The Bourbon news. [volume] (Paris, Ky.) 1895-19??, 1914-02-17
RECLAMATION PROJECT
South Overlooked in Appropriation
for This Work.

reclamation work continues while the
far West is getting more and more
government aid and consideration.
The national government has ex-
pended approximately $75,000,O00 on
the reclamation of little over 3,000,-
900 acres of land in the far West.
1t has spent nothing for the reclama-
tion of the 100000 acres of swamp
and overlooked lands of the country,
the most of which are in the Southern
and Central States.
| Secretary Lane, of the Interior De-
partment, which has the irrigation
work in charge, favors an appropria-
ton of $100,000,000 for additional work
but has said nothing in favor Of pub
| lie appropriations to aid in work Of
flood protection and the reclamation
of the swamp and overfowed lands of
] sections in the South.
[ With a Southern man in the Pres
ident's chair, Southern man as
Speaker of the House, and both
Houses Southern in politics and the
control in the hands of Southern men,
it seems crime that nothing is be-
ing done for land reclamation in the
South and Central west
The situation is oil the more pa
thetic when it is recalled that the re-
clamation Of the sw amp and ovefiow
| lands and their protection from floods
means much more to the whole United
States than the retaining of few
million acres from the desert. 1t
means many hundred million dollars
in annual crops, the saving of more
than hundred million dollars year
in flood losses, the prevention of many
deaths in floods and of many more
needless deaths and inestimable suff-
ering due to malaria and other dis
eases caused by the existence Of
swamps.
There is pending in Congress a
measure that would do for the South
and Central West all that the Re
clamation or Irrigation Act has done
for the arid West 1t is the bill (H.
tR. 1889; Senate 1850 presented n
the House by Speaker Clark and in
the Senate by Senator John Sharp
Williams, of Mississippi. This is
known as the ClarK-Williams food
protection and drainage bill and is
supported by the National Drainage
Congress, whose mex: annual meeting
is to be held at Savannah, Ga, April
22-25, 1914.
The Clark William bill is not in con-
flict with either the Newlands River
Regulation of the Ransdell-Hum-
phreys Levee bills. It makes imme-
diately available about S30,000,000 for
flood protection and drainage work,
placing the expenditure of this sum
in the Department OF the Interior. 1t
is, in reality, an extension of the
Arid Land Irrigation Act to included
flood protection and drainage in the
South and Central West and to put
all Of the country on an equal footing.
The Clark-Williams bill provides
that the Secretary of the Interior shall
make surveys and plans for flood pro-
lection and drainage projects; that he
: may undertake the construction of
the work with the consent of the land
owners and States, the cost to be re-
paid by tax upon the lands, assess
ed and collected by the State authori
ties; or he may turn the plans over to
the owners or States for them to car
ry into effect. 1t provides that the
Secretary of the Interior may pur-
, chase the drainage bonds issued by
. the State or drainage district, at par
to supply the needed funds. 1t pro-
vides for cooperation between two or
more States in the construction OF
interstate drainage of flood protection
projects. 1t provides for cooperation
between the Departments of War and
the Interior when the question OF
navigation is involv~6.
In fact, the Clark-Williams bill will
provide for the systematic, compre-
hensive and speedy reclamation OF
swamp and overflowed lands and their
protection from disastrous floods.
But this will not be done until our
Southern Senators are Representa-
tives awake to a realization of our
interests and give their support to
Speaker Clark and Senator Williams
in procuring this or some similar bill.
The United States Reclamation
Service has established every pre-
cedent needed. Although the general
opinion is that the arid lands re-
claimed by this service have been
government owned lands this is not
entirely true. OF the more than g.
600, 900 acres so irrigated only about
one third are government lands, the
remainder being the property Of in
dividuals, corporations, Indians,
States and even railroads. In fact in
some projects where millions have
been spent every acre is private land,
the government advancing the money
for the work and then doing it.
Bonds to the extent of $20,000,000
and bearing three per cent. interest
have been issued by the United States
to provide additional funds for con-
tinuing these irrigation projects, and
still more appropriations for the same
purpose are being asked for.
Besides this the Interior Depart
ment has contracted with the Pacific
coast States, Oregon. Washington and
California, to undertake additional ir-
rigation projects, the States and the
government each to bear one half the
expense. Secretary Lane has agreed
to set aside $4,0O0,O00 from the recla-
nation fund to cooperate with the
State Of Oregon in the construction of
nation fund to cooperate with the
State to appropriate a similar amount.
The only reason WY the South is
not receiving similar aid in the re-
clamatiOn of IFS l0wlandS is because