The Arizona sentinel., 1903-07-08

for this reason 1 have to tell you right now that we must be absolutely assured that we have not only your good will,
 but also your hearty support before we
 put one dollar into construction work.
 We have already expended between thirty-fve and fifty thousand dollars in
 purchasing the Rockland canal, water appropriations, surveys, engineers re- ports, and other necessary expenses in cidental to an organization of this kind, and can assure you that. unless you come forward and give us your support and sign the necessary contracts, we will simply drop what we have put in and leave you in your present unfortu- nate condition.
 q understand that some of you are perfectly willing to wait ill the belief that the government will build a canal for you. Some of you even appear to
 believe that the government is coming down here as a great philanthropist to spend some twenty-two million dol lars for building storage dams, reser- voirs, canals, etc, with the intention of presenting the whole thing to the farmer free of cost. The actual plan of the government. gentlemen, as laid down in the official statement, is that the entire expense of the canal shall be repaid by tn farmers using the wa ter within ten years from completion, in annual installments of 10 per cent. each year. Our plan gives you five years i'll which to make your first pay ment of five dollars, seven and one half years in which to make your sec ond payment, and twenty-five and one third payment of five dollars. You all know that government construction work is far more costly than under the management of private capital, and 1 can assure you that a government ca nal will be to you a more expensive luxury, than the canal we propose to build, even when our profits have been added. But, gentlemen, the govern ment's schemes and plans are of such magnitude and are so gigantic that they cannot possibly be accomplished for another fifteen or twenty years. During that time many of you will have lost all you have, and some will have gone to their last rest. strong ly advise you to consider the matter very carefully before you throw away certainty for possibility in the dis tant future.
 Another objection which has been raised is that we require every acre of irrigable land to be signed up. We require this for two reasons; firstly, to insure the signing up of sufficient acreage to warrant the expenditure of the necessary money, you can easily figure out how many acres it will take to return to us the million and one half or two million we propose to spend. On top of this we require our interest and profit.
 'In regard to the question of our standing, would like to impress upon you most en1phatically that we are bus mess men, one and all of us, of stand ing in San Francisco, and we could not afford to come down here with the object of simply promoting, unless we were also prepared to build this canal. And tellyo now that we are pre- pared to begin the work of construc- ton tomorrow, provided we are satis- fled that the farmers are prepared to come forward and give us their sub- stantial support. For the purpose of substantiating our bona fides, we have brought down letters from the leading bankers of San Francisco, which the chairman will read to you at the conclusion of my address. You will possibly remember, gentlemen, that the president, during his visit to California, gave one or two addresses in the irrigating districts, one at Riv- erside, I believe, in which he strongly commended the investment of private capital in the building of canals to be operated under the cooperative sys- tems laid down by the government. Gentlemen, Southern California is a go-afread community, the people there generally are hustlers and seize every opportunity to advance themselves. From what can gather but small contingent of the farmers around Yu- ma have done likewise. They are ap- parently unwilling to grasp opportu- mites when presented. The difference between the Yuma and the Southern California farmer reminds me of a lit tie story. There were once two frogs who happned to stray into dairy, one of the frogs, which we will call Ari- zona, happened to fall into a pitcher of milk that had been set for cream, the other frog, which we will call Cal ifornia, fell into another pitcher. From the pitcher into which Arizona fell was heard small, faint voice, Help! help! I am drowning.' From the other pitcher was heard merely, Hustle, hustle, hustle.' In the morn ing the dairyman's wife found in one of those pitchers a poor, miserable, drowned frog; ill the other one she found healthy, fat, robust frog sit 4. # L,,t S0 e,