Gunnison news-champion., 1908-12-11


much had lsni saIe- tsen chec&ed
| Esery fsz,: o! land no~ under ira
CATION ia Colorado ws. put there Lv
the ea'erPri.s @! her citIzeaa We
~oule like u Ash the News II IT y.
not Tact that even in fst.re wears
when their much priced High Lane
PROJECT is co,sple,ed. tina, the Gr.nd
Valley viii have from twice to three
times as much land reclaimed by
private enterprise ~ ty govesnmeut
favor.
Now we do not decrv or oppose
those reclamation projects at all
Rather we have ALWAYS favored them
from the time the idea was origin
stei by Senator New lands Of Nevada
There were in the nature Of the case
some enterprises that needed govern
ment backing The question at
issue - SOLELY whether this back ing
should come from the national or
state government.
la this connection note the Carey
Act reclamations Here are maSnrf-
cent enterprises agcregating a mil-
hon acres in Wyoming. two million
ia Idaho. and in other states more
or less Colorado has only a small
one in Iontt county Here we
have private capital undertaking
the projects, but with state
supervision A sort II state
guarantee as it were So uniform
ily successful have they been. 50
expeditions the work aud 81 agree
able the contracts with settlers for
water that it would seem a strong
argument in favor IL the feasibility
of still further state rather than ma.
tIonal management II each state
handled it's own projects the citizens
of the San Luis valley would not
be estopped from building reservoirs
and constructing bitches at cost Of
. million dollars 10 irrigats 250.0OO
acres oi Colorado land 20 that. Ms
Frank Goudv states, the reclamation
service could use several millions Ut
the Eagle dam in New Mexico ~ ir-
rigate 100000 acres The personnel
OF the reclamation service seems To
he of high degree both from the
stand point of honesty and engineer
ing ability, but that does not cause
us to overlook its theory promulgat-
cd b, clerks at Washington. that
the national government owns all
the four hundred million dollars
worth of unappropriated water in
Colorado, nor its rndimentarv ideas
ON water conservation in the Rockies
But another argument is made.
We are told that state government is
too corrupt, too full OF graft Says
the Press; 80 my, how the gralters
would graft and the polititions
would get in their politics" "
A serious charge if true, We
know that certain officials at Wash
in9ton have been during four years
accusing every homesteader and
miner aud settler in the west Of be-
ing a thief, liar and the like. but
had paid little attention to it. They
protested so much that most Of us
suspected it was an attempt to cover
graft of their own No one could
possibly be half so pure and virtu-
Gus as they pretended to be. We
take 1t however that our contempo-
raries did not intend to slander
Colorado people and officials bat
have been over convinced bv the
clamor Of these self righteous social
lists, these exponents of national con-
troll of everything
There is whole lot of petty
graft around every state house, but
no more You may he sure than
around the national capital Wit
ness the Credit Nobilier. the Pana-
ma canal scandal, the condensed bee [
of our Spanish war. the Indian
frauds, the tariff grabs, the Union
Pacific horror, the Morgan Cleveland
bond deals, etc. etc Have we mis-
read that history which teaches that
bureaucracy tends to induce the
worst Of gratis? We do not believe
for a minute that. in the average.
government by carpet baggers is GO
ing to be my less free from these
evils than government by our own
Colorado officials. Is Texss, which
has thrived from the ownership in
fee simple of its public lands, any
lower in the scale than other states?
, Suppose in addition that. as before
! suggested, we grant the states direct
primary laws, the initiative and ref
endum and the recall. three checks
, we do not have on the national gov
ernment. This point was overlook
, ed
, 1t seems to us that on ANALYSIS