The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1906-12-24
MENACE Me; \, ! Of POLITICS g.
IN RECLAMATION.
ales Plan to Put Fund. in Hands Of Congress Peril
( Declares Interior Depart Official = Nelson
Suggested Move, but Il Absolved Of Suspicion

from any intention to do harm to the
successful continuance Of irrigation
work, but they say the inevitable result
ment: would be to make the annual
reclamation budget "log-rolling'
measure, and place it in the same cate
CORY with river and harbor and public
building appropriations, where the man
with the longest pole gets the per-
simmon. Neither Minnesota nor Maine
will be affected in any way by the
proposed legislation, but states in the
west, which are included in the rec
lamation area, will be affected in one
way or another, some getting more than :
their share, of the money, and others
less. than they ought to have, on the
basis of the merit Of the various !;
projects. 8 4, -.I =
A high official of the interior de- :
partment, who is thoroly familiar with
irrigation matters, said today: q,
II hone that Senator Hale's propos-
ition. will not be adopted, because it
would result in. putting the reclama- 3
which we have been fighting against
ever since the service was inaugurated. :
| Up to this time every bit of the work
inaugurated has been started on it's
| merits, the apportionments made only
after the most careful consideration,
and every branch of the service con-
| ducted' without a hint of graft. The
employees have been appointed after
| examination thru the civil service COM
MISSION and we have been able to keep
some of @our good men thru raises in
salary Private enterprises have been
started all over the country where com
! petent engineers have been needed, and
if we hadn't had the fexibility posi-
! bic thru the present administration of
the service, we wouldn It have been able
to keep some of our best men, because
we would have been oyerbid by the
outsiders.
Means Discrimination.
| "Another thing the Hale amend.
ment will bring about will be discrimi-
nations in the allotments The reclaim
alton appropriations will be subject to
the same influences that now control
river and harbor and public building
appropriations and some projects will
be found to suffer, and possibly aban-
doned, thru lack of appropriation. I
do not believe it wise to place the
service on a. fixed basis as yet, because
there is no standard for the determi-
nation Of the salaries TO be paid We
have passed thru two stages in the adj
ministration of this new. law-one of
investigation and another of construc-
ton. There is yet to come the stage
OF operation, and there is no way sof
saying what that part of the work will
cost. 1t may cost more or less, and
congress should leave the service to
work out this problem before tying
the service down to hard and fast
standards.
*"There is another phase of the
question about which believe the SEN
! inf TIo4 =,
the secretary of the interior has al
ready allotted funds for various pro-
jects up to and beyond the amount
available. Knowing that most of the
projects approved could not be COM
pleted within two years. he has antici-
pated the receipts for the current year
and next year, period ending June
~, l9oS, and allotted funds for con-
structlon based on the estimated re-
ceipts up to that time. On the author
lty thus given, the reclamation service
has gone ahead and made contracts call
ing for the expenditure of the entire
amount that will be in hand two wears
from now, and congress certainly must
recognize these contracts.
'sThe contractors themselves have
gone on in, good faith, and they have
equities which congress must respect in
any legislation it enacts.
sit will be seen FROM what I have
said, therefore, that the adoption Of
the Hale amendment would revolution
ize the service, and the revolution
would be backward instead Of for
ward step in the administration of the
reclamation act. 1t would take away
the necessary elasticity~of the present
system, and would give the poll
tlclans a chance to control the SER
vice, something which some of them
years. f hope congress won't tie us
down in this way.N