Arizona republican., 1913-02-26
|NACCURACY
 0F A REPORT
AIr. Bartlett, of Bartlett Company, Replies to the Statement By House Com mittee on Expenditures ill Interior Department

A recent issue of the Chicago Tribune, contained synopsis prepared by it's Washington correspondent. of the report of the house committee on the expenses of the interior depart ment, including certain statements which unfairly reflected upon the Bartlett Heard Land and Cattle com panY.
 Believing that the Tribune would not Intentionally be a party to an injustice of this nature Mir. A. C. Bartlett promptly wrote them a let ter in this connection. which with commendable fairness they published last Monday. and as the matter is of local interest we publish Mir Bartlett's letter in full.
 February 19. 1913. Editor. Chicago Tribune
 Chicago, Illinois
 My Dear Sir:
 Having recently read the story in the Chicago Tribune by it's Washing ton staff correspondent relative to the report of the house committee on expenditures in the interior de- partment, l make d verbatim extract
 
 garding the company in which | am interested. as follows. The Bartlett Heard Land and Cattle company. a Chicago concern. had old water rights in the Gla valley and Dwight B. Heard refuesd to become party to the irrigation project. which he characterized as speculative un- loading proposition. but when Heard saw Chandler make one million five hundred thousand dollars out of the enterprise he succumbed to the temptation" says the report. and got contract with the government as favorable as Chandlcr's."
 Answering all these allegations seriatim, the Bartlctt-Heard Land and Cattle company is not a Chicago concern but an Arizona organization; it never owned any land or water rights either old or new, in the Gila valley; Dwight E. Heard all ways favored the irrigation or reservoir project and worked stead fastly for it's accomplishment An attempt was made to introduce cer- tain features into the articles of association which he felt would favor a speculative unloading proposition and he so frankly stated. MT Heard was one of the original water storage commissioners who made the pre- liminary investigations leading to the construction of the Roosevelt reser- voir, and his enthusiastic support of the reservoir project and it's various developments. has never ceased He has always been active in his efforts to keep the control of the association in the hands of farmers rather than of spectators
 The Bartlett-Heard company has, during it's existence, made but one contract with the federal government and that was in it's sale of the San Francisco canal to the government The company owned that canal (which has been in operation since 1S7D with valuable established rights in the flow of the Salt river. which rights had been adjudicated and con firmed in the courts for the former owner nearly ten years before it was purchased by this company. The sale was made for S12, $40, which was the sum the government engineers estimated the sixteen miles of canals and branches would cost to construct No charge was made for the land through which the canal passed. The benefit derived by the company be- yond the receipt of the above named sum of money, was the right which buyers of small tracts would acquire to purchase water from the Roosevelt reservoir and the agreement on the part of the government to furnish the Bartlett Heard company, at the same price that all tohcr water users are charged. the natural flow to which the unsOld lands are entitled until the opening of the project by the government These lands are all in cultivation and the majority of them have been since 1878.
 No individual or company owning more than one hundred and sixty acres of land can have it served with water from Roosevelt reservoir. While the Bartlett Heard ranch was farmed in a body the old water rights answered the purpose, but in the intensive farming of the small tracts the reservoir service will be advantageous.
 If the Tribune correspondent is accurate and the balance of the com mittee's report is as nearly correct as that part above quoted. the report as whole will prove a valuable ac- uuisition to the governments in formation.
 In a word. the land with water rights. of the Bartlett-Heard com pany was originally purchased from an estate in the open market. It was as clean a transaction as was ever made, and no one in the Salt River valley will point you to any thing but fair, open. publics spirited, rather than selfish dealing, on the part of the owners since the property was acquired.