The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1921-12-01
THE GOVERNMENTS ARID
LAND POLICY

the federal government set out tt
fulfill a plan that would be creative
of tens of thousands of happy
and prosperous homes in western
areas where snow-capped mountains
tower over sagebrush covered plains
and the seasonal run-off of water
merely needs conservation and dis
tribution to be applied to the high.
est possible beneficial uses.
In the years that have followed
great numbers of well intending
homeseekers have suffered keen dis
appointment and great financial
losses through the failure of federal
authorities to treat decently and in
diligently with those who would
create new homes and new wealth
for the nation, certainly admirable
and constructive ambitions.
The governments reclamation
policy has been unsound from the
first. 1t has been cursed with poll
ticians and their sordid and selfish
personal aims; there has been a
singular lack of vision as to the
full possibilities of the great under
taking, and worse, there has been
totally lacking the element of kind
illness and federation for the indi-
vidual as he struggles with the new
problems that attend the develop
ment of a desert area into worth
while home.
One might urge indictments with
out end against the governments
present-day plan of carrying on its
reclamation policy, for whichever
way you turn, as you study the re-
suits of the last nineteen years and
take note of the rules and regula-
tions and endless laws and red tape,
governmental delinquencies are null
titudinous and fragrant. If this were
not SO there would be no instances
of single farm units within reclama-
tion projects that have been settled
on as many as a dozen times within
as many years, nor would there be
the great numbers of instances of
deprivation of the individual of his
rights through lapse of water pay
ments.
Men and women are going today
from Uncle Sans reclamation prof.
ects, broken in spirit and in purse,
to seek new footholds elsewhere,
where harsh rulings and implacable
office-holding freebooters are un-
known.
Within the governments nearly
two score of reclamation projects
the instances wherein the project
arrangements and the settlers work
in accord may be counted on the
fingers of one hand. In all others
you find the government faction,
represented by the administrative
officials who, perforce, draw their
salaries from the water users, and
the water users, divided into two
hostile camps. Strife is INTERIM
Unable, and resultless years come
and 60.
It is natural, in view Of this con-
dition, that the attention of eastern
congressman has been directed to
the conditions in the federal recla-
nation projects of the west and
tardy acclaim is being made that
the governments irrigation plans
are badly directed, and that there
is lack of coordination in a work
that started off with brilliant prom
Use following the passage Of the
reclamation act on June II, 1902.
Always a good hand at bungling,
Uncle Sam surpassed all other. eff
forts in his bungling attempts at
retaining his desert wastes. For
proof of the truth Of this statement
one only needs to call his witnesses
from western irrigation projects set
afoot by the federal authorities.
There is an earnest hope prevail
ing wherever waters run to waste
through the desert that the faults
of the present reclamation inv will
be corrected with promptitude. Con-
gressional delegations from the
states that will benefit from clear
cut, fair-dealing, logical reclamation
law must get together and work in
unison, and bring into actually new
statutes that will take a proper ac-
count of the human element repre-
sented by the struggling home
steader as well as the diverse to-
Biography and water problems in
volved in the reclamation UNDER
taking.
Future amendments to the recla-
nation law must, if quick develop
ment of desert areas is to ensue,
allow for distinctive character of
Il