The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-01-14
PRESIDENT IN MESSAGE RECOMMENDS 60 YEARS
 POWER SITE LEASES
Under Existing Land Laws Government Has Been De- frauded Out of Millions of Acres, He Declares s- Nine Foot Channel Favored for Ohio River and Improvement of Mississippi and Missouri

lease on a royalty basis, With4 prOv1- sions, requiring certain amount of development each year; and in order
 to prevent the use and cessiol of such lands with others of similar character so as to constitute a monopoly for bldden by law, the lease should con- tain suitable provision subjecting to forfeiture the interest of persons par participating in such monopoly. Such law should apply to Alaska as well
 as to the United States.
 There are valuable water-power sites through all the public land States. The opinion is he'd that the transfer of sovereignty from the Fed
 eral Government to the territorial gov
 garments as they become States. in cluded the water power in the rivers except so far as that owned by ripa-
 rian proprietors. It seems to me suf- f1cient to say that the man who owns and controls the land along the stream from which the power is to be con- verted and transmitted, owns land which is indispensable to the conver- sion and use of that power. I can not conceive how the power in streams | flowing through public lands can be made available at all except by using the land itself as the site for the con- struction of the plant by which the power is generated and converted and securing a right of way thereover for transmission lines. Under these con- ditiOns, if the Government owns the adjacent 1and-indeed, if the Govern
 ment is the riparian owner-it may control the use of the water power by imposing proper conditions on the dis position of the land necessary in the creation and utilization of the water power.
 'The development in electrical ap-
 pliances for the conversion of the wa ter power into electricity to be trans kn1 irfn ,n6 so far that it is no longer problema tical, but it is a certain inference that in the future the power of the water falling in the streams to a large extent will take the place of natural fuels. In the disposition of the do- main already granted, many water
 power sites have come under absolute ownership, and may drift into one ownership, so that all the water power
 under private ownership shall be monopoly. If, however, the water power sites now owned by the Gov them-shall be disposed of to private
 persons for the investment of their
 capital in such way as to pre- vent their union for purposes of mon- opoly with other water-power sites, and under conditions that shall limit the right of use to not exceeding 50
 years with proper means for determin-
 
 with some equitable provision for fix
 ing terms of renewal it would seem entirely possible to prevent the ab- sorption of these most useful lands
 by power monopoly As long as
 the Government retains control and can prevent their improper union with other plants, competition must be maintained and prices kept reasonable. ] 'But there are millions of acres of completely arid land in the public do- main which. by the establishment of reservoirs for the storing of water and the irrigation of the lands, may be
 made much more fruitful and produc- tive than the best lands in a climate where the moisture comes from the clouds. Congress recognized the im- portance of thiss method of artificial distribution of water on the arid lands by the passage of the reclamation act. The proceeds of the public lands cre ates the fund to build the works need 1 ed to store and furnish the necessary water, and it was left to the Secretary of the Interior to determine what pro- jects should be selected among those 1 suggested, and to direct the Reclama- 1 tion Service, with the funds at hand l and through the engineers in it's en- l ploy, to construct the works. It would appear that over 30 projects have been undertaken. and that a few of these are likely to be unsuccessful because | but generally the work which has been done has been well done. and many l important engineering problems have been met and solved.
 "One of the difficulties which has arisen is that too many projects in view of the available funds have been set on foot. The funds available un- ] der the reclamation statute are made quate to complete these projects with 1 in a reasonable time. And yet the projects have been begun: settlers l have been invited to take up and, in
 many instances. have taken up, the public land within the projects rely 1 ing upon their prompt completion.
 The failure to complete the projects | for their benefit is. in effect, a breach 1 of faith and leaves them in a most dis l tresSed condition. I urge that the na- ton ought to afford the means to lift 1 them out of the very desperate condi- ton in which they now are. This
 condition does not indicate any excess sive waste or any corruption on the
 mart of the Reclamation Service. It only indicates an overzealous desire to extend the benefit of reclamation to as l many acres and as many States as
 possible recommend, therefore, that
 authority be given to issue not ex
 ceeding $50 900. 900 of bonds from time l to time. as the Secretary of the Inter- l for shall find it necessary. the pro- | CG6OS lO O0 dIfpi1GU to C16 COnlpiGIlOu of the projects already begun and their proper extension. and the bonds run | ming ten years or more to be taken up | by the proceeds of returns to the l reclamation fund, which returns. as
 the years go on, will increase rapidly in amount.
 'I am informed that the investiga- l ton by the waterways commission :n i Europe shows that the existence of a | waterway by no means assures traffic
 unless there is traffic adapted to water i carriaoe at cheap rates at one end or 1 the other of the stream. It also ap-
 pears in Europe that the depth of the
 non-tidal streams is rarely more than l 6 feet, and never more than 10. But 1 it is certain that enormous quantities of merchandise are transported over | the rivers and canals in Germany and
 France and England, and it is also cer- ] tain that the existence of such meth
 ods of traffic materially affects the
 rates which the railroads charge, and 1 it is the best regulator of those rates l that we have, not even excepting the I governmental regulation through the Interstate Commerce Commission. For 1 this reason. I hope that this Congress
 will take such steps that it may be
 called the inaugurator of the new sys- I tenn of inland waterways. 7