Yerington times. [volume] (Yerington, Nev.) 1907-1932, 1908-10-31
Continued From Page three)

The reclamation act, passed in
1902, provides that the receipts from
the sales of public lands in Is States
and three Territories shall be set
aside in a reclamation fund for use
in the reclamation of arid lands.
Each project is self-compensatory by
the sale of water rights to settlers
to be paid for in 10 annual Install
ments. This fund is constantly re-
plenished and used over again.
The Reclamation Service has dug
1915 miles of canal Some of these
canals carry whole rivers, like the
Truckee in Nevada and the North
Platte in Wyoming. 1t has construct
ed Sc tunnels; has erected 215 large
structures, including the great dams
in Nevada and the Minnedoka dam in
Idaho, 80 feet high and $50 feet long;
has completed $40 headworks, fumes
ETC.; has built Gil miles of wagon
road in mountainous country; has
erected and in operations $50 miles
of telephone, and has manufactured
1000 barrels of cement Today the
service owns and has at work 1900
horses and mules. 1t operates nine
locomotives, Gil cars, 23 miles of rail
way, "a gasoline engines, and 70
steam engines. 1t has constructed
and is operating five eiectric-lights
plants. 1t has excavated over 3d.
100000 cubic yards of earth and near
ly 100000 cubic yards of rock. Its
employees in the classified and regis
tered service including the Washing
ton force, number 1926 The labor
ers employed directly by the govern
ment number 444S. The laborers
employed by contractors num5e" ov-
CT 10000. The expenditures now
total nearly 100000 per month As
result of the operation of the Rec
lamation Service, eight new towns
have been established, 100 miles of
branch railroads have been construct
ed, and $4,000 people have already
taken up their residence in the des-
ert
SOCIAL BENEFITS OF IRRIeA-
TON.
(From an Article by Senator New
lands in the Pacific Monthly for Sep
TENDER, 1906, entitled National Irri-
CATION as a Social Problem'0.
The passage of the Reclamation
Act marks the commencement of an
important epoch in American legisla.
ton. The national government, I'M
der this act, for the first time went
into business business in which
al the people were stockholders, and
of which all the people were to be
the beneficiaries. Prior to that time
whenever government participation
in business was suggested it took
the form of government subsidy to
great corporations about to enter up
on Enterprises of magnitude that
were supposed to be for the public
good. Steamship lines were subsidiz-
ed, the bonds of railroad corpora
lions guaranteed, and large grants
of public lands were made to them.
Taxes were imposed upon imported
goods in order to enable the manu-
facturers of domestic goods to re-
ceive a larger price. In all this leg
islation capital was made the bene-
ficiary, upon the assumption that aid
given to capital would eventually filte
down to the masses of the people.
AN ACT DIRECTED AGAINST PRI-
VATE MONOPOLY.
The Reclamation Act was great
piece of social and business legis-
lation which disregarded entirely the
Intervention of private capital, and
utilized the public property and the
public money for business under
taking intended to be of the widest
application and benefit. The great
public domain with its vast regions
of hidden and exposed wealth
wealth of iron, of coal, of timber, and
of soil-had been largely disposed
of, part of it wisely under home
stead laws dividing the cultivable
lands into small holdings and promot-
ing the creation of individual homes;
part of it unwisely, permitting the
aggregation of vast areas of irrigabie
desert lands, of timber land, coal
lands of great monopolies.
After long struggle it was deter
mined, so far as the arid lands-ap-
parently the most worthless OF all
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