Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-07-19

ernor Perkins as having shown that the
successful completion of the plans Of the
engineers would have resulted in the recla-
nation Of lands the valuation of which
was not less than $40, goo, coo. Upon this
the Cal says: "If Governor Perkins
especial message had shown what our Sac
"ramento contemporary claims, there
"would have been no opposition to the
yearly appropriations Tor the erection of
brush dams, according to the projects of
the engineers. It was because neither
"the message OF the Governor nor the
"reports of the engineers, nor the opinion
"of common-sense unprofessional people,
warranted the conclusion that permanent
"good would result from the completion of
''the system of dams the Drainage Act
contemplated. that opposition to the
appropriation gained such force" This
is grossly untrue. In the first place the
special message of the Governor does point
out exactly what we stated. In the Sec
end place the reports of the engineers were
such as to convince all who took the pains
to read them, that the proposed plans were
both practicable and sufficient. In tho
third place no writer who was not too
ignorant of the nature of these
plans to be justified in an attempt
to discuss them, would perpetrate the
absurdity of implying that they
consisted merely of system of dams. !"
We have charged the press of San Fran
cisco with ignorance in this connection,
and not without good reason, for whenever
one of these papers undertakes to deal with
the debris question it is sure to demon
strate it's phenomenal lack OF comprehen.
sion of the subject. As to the "opinions
''of commons sense unprofessionals on q
question of engineering science, they are
apt to be about as valuable as the opinions
of people ignorant of all languages save
their own upon the merits of transla
ton from the Sanscrit. Such opinions de-
rive their bias from the ignorance of the
persons who deliver them. In the pres
ent case it ia significant that all the
views which are Of any real weight, that
is to say, the views of the engineers, have
been distinctly favorable to the plans
proposed for dealing with the debris prob
lem; while the unfavorable views have
been those of people who knew nothing of
the principles concerned or the scientific
bearing of the points involved. But the
Cal makes another serious misstatement
when it says that the opposition to the
engineering plans was based upon want
OF confidence in their sufiiciency. The
opposition stirred up by the San Francisco
press was based upon the most contempt
ible, sordid and shortsighted con.
siderations conceivable Il was the tax Of
five cents on the one hundred dollars which
drew down upon the project the hostility
of such journals as the Gail. They never
took the trouble to master the engineering
propositions. They never understood
enough about those propositions to discuss
them without exposing their profound
ignorance of the scientific side of the ques-
ton. They were content to make
the fight from the standpoint of the tax,
a squabble over five cents being something
which they felt themselves entirely fit to
undertake. But journal which at this
stage of the discussion does not know that
the brush dams were simply feature in a
project which embraced radical treatment
Of the river channels in many other ways,
and which is further iguorantof the fact that
no sane man ever expected these dams to
remedy the existing evils by themselves,
ought either to avoid a topic it is SO incom-
petent to deal with, or to fit itself for hand.
lingit by conscientious study of the avail
able data.