Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-07-15
TIE PROGRAMME OF THE rEE-HuNrEEs.


they seek is fat fees and plenty OF them.
To induce the people of this valley to fall |
in with their programme they have sedu-
lousy deprecated the engineering plans
by which alone the whole debris question
could have been settled permanently and
equitably. They have also done their utmost
to convey the impression that litigation
will give absolute, immediate and perna-
nent security to the people OF the valley.
But this is not the truth. The truth is
that if every city and county in the Sacra-
mento valley brought suit against the
hydraulic miners, and if every one of those
suits were successful, and if perpetual in.
functions were issued against the miners,
the safety of the valley would not then be
insured. If every hydraulic mine was
stopped to-day, and if not an ounce of
debris were washed into the rivers from
these mines, next winters rains would
still bring down debris enough to cover
and destroy thousands of acres, and to
swamp Marysviile. Whoever, therefore,
asserts that there is only one issue before
the people of this valley, and that that
one issue is the stopping of hydraulic
mining, tells falsehood.
The RECORD UNION seeks the safety of
the Sacramento valley, not the enrichment
of few lawyers, and therefore it refuses
TO admit that the public are justified in
ignoring the very grave and urgent con-
siderations which lie beyond litigation.
Colonel Mendell has within the past week
declared that it is not enough to put
stop to hydraulic mining for that there is
enough debris now IN the canyons to in
flict immense damage upon the valley
lands. 1t is very certain that litigation
| cannot res rain this debris, and it is
equally certain that unless it is withheld
in some way all the money now being put
into tie hands Of the lawyers will be i'm
potent to prevent the destruction OF the
very lands these suits ara intended to pro.
tect. These facts are not capable of being
| controverted, and therefore it is not fair
dealing with the public for any one to as-
sert that all that is needed is more litiga-
ton. The RECORD UNION pointed out
long ago the necessity of dealing with the
debris already accumulated in the canyons,
and showed that if the engineering plans
were abandoned there would remain no
available method of guarding against the
descent of this debris. The feehunters
attempted TO evade this vital considera-
ton by pretending that the rains OF last
winter had emptied all the canyons, and
that therefore there was nothing to appre.
bend in that regard. The falsity of this
pretense has now been fully exposed, and
the urgency Of the situation is once more
| demonstrated.
Colonel Mendell says that the debris in
one canyon is one hundred and fifty feet
deep. Does any sane man think that an
injunction upon the hydraulic mines will
prevent next winters rains from bringing
that debris down upon US? And if no
help or protection is to be looked for from
| the prosecution Of suits, how is litigation
going to save the farmers and the people of
Marysville The people of this valley we
trust possess far too much sense to be
gulled by the shallow sophistrics of the
fee-hunting lawyers into abandoning them
selves to a mode of defense which clearly
cannot defend them. They have to make
their reckoning, not with the hydraulic
miners alone, as the fee hunters falsely
allege, but with an enormous mass Of debris
over which neither the hydraulic miners nor
anyone else have any control. This mass
must in the course OF natural laws be
washed down into the rivers, and when it
is there it will do just as much damage as
though it came straight from TIE hydraulic
mines. Colonel Mendell says that the
only way to hold back this debris is by
repairing the brush dams. The fee-hunters
and their spokesman try to persuade the
people that it is not necessary to 10 any.
thing of the kind. That is to say, the fee
hunters and their organs wish to prevent
the people from guarding themselves
efectually.
When the rains come, and the debris
descends into the rivers, even though the
hydraulic mines should all be closed, it
viii be too late to apply remedies. We do
not desire even the most credulous dapes
of the fee-hunters to be punished so
sharply for their folly, however. and there
fore we propose to give them timely warn
ing. We say now, as We have said from
the first. that litigation alone cannot save
this valley, and that the attempt to main.
tain its ability to save the valley is false
and fraudulent Studied and persistent
Misrepresentation has been employed to
create belief that all that was necessary
was the institution of suits. It has been
alleged. in defiance Of the facts ard of the
opinions Of the engineers, that all the
trouble would eventually cease if the
hydraulic mines were enjoined. The only
possible effect of such statements ia to
create false confidence, which will lead
the public to neglect necessary precautions,
and which viii render it easier for the fee.
hunters to bleed the county treasures.
Against all their misstatements, how.
ever, stands the undeniable fact that be.
tween US and the hydraulic mines there
lies great body of debris, out of the reach
of injunctions, and accessible only to those
winter rains which are certain to fall in
their season. Whatever methods of protec-
tion and defense for the valley fail to take
this debris into account are mapifestly
fatally defective; and the only plan the
hunters have is open to this destructive
criticism. The fee-hunters are trying to
produce the impression that everybody
who finds fault with their schemes is in the
interest of the hydraulic miners. In whose
interests must they be who are employing
all their energies to commit the people of
the valley to a policy of defense so bung-
ling and futile that it cannot protect them
even for q single winter against the worst
consequences OF the flow of debris?