.80 38,600 28.05 112,300 I2i j_21.53 40,600 28.00 111900 13 -.21.40 38,100 28.05 114,100 21.30 37,400 27.95 112,600 15-. --21.10 36,300 27.80 113,900 16 :_. -20.95 35,400 27.65 113,800 17 20.95 34,600 27.50 109,500 18 21. LT) 32,900 27.45 108,800 19 .21.50 32.(i()0 .__27.10 103,600 L'O .___.__'____ 'I'. 21.20 32.-IOO 26.75 101700 This record is a most remarkable one and teaches a valuable lesson. It will be noticed that the highest water of the season as shown by the gauge was on the 4th of June, when the gauge marked 29.20, but on that day the flow of the river was only 77,700 second feet. Then the flood apparently subsided, so that on the 10th of June the gauge marked only 26.85 a drop of two feet and four inches, but on that date the volume of water flowing in the river had subsided only a trifle the drop being only to 72,200 second feet. The flood then increased again and on the 17th of June the gauge read 28.55 and the flow had increased to 100,800 second feet. For thirty- four days the flow of the river was above the 100,000 second feet mark the maximum flow being 115,400 second feet on the 29th and 30th of June, with a gauge reading on the 30th of only 27.30 feet. Thus we find that with a gauge of 29.20 on the 4th of June, there was a flow of only 77,700 sec- ond feet while on the 30th of the month there was a flow of 115,400 second feet while the river gauge was only 27.30, nearly two feet lower than it was on the day of the highest water. The Colorado River always cuts out its chan- nel in time of a flood but this year the cutting process is abnormal. This is brought about by two causes: First: The flood was the severest known in the history of the river since records were kept. Second: During the season of 1906, the farm- ers on the Arizona side of the river below Yum a thought to protect their ranches by doing a little work on the river. At a point a few miles below the Imperial Canal heading, there was a large bend in the river. This bend was over three miles around and only about half a mile across the neck. They cut a channel across this neck and now the entire river flows through this chan- nel. The river has thus been shortened about three miles and hence to restore the normal grade of the stream this cutting process has been very heavy during the recent flood. This cutting process probably had much to do in saving the Imperial dam as well as the Yuma Valley. Had the stopping of the runaway river been left to the Reclamation Service, it is now ad- mitted by all who know anything of the situa- tion that the work would not have been accom- plished and that much of the Imperial Valley would to day have been under water and that there would have been nothing for the Reclama- tion Service to do but move out of the Colo- rado River Valley. 072559 10887 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY ! ON. BHBBHH