Hot Springs weekly star. (Hot Springs, S.D.) 1892-1917, 1915-09-24
IRRIGATION LAWS -
NOT SATISFACTORY
WAS THE CONTENTION Of
MYRON 7. HERRICK
TOO HARD ON SETTLERS
PLANS MUST Be ADOPTED WHICH
PROVIDE FOR LONGER time IN
MAKING PAYMENTS

San Francisco, Sept. M.-Speaking,
he said, from the standpoint of bank
or. Myron T. Herrick, made the princi
pal speech Monday before the Inter-
national Irrigation congress. He de-
clared his belief that the principal
troubles of irrigation work in the Uni.
ted States are financial.
The present gathering has drawn
thousands of delegates including q
dozen governors and representatives
of Pan-American countries and Can
ada. Most of these delegates visited
the irrigation projects in the Sacra-
mento and San Joaquin valleys last
week. Today is s"Irrigation Day" at
the exposition.
Herrick said the U. s. reclamation
service has built $500 miles of canals,
enough to reach from Palm Beach,
Florida, to Fairbanks, Alaska and back
again; has built dikes, roads, tunnels.
drainage ditohes, railroads, electric
lines and telephone systems. II sells
at cost the excess energy of its hydro
electric plants for heating, lighting and
for small domestic and industrial ma
ohinery, giving settlers the benefit CT
modern scientific appliances. There
can now be watered, q, 7,ll5 farms, total.
ing 1,343, 1893 acres. The value of crops
on irrigated lands in 1913 was SIS, 5,732,-
GOO and Of live stock and equipment,
$l6,484297. One hundred and tifty
three towns have sprung up. All this
practically since 1906 when water fret
was supplied.
But great difficulty has accompanied
this progress, due he said, to faulty
finance. The work should have been
required to stand good for its own
bonds, which ehould have been re-
deemed out of q sinking fund created
by the installment payments of the
landowners.
This method, he argued, should now
be adopted.
"The U. 8. government may possibly
worry along under the present arrange
ment," he said, "but the landowners
cannot. Last year they paid 16 per
cent of the returns of their crops to
the government. In addition they had
to pay water rights and taxes. I'm
fortunately, too, most Of them had to
pay six to twelve per cent interest on
the mortgages which they gave for the
purchase price of their property. Such
burden would be difficult to bear in
old, established communities. In these
irrigation projects it becomes insup-
portsbls, because 1t leaves practically
nothing to the entryman or assignee
for the keep of himself and family.
"Short terms for loans or for install
ment payments should be abolished.
The charges against landowners and
the financial operations of the recla-
nation service should be conver ted
into long term--50 or IS years through
some carefully prepared plan of bond
or debenture issues. Perhaps it would
be best to place the financial oper-
ations of the reclamation bureau in
charge of the secretary Of the treasury
and intrust the collection of dues from
landowners to the waterusers' associ-
ations."
This, he said, would make land.
schafts" of the water users associations,
they would be able to find capital on
easy terms for other purposes than
paying construction charges; the set
tiers would be welded into Q unity.
The reclamation service would be made
more efficient, confining itself to en-
cheering and building, with the gov
ernment acting as umpire over all.
'In this way the government could
mobilize its entire investment and
make 1t q revolving fund for carrying
on and enlarging its work. There ie
no reason why the government should
not realize on the credit available from
this Investment.
Such method of anancing and q
workable method of cooperation
among the settlers on irrigation prof.
ects, Herrick predicted will mean the
success of the reclamation work.