Arizona republican., 1910-01-05
For a Square Deal in the Gila Canyon
 Controversy.

Intimations have been heard that the secretary of the interior may de- eide that the surest method of doing justice to all parties in the matter of the Gila Canyon controversy would be to appoint a commission of govern ment engineers to look into matters on the ground and report to him their conclusions.
 It seems to us that this would be an excellent solution of the difficulty.
 As matters stand, there are pending before the secretary two applications for right of way in the canyon-one application being on behalf of the Arizona Eastern railway, and the other application being on behalf of parties who want the canyon for a dam and reservoir site.
 To grant the application of the rail- way company would prevent the con- struction of the proposed dam.
 To grant the application of the reservoir people would prevent the construction of the railway on the line projected.
 The reservoir people insist that the construction of their dam would not necessarily prevent the construction of the railway-that it would require, merely, that the railway company take a line some 150 feet higher through the canyon. They claim that by talk ing this high line" the railway com pany would obtain an easy gradient as good, in fact, as the Tow line" pro- posed, and that the increased cost of the high line" would not exceed $2OO,OOO.
 The railway company insists that this estimate of added cost is absurd; that there are no data to justify such an estimate; that the high line" would present numerous curves and other engineering objections; that the increased cost would be prohibitive. and that if right of way cannot be obtained for the Tow line" the road will not be built at all
 Officials of the reclamation service have said that they do not consider the reservoir project an inviting one; that the government declined to in- clude this among it's projects on ac- count of sundry physical objections.
 On the other hand, MT Quinten, a consulting engineer of the reclama- ton service. has been employed by the reservoir people, and is understood to approve the project from an engineer ing standpoint.
 These opposing views have been presented to the Phoenix board of trade, a committee of which has been . l,a one piece of transformation has been furnished to this committee. The reservoir people, at the hearing few days ago, gave the board to under stand-the allegation being made in good faith, we have no doubt-that the Santa Fe interests, which con- structed the Phoenix & Eastern, orig inally contemplated extending that line through the Gila canyon on the high line" and actually made sur vey of that line, and found it prac- ticable and Attractive.
 It has since developed that the Santa Fe contemplated taking the low line" as does its successor in the project, the Arizona Eastern, which is subsidiary company of the South ern Pacific-and that there was mo survey of the high line" by the Santa Fe interests.
 It appears. therefore, that there ex- ist no reliable data-if, indeed, there be data of any sort-as to whether it would be practicable to construct a railway on the high line"
 To be sure, the reservoir people, in their conference with the board of trade committee, purported to be well advised as to the feasibility and cost of the suggested high line" but it