Las Vegas daily optic. [volume] (Las Vegas, N.M.) 1880-1908, 1904-05-04
R0DEY ON
LAND LAWS

@poaS hSZHl hSSS
Of the reclamation service.
Mr.. Hitchcock: Is that water be
Ing used anywhere else?
No, sir; that water is being used
nowhere, but the permanent aow Of
the river is all used, that is all that
runs on the surface. The Rio Grande
has an immense underflow but We
hope the reclamation service will
learn to make this available for cur
lands.
The Chairman: Now, MI. Rodey,
you know the workings of the desert
land law in New Mexico. Does It
lead to cultivation and settlement?
II certainly docs wherever invoked.
/ don't think we have MANI entries
under that law. have not the init
mate knowledge of it that one would
have from having examined the yearly
entries. And as to frauds have
lived in New Mexico, right in the
center Of the Territory. for nearly
twenty-four years. have known Of
many frauds. where parties, home
stead entrymen, have started to make
entries with the intention to convey
them to some n man with a cattle
range afterwards. But of frauds un.
der the desert land act | do not know
There were hundreds and thousands
of desert entries made in the mesa dis
tricts in former years, but never prov
en- upon. In recent years those en-
trymen recovered their entry money
from the government for all those abb
andoned claims. II was found that
they could never get water on those
places and it was found that it was
entered at $1.25 an acre when the
price ought to have been $3.50 an acre
since it was within twenty miles of
p railroad.
The timber and stone act does not
apply to New Mexico at all, so l have
nothing to say about that act.
know of no frauds in New Mexico of
any kind under any of the entry laws.
There is no way in which you a get
title to 800 acres of land, except
through the act, and il a person will
irrigate 800 acres Of our land we think
he has earned the title and ought to
have it.
Mr.. Cooper: Has the working Of
this desert land law, in your judgment
been beneficial or detrimental?
1t has been beneficial in the few
cases ! know of. | wish our people
had made more entries under 1t and
given us more land values to tax. /
understand the desert land act was
used somewhere down in the Pecos
valley. That valley has more water on
the surface than the Rio Grande has.
Several irrigation companies went
down there, and a lot Of land was tax.
en- up by citizens under the desert land
act, I am informed. | understand ey-
cry acre of it is being cultivated. Some
had to sell out when times got hard,
between 1893 and 1897; but / know Of
no fraud and no complaint.
The Chairman: Is that all, Mr..
Rodey?
want to state here for the reason
that the desert land act has never
done any injury to New Mexico, and
because the people from the Pecos
valley, at the irrigation convention at
Ogden, told us ii worked beneficially,
thirteen out Of our delegation Of If
teen at that convention voted not 10
repeal the desert land law.
You will appreciate that our
land In New Mexico is largely either
irrigable agricultural land or pasture
land. n or the other, and any sys-
tenn by which You a give title to the
land and bring water on 1t is a bless.
ing to us and results In our getting
taxable property. have no great
feeling about the matter one way or
the other, and ! may say, SO far as /
am Informed. that the desert land act
is q benefit and blessing and no a
curse. But In New Mexico we are
intensely interested in leaving on the
books any law that viii not be an In
Jury TO the country as a whole and
that will bring money to the reclama
tion fund. The holding inyiolate of
all proper and honest sources Of rev.
10 the fund is u salvation, and
Of course we are very much interested
for that reason.
-O---