Arizona republican., 1911-01-24
The Army and the Reclamation
 Service

It is understood at Washington that the bill now pending in con- gress which proposes to add sixty officers to the engineer corps of the army is designed to supplant the service with engineers from the army. Senator Bailey of Texas has stated his purpose to vigorously oppose the bill. Whether his objection is be- cause of a desire to protect the en- gineers of the reclamation service from being busted by army engineers, motive may be, the Texas senator's attitude will be approved by the peo- pie of the west who are familiar with the work which has been ac- cOmplished by the reclamation en- gineers And western people are not alone in their appreciation of the splendid achievements of the recla-
 nation service The Providence Journal. which speaks for a large section of New England. in discuss ing the bill mentioned pays high and deserved tribute to the engineers of the reclamation service That paper speaks with a pretty good knowledge of the facts, in the fol- lowing comments:
 Their works speak for them in hundreds of thousands of fertile acres where. before their coming. life was impossible; in magnificent in- stallations for harnessing and benefi- gently distributing waters from time immemorial vagrant or running fur iOusly to waste. In the land of the Cliff Dwellers they have made a gar den out of the desolate plain sur rounding Phoenix, Arizona. Here is the Roosevelt dam, the greatest in the world at the time it was begun Here is a broad and gentle roadway forty miles long, blasted out of the solid rock through the canon and over the mountain spurs, to the gorge of Salt River, the source of the irrigating supply. The city of Roosevelt with it's schools, churches and theatres. NItdNtu dbDNt AIt Ndiil Slle lDI lIlt host of workers on the project. has now disappeared. In its place lies the largest artificial lake in the world cement plant. to make the two hundred and fifty thousand barrels of material required. and a dam for water power were among the tenn porary industries incidental to the main work.
 nGfn inc itx-s nf fha Salt River project has given it spe- have called for high courage and engineering talent to demonstrate which has been the pride of the civil engineers. While solving problems strange or colossal. or both. physical hardships have been endured. even life hazarded. Preliminary surveys have sometimes been feats equivalent to those renowned in the annals of explo- ration. Since the work so prosecut- ed under Director Frederick H. Ne well and Chief Engineer Arthur P. Davis has won the highest encomium there is no sound reason for a change of administration
 Our Providence contemporary would have been still more just if it had mentioned Supervising En- gineer Louis C. Hill of Phoenix. with Engineers Newell and Davis in it's bestowal of credit. MT. Hill. in the judgment of the people who have had occasion to observe his achieve ments in management and construc- tion. has made a record in the recla- l nation service which is deserving of | quite as much praise as that earned | by the army engineers at Panama.
 There is no danger that the recla- | nation work would suffer by its | transfer to the engineers of the army, | for they are unquestionably com petent The brilliant record made | on the canal by army engineers af- | ter engineers from civil life had quit | with cold feet. forbids d sugges- ton that the reclamation projects | would be in any danger in their | hands. But it is only simple justice to the reclamation engineers to say that there is no reason to believe that | better service would be furnished by the engineers of the army.