Arizona republican., 1910-07-26
TEMPE DEPARTMEMT

Wilbur and others and dated the 14th of July, 1910, now therefore be 1t resolved by the shareholders of the Tempe Irrigating Canal company in meeting duly called, assembled and held, that said company sell and by proper deed or deeds or other assur- ances convey it's said property to the United States of America for the price and upon the terms and for the use and purposes set forth in said letter and that committee of three shareholders be appointed to negotiate d formal agreement with the government officials to effect as soon as can be done the purposes of this resolution
 In moving the adoption of the res oultiOn MT Clark spoke at some length He said that d great deal of time had been spent in an effort to settle this matter and he believed that the time had arrived when the entire proposition should be decided yes or no. once for all His purpose in presenting the resolution and moving it's adoption was to have a vote talk en which would in a measure reveal the sentiment of the shareholders.
 The resolution and the accompany ing motion was all that was required to start the ball rolling. An hour or so was then devoted to a discus sion of the situation, pro and con Among the speakers on both sides were Walter Wilbur, Dr. Wilbur, Judge Armstrong, Mir. Clark, James Goodwin. F S Baldwin, T. E Pollock of Flagstaff, w. J. Kingsbury, C. T. Hirst, J R. Birchett, Niels Peterson and others It would be quite inn possible to print a half of what was said by these gentlemen.
 Mir. Wilbur could see no hope of ever getting the system into the res ervoir in a body and that opinion is shared by a large percentage of the shareholders. Mir. ArmsttOng was called upon for his views on the sub feet He spoke at some length ana made it very evident that he meant exactly what he said. His ranch IS probably more favOrably situated with reference to the Tempe canal than any other. MT Armstrong ap- preciates that fact but says that al though he has been paying he pre- sumed about 40 cents per acre Tor ms irrigating water. he is willing to sell to the government and pay $1-S0 for two reasons. The first, that he be- ieves the move will be to the best interests of the entire Tempe com munity. rather selfish motive ne admitted. for he said that every dol lar he expended in that manner, he expected to realize handsomely on The other reason is that he believes from his actual observations that the land thus under government water supply will greatly increase in value and that more and better crops can be grown He fears that many will leave the Tempe canal system exact lv as some have already done, thus making the expense of maintaining the canal by those left in it heavier than the charge of $l.80 per acre
 T. F.. Pollock of Flagstaff. repre- senting company which owns three quarters of a section of land within three miles of Tempe was the next speaker Mir Pollock felt exactly as did Mir Armstrong that the longer the Tempe canal stayed out of the reservoir. the worse off it would be.
 w j. Kingsbury made strong talk in favor of selling to the govern ment and signing up. He is interest ed in 2I00 acres of Tempe land and five shares of water. According to Mir Kingsbury, the day is coming when a Tempe canal share will not be worth anything and the price has now fallen from sS0O0 to what the government offered, about $1200. He predicts that the government will parallel every canal necessary to sup ply water to those who do sign up He made a trip into the country south of town Sunday for the express purpose of looking into the matter little and found that already new ditches had been built and that prep arations had been made to dig more wherever they are required. He spoke longer than any one else on the sub ject and concluded in this wise: Il
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