The weekly tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1891-1894, 1894-03-02
IRRIGATION.
Chairman Cooper Of the Irrigation
Committee Expresses His Opin.
ion Freely
On the Question Of Irrigation in the
Northwestern States and
Territories.
He Considers Artesian Wells a Fail
ure for Irrigation Pur-
poses.

barrassing condition of having been ap-
pointed to do u thing which congress-, for
the present Mt least, is determined shall
not be done. He very naturally feels, there
fore, that the interested public ought to
understand the situation and stop bother
ing about it. When the grand irrigators
descended upon ongrcss a few years ago
with the proposition that all the surplus
| which then troubled 50 many statesmen
should be used up in grand irrigatinS
works, congress named a new committee
on the subject and appointed investiga-
tors. The latter, Major Powell, the noted
explorer of the Colorado, being their chief
spokesman, reported in favor of the sys-
TEN, which would have cost, first and last,
somewhere between 81 COO, 000, 900 and
So, 900, 900 900. BY the time this was fully
understood, however, the surplus was gone,
and the committee had time to think the
thing over, and now, says Chairman Coop
er: at is about as certain Ms anything in
legislation can be that nothing whatever
will be done for several years. 1t certain
ly will be nothing if it depends on me.
The Arid Lands.
ave have learned this: All those inter
tSttu Ill viz hiuttCI huy w q nv"
three classes. The first class, and by far
the largest, wants the land all given to the
state in which it is situated, and their ar
gument is ingenious. They say that in
the middle west-especially Indiana, Hi
nois and Michigan, after all the available
land was sold, congress gave the swamp
land to the states. In our W state, you
know meaning Indiana), nearly the whole
Kankakee country is still in swamp, and
the state has never fulfilled the implied
obligation of draining it. These fellows
use those grants as a precedent and say
that nature has simply reversed herself
out west-where we had too much water
they have too little-and by the same rule
the arid lands should belong to the states.
"The next class, not SO large, but rather
more logical, declare with that
? the scheme of reclamation by states is ut
terly impracticable. as the water is very
often in one state and the LAND to be re-
claimed in another-that is, a great stream
: like the Arkansas or Platte has n very
large volume in Colorado, but in the irri-
eating season, or indeed in the driest sea-
son before irrigation was established, the
7 water nearly all disappears before one
&, reaches the boundary of the next state east
l ward.
"In fact, there hav been seasons when
one might travel for IS miles along the
. bed of the South Platte and not see water,
although there was really Il great deal
lust below the sand surface. Furthermore,
these cannot be called navigable streams
{ even By the latitudinarian construction
| which the supreme court has lately put
I IDOL that phrase. So congress could not
interfere with any disposal of tho water
:. made by the higher states. In short, tho
u state which has the lane about headwa
tiers has the water, and there would be nc
help for it. Therefore, say these men, con
gress should divide the whole country int
irrigation districts irrespective of STATE
lines and provide a general and compre
d hensive system. Otherwise there will b'
IS an oppressive and really outrageous waite
monopoly.
"There is a third class which you ma.
call the paternalists-the kind of fellow
who want the government to do every
thing that needs doing and make every
body virtuous and happy by act OF con
gress. These fellows want us to go in an
% spend lots of money, hundreds of million
w of ito spend money everywhere 10
n which any pretense can be foundu under an
"a clause of the constitution to bore artesla
wells on all the Indian reservations; I
bore them all along the post roads an
20, .rnment mail routes and wherever els
70 the slightest pretense Of constitutions
- right can be found for it. In short, the
- adopt the broadcast construction put fort
TO by the old internal revenue men, and wal
re all streams canalized for irrigating pu
ms poses, and all the rest of the dry countr
mt fortified by a~rtesian wells, and all at til
expense of the general government. The:
/. men look upon government as a perenni'
fountain of beneicence and never both'
their heads about how the money is TO
got in before it is paid out.
Artesian Wells a Failure.
to uNow. I hadn't gone into this thing vel
tie far before l became a fourth party-a pa
re. ty by myself. / was convinced by the e
.Iv idence that artesian wells were a failu
~ for irrigation purposes, except under e
tremely favorable circumstances, and
ase didn't think it the business of the COVER
tut ment to bore them anyhow. Furthermor
there ls no Necessity h" IA Iii not he I
enter upon sucn worh AN" v"
70 or perhaps oO years. =.