The Florence tribune., 1899-10-21
TIE CASA aaANoE CANAL.
The Owners Demand that It Shall be
 Made Ssf-supportns.
CHICAGO. Oct II, 1899.

Made Sslf-Supportins.
 CHICAGO. Oct II, 1899
 Editor Florence TRIBUNE.
 have just read with some interest your editorial in the TRIBUNE of the 1 Seth of September, referring to the fact that the Casa Grande canal prop erty would soon be turned over by the Receiver to the management, and call ing the attention of the residents of the locality to the necessity of some thing being done.
 With all of the effort that has been made during the last few years to make known the position of the own CTS of the canal and what it cannot do, it ought not to be necessary to do anything more to impress one fact up- on all that are interested in this canal and the property adjacent to it, and thatis that there is no prospect, ability, proba bility or plan whereby the stock holders or owners of this property can assess themselves for additional money to put into the property, and it will be unwise for the people along the canal to count upon anything of that kind being done Is any part of it's future workings. It is not necessary for me to say why this cannot be. These stockholders have already involved themselves in a loss sufficiently large and many of them are persons of little property who were mislel into buying the bonds.
 The owners of land irrigated or to be irrigated from the canal should devise some proposition which will combine the expenditure of the re- ceipts with a responsible management of their own that will produce the largest results possible out of the prop erty as it is or can be made from that income for their benefit. If they are sufficiently interested to go to the Court records and see the reports of the Receiver us they have been made, they will find an income that has now reached about $12,000 a year, and will also find that up to this time every dol lar of this has been expended in operet- ing the property. A proposition should be devised by them for the property as whole, by responsible Local as- soeistion of farmers representing the entire acreage, this corporation of land owners to purchase the property and assume the management. water rentals, collections, expenditures and taxes. Until this or something else is done by the parties in interest the property will be managed as best it can be by the company from their Chicago office through an employee and it's attorney in Arizona; but 1t probably never win or cen he satis- factory management either to local parties or the company nndrr this method. There is nothing in prospect, however, that offers any change from this method unless it shall have it's origin and initiation with tho ownerA of the property along the canal in the form of some proposition that shall be mutually satisfactory to them and the canal owners. That the canal should be community property belonging to the land itself. for the good of the land owners, there can be no doubt. That each land owner should be pro rata owner of the canal would seem to be an equally true proposi tion. If this is brought about, however, it will be be- cause the owners of the land them selves take the initiative, organize legal method for carrying out any prop osition acceptable to both parties, put their land into that proposition as guarantee of payment, or way of acquiring the ownership of the canal property. It may be Q long tims be- fore the land owners will do this, and they may never do it, but it will be a mistake for them to assume in the meantime that the present owners can or will manage this property different ly in the future than has been done by the Court during the receivership.
 write this letter on my own person. al view, and representing no other interest than my own, but believe it would find favor with . majority if not all the stock md bond holders
 OREE B. TAFT.