Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1915-09-21
IRRIGATION Plans,
Mr.. HERR|CK'S TOPIC
Former Ambassador to France
VisuaIizes Projects of U. S.
Reclamation Service.
OPERATION OF CANALS
$500 MILES IN EXTENT
Speaks at International Congress Of
Promoters in San Francisco.
Advocates Debentures.

SAN FRANCISCO, September FL
Myron T. Herrick. former ambassador
to France. presented to the 1nterna-
tional Irrigation Congress today his
views from the standpoint of banker
rs to how the great irr ton projects
could be furthered by better finance.
He began by quoting the Secretary of
the Interior as saving of the private
enterprises: Few if any of the invest
ments have ever returned to the east
ern or European shareholder or bond
holder the amount of the original eX-
penditure"; and. spea king of the gov
eminent project: ut must be admitted
that the slowness of developments and
use of the reclaimed land has been a
source of disappointment.
Mr.. Herrick sketched the vast extent
of the twenty-siX irrigation projects
undertaken by the United States rec
lamation service. one of the COMPARE
sons he drew to visualize the extent
OF the projects was that the service
had constructed or maintaining
and operating $500 miles of canals,
which in Il straight line would run
from Palm Beach. Fla. to Fairbanks,
Alaska, and back again. The estimated
area of the projects was 2,91S,600 acres.
of which 1,343.193 acres. or 27,11
farms, could now he watered. The in
owners of these farms. when fully de-
veloped, will be about $i75.000,000, he
said. and he'value was constantly in
creasing. Splendid as the development
was. il was being reached through
trials and tribulations largely arising,
in Mr.. Herrick's opinion, from faulty
methods of finance.
Mr.. Herrick's Address.
He said in part:
The 1902 act provides that all
moneys Except the per cent set aside
for educational purposes) received
from the sale and disposal of public
lands in most of the western states
shall be used in irrigation projects in
those states. The receipts from the
sale of public lands amounted to $751;
s13,l12.11, which have now, of course,
all disappeared.
consequently, as the Secretary of
the Interior declares: The resources
of the reclamation fund are now over
burdened and the projects now under
way cannot be completed within rea-
sonable length of time, unless there
shall be large accessions of the fund
This is a timely warning.
The troubles that now confront the
reclamation service were foredoomed
from the start because of the faulty
method of finance by which it was in
augurated because of this trusting
upon an HHcertdln source or FUNDS ana
revenue for conducting it's operations
Advocates Issue of Debentures.
The correct way (if I may be bold
enough to say it, is the simple ordinary
way of issuing debentures. Each prof.
ect should have been required to stand
I'd for its own debentures. and these
debentures should have been issued in
representation of the officially APP
praised value of the land as improved
and been redeemed out of sinking
fund created by the installment pay
ments of the landowners.
Besides creating an adequate sup
ply of capital. the method of finance
would have made the investment of
have lightened the burden of the land
owners. The sooner this or some other
method is adopted the better it will be
Indeed, change is absolutely neces-
sary, because the Secretary of the In
terror warns that cessation of all
work is imminent, while the director
of the service reports that landowners
are falling in arrears and must be
granted renewals even after the ex-
piration of the recent twenty-year ex-
tension. The United States government
may possibly worry along under pres
cnt arrangements-but the landowners
cannot"
Senators Newlands and Phelan also
were speakers.
In introducing Mr.. Herrick Gov. Hi
ram w. johnson said the entire United
states owed him debt of gratitude
for his interest in the Americans who
were in Europe at the outbreak of war,
and for the work he had done in as
sisting those in distress.