The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1910-06-15

WASHINGTON. June 11.-TWenty-
two years ago young man, a min
| ing engineer, fresh from college, was
tramp.ng up and down the streams of
Arizona and New Mexico. studying
the flowing water and the barren
country adjoining.
1t was a life of hardship, but the
lads enthusiasm discounted personal
| discomforts. Often he slept beneath
| the stars, wrapped in his blanket The
| country was full of wild beasts and
wilder men, but he did not fear them.
| He kept steadily to his work. trav-
cling alone great distances through a
lonely land. studying the streams.
Sometimes he had to live on insult
ticient food, but he accepted the
hardship philosophically and worked
and worked.
Why?
Because in his wanderngs he had
glimpsed a mighty vision. He saw
the descrt-'the great American
desert as the old Biographies named
the territory-blossomin with Vine
yards and orchards, the home of thou
sands and millions of prosperous, con-
tented people.
1t was only necessary to lift the
water from the rivers to the hot sands
and the miracle would be worked.
So he studied the streams.
For % years this young man kept
that vision before his eyes-and
worked. And he rose in the govern
ment service Che was Il government
employee first to be full fledged en-
OH tban bIlroUranopr tbpp n no
chief engineer of the geological sur
was established, chief engineer of the
reclamation service, and finally. in
1901 he was made director of the SER
vice by Roosevelt.
The Story of Newell.
That is the story of Frederick
Haynes Newell.
Now his dream has been realized.
There had been nothing but ridicule
for the young dreamer and other
dreamers like him. at first. Con-
gressmen TESTED at the river mcasur
ing and laughed at it as Il device for
extracting money from the government
treasury. Cowboys thought it good
sport to shoot the river gauges full of
holes.
The dreamer endured the laugh
ter and kept up the agitation. Finally
congress appropriated the money for
reclamation, and now the desert, a
desert no longer. is blossomng and
bearing great crops of fruit and grain
1t has provided homes for prosperous
thousands, and viii provide homes for
| millions more as the reclamation
work progresses.
This year the reclamation farmers
are making their first water pay
ments to the government. That is
the contract. The farmers who live
on the projects must pay for them i'm
ten annual installments. The service
is about to become self-supporting
for the money paid in by the farmers
will be applied to future projects
And This His Reward.
The prize for % years of labor
the satisfaction of seeing his dream
given a practical realization to the i'm
mense benefit of the whole country
is just before NewelPs eyes. But
it is about to be snatched away. He
is to be supplanted by army engineers
according to an official announcement
from Taft--hc is to be fired, in plain
English.
Why?
Because he is SNAKE" to use a
popular Washington expression. He
dared to testify against the Morgan
Guggenheim power trust protege, Bal
inger He isn't a politician, so he Of
tends the eyes of Postmaster General
Hitchcock. This quiet-mannered.
oh n
his work, AZ years old, at the height
of his public usefulness, is to be fired
because he is obnoxious to the bunch
who have wormed their way into the
seats of power.
The whole thing is breaking his
heart. Men of the wlsr-
Hammond type cannot understand
why. They know Newell time and
again has been offered twice. triple
and quadruple the salary paid him by
the people to go over to private cor
poratiOns. But he has steadfastly re-
fused to go. That any man can
place an ideal of service above sal
airy is quite beyond the Ballinger-
Hitchcock Morgan ken. And so they
feel they are doing him no wrong
by firing him.
Irrigation is as old as civilization"
said Newell in an interview. 1.-THE
first irrigation was in Babylon and
the east The garden of Eden must
have been irrigated ether naturally
or by artifce Cultivation seemed to
grow as men irrigated and practiced
intensive farming. The East-Egypt
and Syria-were admirably adapted
to it.
Irrigation and Civilization.
"Our German ancestors were wild
folk until they conquered the irrigat-
ing peoples of the south and learned
agriculture from them. Irrigation
has always meant civilization. the
most civilized Indians were those liv-
ing in the pueblos of the southwest.
They were primitive irrigationists.
The rds-irrigationsts at home
brought irrigation into Mexico and car
ried it up into Texas, Arizona and
California. In some of our South
western projects we are using bitches
century old and more. The Nor
mons irrigated almost as soon as they
got to Utah. The Greeley settlement
in Colorado also practiced irrigation.
"And so there was irrigation in the
west from the start, but t was print
tive in type and unreliable. The
United States was the first government
on earth to go into the work on a
grand scale. When the agitation for
irrigation began there was great dis
pute whether the individual states or
the government should take charge
and build the projects. Public oDin-
ion fluctuated from one to the other,
but finally the magnitude of the work