Arizona republican., 1911-12-09
Masterly Address Delivered by Local Capitalist at National Irrigation Con gress at Chicago Tester day.
TELLS STORY
 OF RECLAMATION
MT. Heard Gives Interesting Facts Relative to Con struction of Reservoir and it's Effect on This Valley.

CHICAGO. Dec. S.-In an address before the National Irrigation con gress here today by Clifford Pinchot he ignored an attack made upon his conservation doctrines. The attack was made by Albert E. Bartlett of Cheyenne. WyO-. who. anticipating the speech of Pinchot. declared the lat ter's conception of irrigation prob lens was narrow. The government theory which Pinchot defended was assailed by Bartlett. who declared it wholly inadequate. PinchOt com mented briefly on the trust situation, and also on Alaska and the conserva- ton problems there. Willard E. Holt of New Mexico presented d paper at the afternoon session on Under ground Waters in New Mexico" Fol- lowing him, Dwight B. Heard ad- dressed the congress on the Roose- welt dam and the problems it solved. Nels Nelson. special commissioner to the United States and Canada, told of his mission here. He said he was dispatched by his government to this congress to obtain information for the redemption of arid lands in New South Wales.
 Dwight E. Heard of Phoenix, AriZ.. ir an address upon the subject of The Roosevelt Dam,' delivered be- fore the Nineteenth National Irri- gation congress here today. declared that settlers in the Salt River val ley needed more time than the ten years granted by the national recla- nation act in which to pay the gov ernment their land assessments.
 Since the reservoir water was as sured." said Mir Heard, tens of thousands of acres of desert land have been cleared, thousands of miles of fencing have been made aud hundreds of new homes dot the Nai!ey.
 with this development of the home making movement, other com munity development such as schools, better roads, more churches and gen eral improvements. became necessary.
 These all mean demands upon the settler for expenditures, involving first his duty to his family for it's support, second his expense in home building. clearing his iand and bring ing it into cultivation, and third his share of the necessary community improvements.
 Tn view of all these expenditures by the settler, it is very evident that a longer period of time than the ten years specified in the national reclamation act, should be given this and all other reclamation districts to pay back to the government the money which has been so wisely ad- vanced to assist the development of these western communities and which has resulted in the creating of tens of thousands of new homes. of in- ostimahle value to the nation.
 The people of the arid west want tc pay back honorably to the gov- ernment every dollar which has been expended for their benefit. they have not the slightest desire to even sug- gest repudiation of this debt. but they do ask. and with justice, that in view Of the necessary expenses Of home making. land improvement and community development, the term of these payments be reasonably ex- tended
 To give you some idea of these fixed, improved conditions which have been created, I want to call your attention to the fact that when we commenced to build the Roosevelt 1 Dam the assessed valuation of our county was but $10,237,795, while its ! present assessed valuation is S2l.- S47,000, an increase Of more than no ] per cent. When we began to build | the dam the population of the city of | Phoenix was eight thousand Today | the population is nearly twenty | thousand"