Arizona republican., 1916-11-04

cost; that the one who built it must keep himself reasonably within the re- quirements, the demands for which the | building was designed, and build a | building only adapted to that purpose and pay the reasonable cost-nit any cost that might be imposed. That is the contention of the Salt River Valley Water Users Association today. That association represents now nearly three thousand different ranch owners in this valley.
 The Project Enlarged.
 There has been much talk about the greatly increased cost of this enterprise. When it was undertaken, the only works held in contemplation were the
 dam itself, the impounding dam-noth- ing else. The government at that time told us that they would not build any distributing systems; that they would
 not purchase any distributing sysems
 that they would not put any dams in 1 the river; that all they would do was
 the construction of the impounding dam
 at Roosevelt and at that time connected with what was the construction of power canal to develop power to be
 used in the construction of the dam.
 That power canal was estimated to
 cost, as shown in the reports of the en- gineers of the Reclamation Service
 ninety thousand dollars. Please re-
 member the~ figures because l shall have occasion to aflude to them little bit later
 As time went on, the Reclamation Service changed it's theory--its attitude and it's practice with reference to the
 acquisition of a distributing system. See
 position We would have been in had the government adhered to it's an tnounced purpose not to acquire or to
 construct a distributing system. We would simply have had the water
 stored It would have been brought
 downto the Arizona canal with all its
 corporate control and grasp of that canal. and delivered to the farmers upon terms that the Arizona canal may
 have determined on the north side of
 the river, and on the south side Of the
 river as may be determined by the
 corporations that owned the Highline
 canal, the Mesa canal the Mesa Con- solidated canal, the Tempe canal, the
 Utah canal, the Eureka canal and the san Francisco canal. and-what is the
 use of extending the list? That water
 would have been completely in the control. don't you see. of private corpo-
 rations as to their charges for carry ing the water? The water may have been stored. 1t would have been re- leased and picked up by these canals That was the situation that the peopl' of this valley did not particularly en- ioy. In fact. can remember that ther' had been a bitter protest. bitter lega contest over the rights of these private corporations to the diversion and th'
 carriage and distribution of this water
 The government then changed its pohcN , and said. We will buy these eahiis' and then began long negotiations
 Granite Reef Dam.
 Ali first. the owners of the Arizona canal offered to sell this canal to th' [ government. to be charged to us, O rourse for $l, ,300. 900. l can't go oFe the whole history of that matter. bo [ finally was asked as the attorney TO r the association, to make an olie'. A''' ] I offered two hundred thousand doiiAiS { was as liberal as they were Ihe' wanted a million and three hundred Q thousand dollars. and I threw off on ] million one hundred thousand; ant b finally. what did they get? They go { three hundred and thirty thousand dol r lars. You see, they raised my prlce little. but in addition to that. there ha d 10 be purchased the Mesa canal, th Q HighIine canal. and the other canals il the valley. They had to be reconstruct l. ed. The old Arizona dam had gone ou' s and you remember how often 1t did
 out. Nearly every time the river wa
 in. out would go the dam And tn f dam couldn't be put back until tn . water run down and there was no wa e ter to dam. The farmers of this vahe q had said, We rebuild the Arizon t dam-never." They preferred 10 stic It dynamite under it and blow it out ( !. the water. And yet the farmers al n build that Arizona canal under nam l. 1t is true. and that was named GraI'il y Reef Those very farmers who ha
 protested so vigorously against the re 1T construction of the Arizona canal wei y on d hot June day, when you eoul t poach eggs out in the sun, celebratin - "a thousand of them-the completio y of the Granite Reef dana dam the al had declared they never would COT t. struct. But 1t was because the Arizor l. canal was out of existence as n seps u rate entity. IL was because the Mar 'e copa was out of existence as sep; v rate entity. It was because the othe
 were gone. It was because a cleav' ', had gone across this district. and Il m district was divided up so that evel a, district had some portion of these cal :, als. So, they got so cut up that tho
 couldn't wriggle at all. These pu a, chases and the Granite Reef dam ii ,o creased the cost of the project. Tn q is one of the reasons that this projeC in instead of costing, about three milliC ,t or three million seven hundred aI ,d fifty thousand, ran away above
 if was because. my friends, we ask' Id more. II was because the governme in did more than they originally conten hat plated they would do. and 1t was ju