The Florence tribune., 1900-10-13
SAN CARLOS RESERVOIR. Los Angeles Business Men Urged to
 Assist in the Work.

oCS uh. DOtll tlC B ECdt pOlltlCdA pdEblCS have endorsed the proposition, but it remains for localities to prove their special claims and fitness before con- struction actually is begun. The next congress, without doubt, will appro- priate money for the building of one or more storage reservoirs. Where will they be located?
 The first reservoir can be located, will be located. if its claims are prop erly urged, at San Carlos, Arizona. Much has already been written in our local papers about this wonderful dam site; only condensed statement can here be made, but every business man in Los Angeles should send to the Di- rector of the Geological Survey at Washington and secure Irrigation Pa per No. 3S" which gives a complete account of this remarkable irrigation proposition.
 Primarily it is solution of the In- dian problem of the Territory, and next it will be splendid test of the whole great problem of national irriga- tion.
 The government is morally bound to care for the Pima Indians on the Gila Indian Reservation. These Indians have been fraudulently deprived of their water supply by the greed of the white settlers and by the laxity of our government. Instead of race of in- dustrious, self-supporting Indians, there are now over 5000 enforced beg gars. Their condition is desperate; 1; they are starving, and their cry for help is one of the most heart rending appeals to our modern civilization, Q cry from the weak to the strong for simple justice.
 They ask only for water, the life fluid which they once had. Land they have with soil the richest, but year after year their crops fail because they have not the water to irrigate as in former years, and unless i'm mediate action is taken they will be absolutely and wholly dependent upon the gov ernment for rations. This policy is neither humane nor practical. A beg gar Indian is as great load as a beg gar white, and any policy which makes beggar of any color is a danmable policy.
 Water can be given these Indians at very small cost. The money an- nually spent to feed them is sum at least five times as great as that which would represent the interest on the irrigation system necessary to finish the water. Allowing but ten cents per day per Indian as rations and taking the number of Indians, as by the gov vernment report to be 1000, and we find that the yearly cost of rations, $2l9,000, would represent 4 per cent in- terest on system costing about five and one-haf million dollars. The government, then could well afford to expend five million dollars to give these Indians water if necessary, but it is not necessary to expend cnly fraction of that amount.
 It should be stated at the outset that this proposition is not mere opinion, but is the result of the most careful in- vestigation by the best engineers in this country. Every detail has been examined, every possible contingency taken into consideration. and there is no human possibility of failure in any respect.
 After two years study of the situa- tion by Mr.J. B. Lippincott, resident United States engineer of Los Angeles, his results were submitted to the well known authority, MT. J. D. Schuyler, of this city. Some of the latter's concise deductions are as follows, Quoted from paper No. 33):
 1st. That minimum of 40,000 acre. feet of water annually should be stored for the supply of the Indian reserva- tion.
 3rd. That the Gila river is the only available source of permanent supply.
 9th. That it is not advisable to build dam and reservoir in the channel of the river of less capacity than one-half the total annual flow of the river in minimum years.
 7th. That feasible reservoir and dam sites exist on the Gila at Buttes, Riverside and San Carlos.
 18th. That it is feasible to construct masonry dam at San Carlos at cost of 1,O38, 1926, including damages for right of way and diversion dam at the head of the Florence canal, forming Q reservoir of 241 ,397 acre-feet capacity, and that the water supply is ample 10 fill such reservoir in the years of minimum flow, and that the volume of storage will irrigate at least 100000 acres in addition to the irrigation of