Arizona republican., 1919-04-12
TIME TO TURN HOT AIR INTO MOTIVE
 POWER, |S PLEA
Desert Will Win In Contest,
 Says George H. Maxwell, Unless the Flood Waters
 of Rivers Are Controlled

"The time now has come to turn hot air into motive power" was the unique statement made by George H. Maxwell last night before a large gathering of citizens in the assembly room at the Water Users building.
 Tt is time to stop talking about the conquest of the desert" the speaker added, because the desert will win in the end.
 But" continued the speaker, you have the evidence around you on every hand of the success of a move ment that once before did turn hot air into motive power, with the result that Uncle Sam spent $l0,00o,000 for the conquest. of the desert in the Salt River valley.
 Tt is a far easier task today to get s10,000,000 more expended to rescue Gila river country from the deadly tenacles of the desert than it was to get the original s10,o00.0o0 spent in the Salt River valley.
 ''The first expenditure was crea- tive; the expenditure now sought is defensive, primarily, because unless the slow and memorable encroachments of the desert in the drainage basin of the Gila river are checked, abandon ment of the country is inevitable, just as the ancient irrigators whose dense populations once filled those valleys, abandoned them after the desert had accomplished it's final conquest of their fields and gardens"
 Has Startling Facts
 These startling statements of the l speaker were sustained by a series of l facts he had accumulated during his 40 years study of the subject, and no one who heard him could fail to be convinced of his general declaration, 1 that the deserts have for centuries been gaining on the world; that the desert is the most implacable, deadly and inexorable enemy of the human race; that the same forces that have destroyed central Asia, Asia Minor, Turkestan, Persia and Palestine-and northern Aria, and are now at work l over vast areas of British South Af- rlca, have destroyed one dense popula- | tion in Arizona and are now steadily progressing with their deadly work in the destruction of another.
 Among the authorities he cited was a book called "The Conquest of the Desert" a description of the Kalahari desert in South Africa, where as the result of complete deforestation, rain has ceased entirely over an immense area and the Malopo river, formerly tributary of the Orange river. nc longer flows. He described the shal. low, shifting lakes amid driftins sands and abandoned cities described by Sven Hedin in his book on Centra Asia and Thibet
 Mir. Maxwell pictured Babylon in tn. height of it's glory, it's gradual de cadence as the result of increasin, floods and the alkalying and waterlog ging of vast areas of irrigated land once sustaining dense population o millions of people living by irrigation He told of the ambition of AleXande the Great to restore it's irrigation sys tenn, which was frustrated by his earl, death; and of the final abandonment or millions of acres over which tn desert resumed it's sway-fertile field lapsing back into alkali swamps an, shifting sands as the result of tn same memorable forces that we hay set at work for the similar destruc tion of Arizona's most fertile areas partly by the destruction of the Ian itself, partly by the destruction of tn , watershed.
 However appalling this picture c inevitable future destruction an abandonment may have been, it coul not be said that the speaker failed t : point out the remedy. He did so i e the most minute detail. He sketche I the history of the campaign for tn a nation wide adoption of the Newland 2 plan for watershed preservation, foo control and river regulation H stated the provisions of the Newland l river regulation amendment to tn river and harbor bill of August, 191 l 'The only thing now remaining { be done," said the speaker, ito mak that legislation effective is that Presi dent Wilson shall appoint the commis e sion created by that act, and appoir men on it who will honestly and con = scienticusly act with a view to accom- plishing it's beneficial purposes"
 MT. Maxwell showed how the al plication of the Newlands plan to Ari zona would safeguard against til dangers resulting from the destructio of the watersheds and against a flood destruction. He called attentio to the act passed by the last Arizon legislature creating the Arizona re sources board to operate with u national commission created by tt Newlands act, and finally he describe the practical application of the prime pie to the Gila river, draining nearl half of Arizona by the Olmsted repo on flood control on the Gila riv, watershed.
 In concluding. the speaker said ] brief:
 T am through talking. now sul init the case to the people of the Sa River valley for their decision. Eth, they must now rise to sense of the patriotic obligations and win a gre;
 war against the desert, or the desc
 will again depopulate the region
 now menaces.