Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1900-04-17
ELEPHANT BUTTE
An Able Argument By a Las Cru
ces Correspondent For
the Dam.
The INTERNATIONAL Dam
El Paso People In Their sel6shness Are
Hurting Their Own Interests ts-What
English Capitalists Are Will
ing to Do.
Special Cor. New Mexican.

Special Cor. New Mexican.
Las Cruces, April 16.-Edward C
Wade, Sr., has been seriously i'll fol
some time, and as soon as able to be
about intends to leave on a visit to
Georgia. His daughter, Mrs. Thomas
F. Miller, who Is on her way from q
visit in southern California to her old
home at Quitman. Ga, is in Las Cruces
for few days with her children. Mrs
Miller is the widow Of the late Judge
Thomas F. Miller, who was for many
years judge Of the police court in the
District of Columbia. He presided in
the trial Of Coxey and his army when
they were told to keep off the grass at
the capitol grounds.
THE INTERNATIONAL DAM.
The subject of the international dam
near Ell Paso vitality affects the people
of New Mexico and Colorado, and it will
be well for them to consider the posi-
ton. To assist them in SO doing,
would draw their attention to some i'm
portant points.
Some time ago the Rio Grande Dam
and Irrigation Company, having sue
ceeded, after years of patient endeavor,
in securing the assistance of English
capital, began the construction Of their
irrigation works. After considerable
work had been done, and much money
had been spent, they were interdicted
from proceeding further on the plea
that their works would interfere with
navigation. Since then litigation has
been going on. At the present moment,
after having gone through three courts,
and after Judge Parker, on the first of
second course of trial, has decided as
matter Of fact that the works would
not substantially interfere with naviga-
ton, the case is still being dragged on,
and an appeal to the territorial supreme
court will come up the beginning of
next month. We hear that the support
ers Of the ridiculous plea Of navigation
are now anxious that the suit should
be dropped. If the bill of Mr.. Stephens
of Texas for the construction of the in
ternational dam at Ell Paso, Tex, were
passed there would be no need of con-
tinuing litigation against the Rio
Grande Dam and Irrigation Company,
as the promoters have most kindly in
serted clause providing punishment
of fine or Imprisonment, or both, for
those people in New Mexico who shall
impound the waters of the river for IT.
rigation. But what is sauce for the
goose ought to be sauce for the gander.
If the government really believes that
that Elephant Butte dam would inter-
fere with navigation, by parity of rea-
soning, they must oppose the interna-
tional dam also.
IRRIGATION RIGHTS.
Again: BY the Gadsden purchase, ir-
rigation rights were certainly included.
To suppose otherwise would be to ac
cuse the government of that day of
buying an arid desert for $1O,0OO,OOO and
of intending 1t to remain so. Can any
one believe this? Mexico, according to
the highest legal opinion, has no right
either in law or in equity to prevent
citizens Of the United States in New
Mexico from using the waters of the
Rio Grande for irrigation purposes. To
ask the people of New Mexico, as one
Ell Paso paper did, to support bill pro-
hibiting them from using the flood wa
ters under the penalty of fine and i'm
prisonment, or both, seems to us most
extraordinary request, and I rather
suspect there is trace Of the trail of
the serpent" in combining this with a
promise to help us afterward to secure
the dregs of the flood waters. Such a
proposition is an insult to the intelli-
gence of New Mexico; it Is, in plain Ian
guage, a piece of colossal impudence.
THE TWO DAMS COMPARED.
Again, another Ell Paso paper
breaches the doctrine that we are vio-
lating the rule of Almighty God in stor-
ing the flood waters provided by him,
not for New Mexico, through which the
river flows in the upper part Of its
course, but exclusively for the benefit
Of Ell Paso and Juarez, or rather for the
benefit Of those Ell Pasoans who are to
make a profit out of condemned lands
hardly think the people of New Mexi-
co will swallow this, or believe that the
newspaper in question has authority to
express the opinion of Almighty God in
this matter. A dividend to those who
supply the money to save the valleys
above Ell Paso from ruin Is, in the eyes
of this paper, a hideous crime, but what
about those who are to profit by the in
ternational dam? Are they to be re-
garded as saints worthy of the crown
as a reward for their prosecutions of
the Elephant Butte company? English
capitalists were not overwhelmed with
q burning desire to invest in this coun-
try. They were asked by Americans,
who had already secured the consent of
the United States government for the
building Of the dam. and who had no
idea that a succeeding government
would try to render that consent value-
less by instituting proceedings against
them on the plea that navigation would
be interfered with. But we believe the
English company, having put its hand
to the plow, will not turn back. They
have made a magnificent fight, and
they deserve the support and gratitude
not only Of the people Of New Mexico,
but Of every patriotic American. Many
people believe the International dam
scheme to be impracticable, but. ever