Brownsville herald. [volume] (Brownsville, Tex.) 1910-current, 1926-01-14
IN OUR
VALLEY

HE biennial water district elections
in the Rio Grande Delta are just
u important to the farmers and land
wners as are the elections in which
he cities Of the Valley elect their may
prs and other officials.
This fact became apparent in the
Elections held Tuesday in the eleven
1istricts in Cameron and Hidalgo coun-
lies, among which were four or five
ontests that would have done credit
o any warmly contested municipal
lection.
In naming a mayor and city commits
ion, the voters of a municipality seek
men who know how-or say they know
how-to hold down taxes and at the
same time keep ahead of a program of
Improvement.
The same end is sought in the wafer
t11stricts. The water users want good
service as well as cheaper water rates.
The prediction period was a season
Of campaigning. And the clean sweep
of officials or administrations that
was made in one or two instances indi-
Gates how seriously the farmers of the
Valley are taking their own municipal
elections.
The Herald, by the way. was the only
newspaper giving prediction news, rs
WILL as the results of the various cleo
tions.
i The idea of gravity irrigation in the
Lower Rio Grande Valley did not start
yesterday, last week or last year, judg-
ing from some Rio Grande irriga,.on
history dug up by the Gravity Irriga-
kion News.
The first record of proposal for
gravity irrigation is dated 1896. or just
- years ago. A paragraph in a United
States Department of Agriculture re-
port of that time says:
Hidalgo C0mpany-In the records
of the county office at Hidalgo is a
notice of appropriation made in 1896 in
the name Of the Hidalgo and Cameron
Irrigation Company, appropriating all
NE unappropriated waters Of the river
md all the underflow, stored and rain
katers, all the lakes and resacas, anc
|all the other water, in or ous Of sight
The company had intended to irrigate
D00,O 900 acres by a canal 80 feet wide on
The bottom, 8 feet deep, and side slopes
Of 90 degrees to be 100 miles in length.
md to deliver 1870 cubic feet of water
PER second. The canal was. to divert
water by gravity from the Rio Grande
and run to a point miles below
Brownsville. The project fell through
entirely"
Operating the first pumping plants.
bsck in the period from about 1900 to
1904, was not such an expensive prop
osition. Fuel was had for the c.iopp-ng
of it at the nearby brush. Two fire
ven drew $1.25 day each, on a 12-
hour shift; two helpers received IS
cents a day each, and the engineer drew
the magnificent salary of $3.50 per
day. It's different today.
: Same in the printing office. 1900
bookkeeping record of The Brownsville
Herald recites that the paper employed
four printers. The payroll amounted to
81 q week.
Notice to publishing fraternity: Read
that last paragraph and weep.
-
In New York City, in connection with
ehe assumption of management today
Of the National Lines of Mexico by
Bertram Holloway, there is rumor
that the National Lines is confronted
with q proposal whereby it will ,. asx-
ed to purchase outright the holdings of
the Southern Pacific in Mexico, or in
vite q merger of that system with the
National Lines.
The Southern Pacific has been build
Snr down the Mexican west coast, to-
ward Mexico City. There has been some
talk that its program, which might re-
uuife many years in developing, con-
templates q loop through the republic,
xhe Mexican coast road being one side
Of It, line from this part of the Rio
ofande, south via Tampico, etc., on to
Mexico City, being the eastern possible
development.
The desire of the Southern Pacific
% cross the Rio Grande at Hidalgo
CONTINUED on Page Two.)