Los Angeles herald., 1907-06-09
EVERYBODY MUST VOTE

The battle for Owens river is about
over. All that remains to be done on
the part of advocates of this great wa
ter system for Los Angeles is to turn
out and vote Wednesday, and to get
their neighbors and friends to do the
same. 1t is practically certain that the
election will carry, but at this crisis
in the city's history it is especially
desirable that the affirmative majority
may be the greatest ever given in a
similar cause. Fewer than 400 oppon-
ents of the original Owens river bond
issue were found; it is hoped that
neither forty nor even four may be
found this time.
All active opposition to the bond issue
has faded away. Efforts by the inter-
ested power companies to establish
headquarters utterly failed. The organ
of this corporate influence has made a
| slanderous fight, but very weak one,
defeated by it's own evident lack of
sincerity. The issue stands forth with
a strength unconquerable, and only the
size of the majority is NOW to be con-
! sideTed.
And it should win; nothing projected
by any city has been of greater i'm
portance or carried with it a greater
boon. Los Angeles has almost reached
the limit of its growth with it's present
water supply. Every effort to increase
that supply has only demonstrated it's
impossibility of further exploitation.
The waters south of the Tehachapi are
not available in greater quantities than
are now utilized. The owens river
affords the only adequate and sure re-
sort.
OF course Los Angeles cannot stop
| at its present limits. This were pre-
posterous to suppose. The same inf1u-
ences that started it on it's phenomenal
career and made it wonderful among
cities are at work now stronger than
ever to make it place of 100000 in
habitants by 1910 Only one element is
lacking to assure this-water. No
| country under the sun compares with
the California sou1land--if it but have
water. No city has the start, the OPEN
ing, the possibilities, that are Los An
geles' if it can only handle what ma
ture and man offer. Water in abund-
ance is the keynote of city-and Los
Angeles must have water. With plenty
of pure water the future of Los Ange-
les is assured, and will develop beyond
| the widest dreams.
But, also, Los Angeles must have a
surrounding country back of it to sup
ply its food, if it be tremendous city
Water is all that is needed to make
this certain. There are thousands of
acres of the finest land in the world at
Los Angeles door, which are now bar
rem and desolate because they lack
moisture. When water shall be turned
on these lands they will blossom like
the rose. All Southern California was
practically a desert till irrigation re-
deemed it; all California still left
desert can be made fruitful if it be
watered.
The Owens river conduit will bring
to the Los Angeles valley water enough
to convert its every acre into growing
garden of wealth. This means an in
fux of farmers by the thousand, for
here the soil-with plenty of water-is
so productive that the 100 acres which
an easterner thinks he must have for a
farm is quite sufficient for sixteen to
twenty small ranches which afford bet
ter livings than do the larger tracts in
the middle west. Think of approx
yoo+aI1y An nm oorac Iaraa houtS Divided
into 10-acre ranches-that means 1000
farmers, with their families, at the
city's very doors. Owens river will
make this an actuality-Owens river
alone can do it.
With this large additional suburban
farming population at hand, the food
for city of 100000 is brought about.
Thus food and drink and irrigation wa
ter are all covered in the one cost of the
conduit-which will be paid for in the
end out of it's own earnings, and the
power from the water will le an eter-
nal source of lavish income.
1t doesn't seem possible, all these
things considered, that a sane man
could vote against Owens river. 1t
doesn't seem possible that any argu-
ment against it could stand for a mo-
ment. The proposition is so self-evi-
dent that it is beyond argument or
cavil. 1t is, in word: Shall the city
lend it's credit to itself to secure an
adequate water supply and thus assure
itself of it's future growth and sub
urban support in every way? or shall
it refuse to credit itself, abandon its
plans, stop where it is, cease growing,
drop into the pueblo class, and eventu-
ally become has been," village.
drought-stricken desert?
1t is up to the voters. They must
say ''yes'' or no" And they will say
'yes"-if they all vote-with thunder
Gus unanimity.