Sacramento daily record-union., 1881-07-12
rag ENGINEERS on TIE BRUSH DAMS.

We present in our local columns this
morning an account Of the inspection of
the brush dams just made by Colonel
Menden and other engineers and experts.
The general result Of this examination is
the conclusion that the dams did a great
deal of very important service last win
ter that they were not failures, as assert
ed so recklessly, but that they impounded
sn immense quantity OF debris that the
injuries done to them by the foods are
much less serious than had been believed );
that the growth of tie willows has solidi-
fed and strengthened the dams greatly
wherever they were not actually preached
that q comparatively small expenditure
will suffice to repair and put them in
working order; that this ought to be done,
no matter whether the hydraulic mines
are stopped or not. The engineers, in
fact, are of opinion that the hue.and cry
raised last winter against the dams
was as ignorant and stupid as the RECORD
UNION always maintained it to be. They
are still emphatically OF opinion that the
debris problem could have been completely
and satisfactorily solved by giving the en-.
/ gineering scheme fair chance. They de-
clare in effect that the debris problem can
be settled without demanding the stoppage
OF the hydraulic mines, and that the most
/ complete protection can ba afforded to the
residents in the Sacramento valley by sim
ply carrying out the recommendations OF
Captain Eads. The report of the engineers
is in effect a stinging rebuke to the menda-
cious and irresponsible journalists vino by
sheer force of misrepresentation destroyed
popular confidence in the engineering
iplars last winter, and who by doing this
played directly into the hands Of the fee
hunting lawyers as directly as if they
had been hired to perform this precise
work. The plain truth of the matter IS
that the public action upon this debris case
has been very discreditable to the public
intelligence. The people were told distinctly
that the engineering works could not pos
sibly be completed in less than two or three
years. Yet because the work of four
months did not yield the results which
were expected from the completed sys-
TEN, it was idiotically asserted that
the scheme had broken down, and that it
was useless to trust to anything of the
kind. The opposition to the further prose-
cution of the work was supported On the
popular side by that form of ignorance
which is too conceited to learn anything ;
and this ignorance became the supple tool
of the greedy lawyers whose sole object it
was to weave an interminable network of
litigation. The dupes OF these lawyers
fell into the trap with their eyes open.
They turned their backs upon the states
manlike and scientific scheme which would
have given them security without beggar-
ing them in the process, and they threw
themselves into the arms of the men who
were yearning to get mortgages upon their
lands as security for uneouscionable fees,
contingent and otherwise. Itappears now
that as these dupes have made their bed,
so they must lie ia it, but it is in order to
call their attention to their own folly and
perversity, and to show them how eyre.
! gousiy they have been deluded.