Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-03-05
TO PROMOTE DRAINAGE.

EDS. RECORD UNION However widely one
may differ with the conclusions reached by
the RECORD UNION concerning the bill g To
promote drainage" now before the Legisla-
ture, it is impossible for one not wholly igno-
rant of the subject, and prevented by egotism
aud narrowness Of mind from ever learning
anything, not to appreciate the service it has
done in educating the people to see the vast,
the overwhelming Importance of the subject.
Nearer and nearer, faster and faster, ap,
proaches the time of destruction, until even
the fool who boasts of his inability to receive
new ideas must see in the narrow scope Of
his mertal vision the beautiful river ON whose
placid bosom once hoated, with swan.like
grace, the Capital and the Chrysopolis, filed
TO the biim with mud and slime, and
its waters spread over miles of once fertile
lands, and SO thick that no one could tell
where the mud left off and the water began.
You can educate all who choose to exercise
the God given faculty of reason TO see and
know that when the river has filled up forty
feet along its upper reaches, and only few
miles below only ten, that there is thirty feet
added to the fall, and capacity for bringing
: ,
that the line of this coarse, heavy debris is
moving faster and faster down before us, and
that it must bring destruction with it, as GER
tain, and with a time almost as certainly
fixed, as the rising of to-morrow's sun so
Marysville, Sacramento, the broad acres of
the valley, capable of feeding y million
of people through generations unborn until
the sun and the last man " shall become
twins in death" The Greary vision finds
no relief. The disma! sound of the croaking
crane will even be wanting, for it will find a
desolation so complete that there will be
nothing upon which to feed The legislative
halls, when the destructive slime surrounds
them. will not even be honored with the
death, unless we can find wisdom enough
to devise . remedy, and harmony of
action enough to work together for a
common end. It is not necessary to
remind the people of the Sacramento valley
that the river belongs to them that it
pays them an annual dividend of at least two
dollars ton on all they produce. The
Northern Railway charges no more on wheat
from Williams, in Colusa county, than from
Woodland forty miles nearer, and the latter
place does not pay as rSuch by at least two
dollars a ton as it would were it not for the
navigation OF the Sacramento river. l have
to the farmers of Colusa county at least
100000 annually-more than the present
State and county taxes. And this is saved
to those who ship by rail as well as to those
who ship by water. l do not like all the
provisions of the bill you advocate, and the
other day suggested that each miner be
compelled to take from the river as
much debris as he put in, and also plan
for determining the same, and L am not
clagrined that there was not general rush
to the support of my suggestions, although
they appeared to me then, and still appear
reasonable and just. Why is it not possible
now for the opponents of what is known as
the Parks bill to meet with its friends, not as
partissns. but as men having in view
nothing but the interests of the State. and
either perfect that bill or draw new
one which shall to some extent be compro-
mise of ideas. Ii it shall then be deemed ad-
visable to form districts, to appoint Commits
sioners, etc., let plans and estimates be sub
mitted to those who are to be taxed, and with
a full knowledge of everything before them,
let them vote whether or not the Indebtedness
shall be incurred. For one, 1 shall never
consent to anything like a snap judgment on
the people. do not believe in taxation with
out voice in the subject-master of the tax.
1t would be right and proper, think, for the
State to pay all expenses up to the time of
this vote Will 9 GprgN