History of public land law development

page 664

664 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT was shrinking. The total cost of the projects under way was estimated at $119 million in 1910, of which $52 million had been expended. Costs were climbing rapidly, however. The original estimates had been altogether too low, some of the projects had been greatly increased in scope, and at the rate money was coming into the construction fund it might take 19 years to complete those projects already undertaken. Meantime, the thousands of people who had come in and taken up land with the promise of water were living in desperate poverty. Others were disappointed to find that one half the land to be irrigated, and probably the better half, was privately owned and held for high prices. Representative Edward T. Taylor of Colorado tried to soften the effect of Payne's indictment of the Reclamation Service by arguing that neither the reclamation law, nor the Reclamation Service, nor even the engineers were to blame for the situation. In fact, he said, there was "no ground for criticism anywhere in connection with the matter." Then he proceeded to place responsibility on Section 9 of the Newlands Act, and on the desire of each of the states to have projects undertaken within their boundaries. Rapidly rising labor costs and the withdrawal of 200 million acres of land from entry for forest reserves (an extraordinary exaggeration) were other factors responsible for the decline in public land revenues and the plight of the program. George W. Norris, Representative from Nebraska where there were few public lands to produce revenue for allocation to reclamation projects, was naturally favorable to reclamation at Federal expense and without the tie-up of funds as provided in the Act of 1902. He agreed that Section 9 was wrong, particularly because several officers of the Department of the Interior had declared it was responsible for the selection of dubious projects. He did not believe the public lands belonged to any particular state. He had opposed a proposal of an Oklahoma Representative who wanted to tie up funds for a project in Oklahoma, though the man could not name a project that Newell and staff regarded as feasible. It is wrong, Norris declared, "for us to assume that the money coming in from the sale of public lands ought to go back to the particular localities from which it originated." The public lands belong to the Nation, not to the states in which they are located. He doubted whether any man as Director of the Reclamation Service, not even any of the members of Congress, would have been able to disregard "the importuning of the different members of Congress" in adopting projects."" In 1910 Payne and a bevy of speakers from western states supported a measure to authorize a loan of $20 million to the Reclamation Fund to make possible accelerating construction on the projects already under way in order that the settlers could have the necessary water as soon as possible and in turn start repaying a part of the costs.87 None of the money was to be spent on any project until a board of Army Engineers had given its approval. One might well ask why, in the light of the obvious failure of some projects because of inadequate knowledge of soil, fertilizer needs, and other issues relating to tillage, it was not thought wise to have the approval of the Department of Agriculture, instead of the Corps of Engineers. Payne's bill proposed to repeal Section 9 of the Newlands Act, which most Representatives felt was responsible for unwise selections of projects, halt all entries and ban settlement 86 Cong. Record, 61st Cong., 2d sess., p. 8696, 9697. 87 Cong. Record, 61st Cong., 2d sess., June 21, 1910, pp. 8674-8698.