Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1905-02-28
COL. IRISH AFTER MAXWELL
HON. JOHN r.. IRISH TALKS IN
TEREsTINGLY ON THE CUES
TON OF IRRIGATION.
MAXWELL is PAID TO MANIPU.
LATE LAWS IN FAVOR
OF RAILROADS.

II Inc following leCter OF Col. lr1Sn is
copied from the San Francisco Even
ing Post:
Editor Post: I have read without
surprise the irrigation interview OF
Mr.. G. q. Boothe. He says: Colonel
John P. Irish, who has attended some
Of the congresses as the representa-
tive Of the cattlemen, is also a resi-
dent of this section. Whether or not
Colonel Irish has exerted influence on
the press and people of this part of
the state do not know. But I do
know that Colonel Irish has been an
active lobbyist in the interests of the
cattlemen for many years at our con-
crosses" r.
attended the first Irrigation Con-
gress at Salt Lake and helped organ
ize it: l attended the last congress
at Ogden in 1903 and have been at
no other meeting of that body. 1t
is an arrant and impudent falsehood
that on either occasion I appeared as
an attorney or lobbyist of the cattle
men. It is also falsehood that the
cattlemen oppose the federal irriga-
ton law. The National Livestock
Association and the American Cattle
mems Association have always fav-
ored and supported forest reserves,
the conservation Of water and every
plan for applying it in irrigation. The
cattlemen proposed law to lease the
400, 100000 acres of public land that
Is fit for grazing and for nothing else
but to safeguard all rights they pro
vided that all leaseholds should be
open to the homesteader and tn
mineral prospector and the irrigator
government or individual.
In these two falsehoods Mr.. Boothe
shows his unfitness to be in any rep
resentative capacity. His trouble is
that he esteems himself to be the
arid west and Mr.. George Maxwell to
be the irrigating canal, and in Ger
tain sense this conception is true
For Mr.. Boothe is dry, very dry, with
that sort of drought that is slaked
by currency, and Mr.. Maxwell who is
paid $4,000 a year by the land grant
railroads to manipulate the land laws
in their interest, moistens Mr.
Boothe's parched pocket. .-.
At the last congress in Ogden
tried to have this years meeting al
Reno, New, where there is an object
lesson in federal irrigation in the
great canal now under construction
But Maxwell and Boothe made an al
lance with the Mormon Church
which wanted the congress held
in Texas on account of its
colonies near by in Mexico
Now the federal government
does not own foot of land in Texas
and the federal irrigation law does not
apply in that state. The congress
might as well have been held in the
middle of the Pacific ocean. 1 repre-.
sented the Water and Forest society
OF California and wanted something
practical done by the congress. But
Boothe, Maxwell and their party, who
irrigate with wind, do not want any,
thing practical. They are the grafters
on great movement and have COM
bined to make the congress ineffec-
tive. Mr.. Boothe's patronizing refer
ences to northern and central Califor-
MIA are amusing. He deprecates the
misrepresentation of irrigation north
OF the Tehachapi. But the fact is that
We have irrigated hundred acres to
southern California's one and have a
thousand irrigable acres to southern
California's one, and ten thousand
acre feet to her one to do the work.
Mr.. Boothe is interesting as an artist
in Misrepresentation and furnishes
ground for Ananias to move for new
trial.
JOHN p. IRISH.