The enterprise. [volume] (Harlem, Mont.) 1899-1926, 1912-03-21

Tor pumping water. found eight
men actually employed in the tun
mel and seventeen men employed as
engineer, timekeepefs. etc. Wher
the tunnel is completed the work OF
building the power plant will only
have been started. They are going
to lift water about 200 feet, and the
power generated will probably be
, sufficient to wet the bottom of the
reservoir with y year of pumping.
When the reclamation act was first
passed we had visions of fine farms
and school houses and good roads
and automobiles, but government
red tape, incompetency, and extrav
agance is not only taking the au-
tomobiles of our dreams, but it is
taking the settlers home and his
horse and even his dog.
| In presenting these facts, for they
are facts, have no desire to work
injury to any person or to criticise
any individual, for we blame the
system rather than the individual.
Our hope is that you will help us to
secure legislation that will make
such conditions impossible on any
project,
| We want q law requiring that each
water users' association be fur
nished with an itemized list of ex-
penditures Oh the project, either
monthly ~. quarterly. Publicity.
we believe, will correct most of the
evils of administration. We want a
law limiting the amount that set
tier may be required te pay on con-
struction cost to $3.50 per acre each
year. If the cost of the project is
$25.00 per acre, it would be paid in
ten years; if the cost is higher, we
want the payments extended oyer a
greater period of time.
Montana is a state of wonderful
resources and great possibilities, and
government irrigation is destined to
play an important part in the future
Of our commonwealth.
UP AGAINST 1T, ALSO
The following, taken from the kal :
ispell Bee, indicates that others be-
sides the settlers in the Milk River
vallay, are waiting for "the ditch to
come thru"
In another column is printed a let
ter from \ settler on the Little Bitter
Rootin this county. As disclosed in
the letter there are about $50 settlers
in that section dependent upon the
completion of the government irri-
CATION project that has not yet been
started. They are dependent upon
the project because each settler was
only allowed to take 40 acres of land
as homestead, which is not enough
to support family where the land is
not irrigated, and even with irriga-
tion 40 acres is not enough where the
land is thirty miles or more from a
railroad as it ia in this instance.
The settlers of the Little Bitter
Root are facing a difficult situation.
They filed on the lands in the belief
that the water would be put on the
land within a reasonable length of
time. but after two years of waiting
they are just beginning to find out
what it means to wait for govern
ment irrigation. According to tn he
experience of settlers on other pro-
jects the people of Little Bitter Root
have many years Of waiting ahead of
them, and when government irriga
ton is finally secured the cost will be
so high that the burden of debt will
be we'll nigh overwhelming. Fifty
per cent or more of the money ex-
pended goes for so called administr ra-
tion and engineering, and all of the
expenditures are made upon scale of
reckless extravaganza. On the Flat
head project, according to the set
tiers letter, about a million dollars
will have been expended by June /,
which will exhaust the funds on hand
and work on the project is only we'll
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