New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1908-09-02
PLAN MEETS OBJECTIONS.
Project of Minnesota River Inn
provement League Discussed
by St. Paul Attorney.
He Claims that Scheme is Wholly
Impractical, Indefensible and
Unjust.

in which he roundly denounces as un-
just and impractical the scheme Of the
Minnesota River Improvement League
to secure the enactment by the next
legislature of a law providing for the
taxation of certain lands drained by
county and other bitches to reimburse
the owners of other lands for losses
sustained by reason OF the rivers
overflow.
Mr.. Williams, while sympathizing
with the people in the lowlands of the
Minnesota valley and anxiously
desiring that some means be devised
to give them an adequate remedy for
their misfortune, offers the following
reasons why the plan of the MINES ota
River Improvement League is indefen-
sible and impractical:
"First-It assumes that the overflow
during the past few years was wholly,
or nearly SO, caused by the drainage;
while it is perfectly apparent to any
one who will study the situation that
this assumption is totally untenable.
Every one familiar with the history of
Minnesota river knows that these
same lands have been overlooked perl
odically from time immemorial and
before single ditch was constructed.
The past five or six years has been a
period of excessive and abnormal
rainfall. During the first two years
Of this period all swamps, sloughs and
depressions became filled to their full
capacity, SO that all the water which
fell during the last two Or three years
of the period Immediately overfowed
into the tributaries and thence into the
river itself. This excessive water
would have found it's way into the
river and caused the overflow and
damage had there been no increase at
all in the bitches.
Second-The question of whether
they were the sole cause of the over
flow and damage, or as to what pro-
portion of it they caused, is one that
can be determined only by competent
and disinterested engineers after care
full and comprehensive investig alton.
and by courts upon adequate and
proper hearing and evidence. It is
not one that can be determined by the
legislature, for it has not the proper
machinery for SO doing. Any. deter
mination it could make would be but
OF in
quate information and Influenced by
all kinds of improper considerations.
"Third-The common law doctrine,
Or rule, that surface water is a COM
mon enemy to be gotten rid of by any
and all means available, prevails in
this state and has long been settled
in the decisions Of our supreme court,
subject to the modification that the
means of getting rid of it shall be such
as will cause the least damage posi-
BILE to adjoining lands and to others.
'Fourth-What owners Of land can
do as individuals they can do coliec-
lively by means provided by law, such
as our county drainage law.
''Fifth-The Minnesota river and its
tributaries constitute the natural and
only means of drainage to vast re-
gion consisting of all the land the wa
tiers of which naturally drain into it.
The owners of all lands in that region
have the natural and legal right to
avail themselves OF that natural and
only means for the drainage of their
lands, just as they are and have been
doing.
"Sixth-All the bottom lands liable
TO damage by overflow constitute but a
small fraction of the lands in that re.
gion which may be benefited and re.
claimed by drainage. Even if it were
true that the overflow has been wholly
caused by the bitches, it is foolish and
preposterous to imagine that the great
er good OF the greater number must be
sacrificed to the good of the lesser in
terest; and especially is this true
where the greater good of the greater
number is coincident with the natura
and legal right of such greater number
"Seventh-It may be taken as pro
position too self-eyident to require
proof that the owners of these dam
aged bottom lands acquired and i'm
proved these lands with full motto,
and knowledge of the natural condi
tions and topography of the region il
question; to-wit, that the Minnesota
river and its tributaries is, always ha
been, and must continue to be, the ma
tural and only means of drainage o
lands in that region; and therefor
that lands IN the river bottoms so &C
quired and improved by them woul
necessarily be subservient to the in
herent, natural and legal right of tn
owners OF the higher lands to dral