Arizona republican., 1921-07-17

tical. Utopia was a lan0 of the i'm agination. Man could not hold up his hand to the four mile wide floods and stop them. That chaos of use less rock mountains as big as an eastern state copld not be used as is the roof that fills the barrel with soft water when it rains hard.
 But government engineers had seen a vision. Of all the West. here was located the reclamation project that above Phoenix the Salt River cut sheer 300 feet through the solid rock of mountain range It was as though natures saw had bitten notch in the trough of state that tongue of water might flow
 through. The wedge should be put
 back. the trough should again be filled. It would mean adequate water for all who might find homes
 in the valley below
 The vision has been made real
 ity. The genius of man has welded
 two mountains together I stood the
 other day in the bottom of the shady
 canyon below this stupendous dam.
 Like the stairway of a colossus it
 rose above me 2S4 feet. I knew that
 back of it was column of water
 reaching to it's very top. and back of this column was the weight of a stretch of it twenty five miles up the canyons in which the navy of the nations might come to anchor. And a boy turned a wheel like that which guides an automobile and nozzles above me opened or closed and re-. leased or imprisoned the floods: These nozzles are the heart valves | through which the 1ifebloCd of fhe Wonder Valley flows.
 The valley in which rests the lake | created by Roosevelt dam used to be
 known as Tonto (FooD Basin and | through it I passed as a lad in a
 blackboard twenty-five years ago. and | in it 1 shot many quails. Ten years l earlier 1t had been the battlefield of | the Grahams and Tweksberrys. rival 1 cattlemen and sheepmen who had here fought each other to extinction. The wife of a. neighbor of onrs was
 sister of the Twelsberrys half breed Indians. and through her we | got our first-hand war news.
 Not until long after the comple- tion of the Roosevelt dam did the
 residents of Salt River valley give the | project their entire confidence. | They refused to believe that the plan
 would work until the lake became a | reality and the water flowed steadily into their ditches. Then they refused to believe that the condition was con- stant until years had passed and the ' flow had been unbroken. Finally
 there came in 1917-1s-1s three years of almost unprecedented drouth and
 the stored water in abundance lasted | through. Now the project is profed even to those who live under it.s
 I With abundant water, prosperity
 came overnight to all who owned land
 In this valley. Ten tons of hay or
 an acre in a year, seventy bushels oil
 wheat. two fat steers-even these
 spelled prosperity. The government in its faith. had advanced the money
 for the proiect-s12. 100000 alto gether. And now the farmers. ir their prosperity. are paying it back. In the end it will cost the govern . ment nothing to have performed ths miracle of the Wonder Valley
 , But recent developments under thu
 Roosevelt. dam have far outstrippe'
 even the vision of those who con
 ceived it and made 1t a reality. Il ! the beginning a power house Wa ' set in the canyon below the dam ant
 the escaping waser with their hun } dreds of perpendicular feet of pres sure were passed through its dypa I mos and set to generating electri III pONcA. AHlcS w VT v ottt . to carry this mystic spark over tn | mountain and desert to the town and settlements and there to furnisl r ample and cheap. power for what
 ever purpose it might be needed { There was unlimited electricity fo r whoever wanted to buy. A minin s company at Globe, 40 miles away r wrote contract for s400, 900 worth O l. electricity a year. Other customer . are appearing. New dynasnos are be : ing installed. The profits go into tn l fund which reimburses the govern t ment In few years the debt will b f repaid. Then the profits from powe will maintain the project and pa n money into the pockets of the farm l. CTS who own it. Because of the effort of a benign government unlimite water, breeder of wealth for then | will cost them nothing.
 Yet even this is but. the beginnin . of the wonder that has come to tn Salt River valley The denouemer has been the development of Ion : staple cotton, the highest bred cot ton in the world. the cotton that top all others in n'price. the cotton whic . can be successfully grown in no plac =, else in the United States but in thi y southwest.
 The very existence of long stapl @ cotton in Arizona is in itself a re q nance of science. Cotton with lon =. fiber makes stronger thread tha if the ordinary varieties with the short
 CT fiber. Egypt used to have tn l., choicest long staple cotton in tt '. world and American thread manu lt lecturers sent overseas and bought d Our department of agriculture rt e sented this fact and brought the be-
 l Fe~trr rs.,, . S. tried to grow them. The difficult
 was in keeping the varieties segre J. gated. Egyptian cotton might |