History of public land law development

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fi7f> HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT that reclamation funds be expended among the states roughly in proportion to the income from land sales within them. Although this section had been modified in 1910 it had led to the adoption of projects in each of the western states (except Oklahoma) which for years to come, even after 1924, would absorb all money available* As the World's Work later pointed out, local pressures by insolvent irrigation districts needing government funds to increase their supply of water, by landowners wanting the government to surround their property with settlers to increase land values, and by chambers of commerce were responsible for old projects and the adoption of new ones, no matter how reckless.126 The committee was also critical of the provision requiring the repayment of construction costs within 10, later 20 years, maintaining that for some projects 20 years' time was sufficient but on some others a much longer period was necessary. Perhaps the greatest weakness of the act was its failure to provide any form of control over the selling of land within projects by first settlers or by excess-land holders who were able to sell for exorbitant prices. It should be said, however, that such control over prices would have been extremely difficult to enforce. The law gave no authority to select the most likely candidates among possible entrymen looking for public land, and it is doubtful that the West would have tolerated a bureaucratic authority exercising such power. As originally contemplated, Federal reclamation and irrigation projects were intended to make it possible for settlers to homestead arid public lands, without cost so far as the title was concerned. But, under the pressure of the various states and real estate interests, projects were undertaken that either had no public land or very little. Only seven of the 22 on which payments were being made in 1922 had more public land than private land, three had no public land and only 37 percent of the land on which contracts had been made was public.127 The committee was convinced that the principal beneficiaries of the Newlands Act had been the speculative owners who had anticipated the government by entering potentially irrigable land before the Act of 1902 was adopted or before withdrawals were made. The achievements of the Reclamation Service were well summarized in the committee's report. The Service had built at least two of the highest dams in the world, had created huge storage areas for water for irrigation, had developed a number of large power projects, had built many miles of canals, had provided water sufficient to irrigate 1,202,000 acres which were divided into 34,276 farms and on these farms lived 131,194 people. This was about equivalent to the agricultural situation in Massachusetts. In a sense reclamation had created a new state. Such achievements were not to be belittled.128 But the committee was primarily created to make recommendations for the improvement of the reclamation program and it passed over these accomplishments quickly. The detailed recommendations of the committee may be summarized: 1. Temporary relief to settlers should be granted as needed. 2. New projects or extensions of existing projects should be authorized only after the most careful investigation by experts from the Departments of Interior, Agriculture, and Commerce. 3. Greater care should be taken in estimating costs. 4. Drainage, not included in any original plans, should be given careful attention. 126 "Reclamation Becomes a Pork Barrell," World's Work, 51 (February 1926), 354. 127 Ibid., p. 114. 12*lbid., pp. 29-30.