GHOST OF STATES' RIGHTS AGAIN WALKS
McClintock, R. M.
Ghost of States' Rights Again Walks It Fails to Stampede Delegates at the National Irrigation Congress By R. M, McCLINTOCK FORGOTTEN these many years, the ghost of the old states' rights theory...
...He de-nounced vigorously the action of the Reclamation Service in preventing the construction of further irrigation projects in the San Luis, without even a court hearing on the rights involved...
...There is one enemy we all have to fight, without distinction of psrty, creed, state, locality or any other distinction whatever — it is the man who is in politics to feather his own nest...
...There is a place where the national government must come in...
...But her delegates did not surrender without a fight...
...Socialism," sneered Dr...
...Not one state, in the final analysis, stood with Colorado...
...the Grand into Utah,, and, through the Colorado, into Arizona...
...and it was I. N. Stevens, Republican candidate for congressman at large from Colorado, who led the states' rights host...
...Kansas was in the fight against Colorado, of course...
...And there, shaking his long finger directly in the faces of the Colorado delegation, he asserted that, outside of a few honestly mistaken men, the fight against conservation, against federal control of interstate corporations and interstate rivers, is made by the corporations...
...The smelter trust, the power trust, the mining interests, the big stock-growers, the timber and land thieves,—all hold the name of Gif-ford Pinchot as anathema...
...Our Common Enemy INTERSTATE CORPORATIONS can-not be controlled by single states, any more than interstate rivers can be controlled by single states...
...The United States Reclamation Service, therefore, began plans for the construction of a $9,000,000 reservoir at Elephant Butte, New Mexico, where the flood waters of the Rio Grande might be impounded, and which should irrigate, not only the Mexican lands which the government had promised to supply with water, but also several thousand acres of fine land in the Mesilla valley of New Mexico, lying near El Paso, Texas...
...caucuses of Nebraska and Kansas delegates endorsed Bryan's speech and officially thanked him for it...
...A leader of the latter is T. C. Henry of Denver, who is said to have laid plans for an irrigation system in the San Luis, and who, because that was knocked on the head by the government, and because several other pet projects of his have been sidetracked by the settlers concerned, in favor of government construction, has conceived a bitter hatred for the Reclamation Service...
...and at the Eighteenth National Irrigation Congress, held at Pueblo, Colorado, September 26 to 30, it furnished the rallying cry for the faction which is desperately fighting against the federal control of the rivers of the irrigated West...
...As William Jennings Bryan put it,—and the thrice-defeated leader of Democracy delivered one of the leading addresses at the congress,—"if it is your water, you should be forced to look after it, ar.d harness the floods, instead of allowing us to have your surplus when we don't need it, and depriving us of any of it when we require it...
...Any scattering of our power, any effort on the part of any man, however honest, to draw a way between the only power that can control the interstate corporations and those corporations which too often are now in control of the machinery of our government, is necessarily harmful, however well intended.—GlFFORD PlNCHOT AT THE IrRi-gation Congress...
...It was Henry who organized the Colorado fight...
...they declared themselves with the majority of the congress, as favoring federal control...
...That is why Colorado favors states' rights...
...Colorado based her plea on the theory that the United States government had no right to say what she might or might not do with the waters which originated in her own mountains...
...Why Colorado Favors States' Rights AND THIS furnished the basis for the conflict in the Irrigation Congress...
...Other States for Federal Control BUT the Platte runs into Nebraska...
...As a substitute for the resolution advocating federal control, ex-Governor Adams of Colo- ado moved the adoption of the conservation...
...Any scattering of our power, any effort on the part of any man, however honest, to draw a way between the only power that can control the interstate corporations and those corporations which too often are now in control of the machinery of our government, is necessarily harmful, however well intended...
...Over on the Western Slope, where the people have waited years for private capital to develop their country, the government Reclamation Service is now constructing the Gunnison Tunnel project, and is about to begin work on the Grand Valley project...
...They opened headquarters in the leading hotel of Pueblo, they saw that everyone in the congress was wearing their unique badge before the first day ended, and they went vigorously to work in the endeavor to prevent the adoption of the Colorado resolution...
...The United States felt that it would be impossible to take from the people of the San Luis any of the water already appropriated and in use there, but the government promised to see to it that Mexico should not lack for water...
...every river which furnishes water to the state has its source within the state...
...There is just one enemy before this country today, and only one of any consequence, and that is the great special interests in politics...
...The battle threatened at one time to disrupt the Irrigation Congress, and so bitter over the outcome are many of the Coloradoans that an effort will doubtless be made to persuade the governor not to appoint delegates to next year's congress from the Centennial State...
...So I make, as one of the two pleas I want to lay before you this afternoon, this plea: Do what you can to get the state and the nation together to fight the common enemy and stop the other, to excite antagonism between the two and to create a gap in which the enemies of both will best flourish...
...plank adopted in Theodore Roosevelt's New York Republican platform, but this| too, was almost unanimously voted down...
...Ghost of States' Rights Again Walks It Fails to Stampede Delegates at the National Irrigation Congress By R. M, McCLINTOCK FORGOTTEN these many years, the ghost of the old states' rights theory has risen again out in the West...
...But it remained for the commercial organizations of El Paso, Texas, to take the lead...
...H. H. Eddy of Denver presented statistics which, he said, proved that C olor-ado was not responsible for the shortage of water in the Rio Grande, It was due to the cutting away of the timber in New Mexico, he asserted...
...Charges were made by the Colorado delegates that the program of the congress had been "jobbed" so that they were not allowed the representation they had been promised...
...Paul Conservation Congress, it reared its head...
...irrigation husbands the water, he stated...
...At the St...
...And he claimed that if Colorado were allowed to use every drop of the water in the Rid Grande still there would be as much in the river at El Paso as now...
...And the people of the states into which these rivers run were quick to resent Colorado's claim...
...For in Denver there is a hotbed of opposition to the idea of federal conservation...
...And the delegates from the Western Slope refused to subscribe to the creed of the Denver promoters...
...The Platte, the Grand, the Arkansas, the Rio Grande,—all have their sources in the snow-covered mountains...
...In order that the people of the San Luis valley in Colorado might use no more of the unappropriated waters of the river, the Interior Department refused to allow the construction of any reservoirs or irrigation canals on government land along the headwaters of the Rio Grande...
...they brought with them the Municipal band of their city...
...There is just one enemy before this country to-day, and only one of any consequence, and that is the great special interests in politics...
...But the line-up on the time-honored dispute as to where the powers of the state end and those of the nation begin would have staggered Calhoun and Webster, for it was Zach Cobb of El Paso, Texas, whose forefathers died at the Alamo, and whose father fought in the Confederate armies, who most fervently championed the cause of government control...
...And, despite every effort of the Coir oradoans, the resolutions were overwhelmingly approved...
...There is a place where the national government must come in...
...This phrase of Bryan's caught the fancy of the advocates of the federal control theory...
...He deprecated any quarrel between the states and the nation as to the relative powers and responsibilities of each, but placed himself squarely against the Colorado idea when he stated that interstate rivers cannot be controlled by any one state...
...Colorado has the first chance at the waters of all these streams...
...So much of the water of the Rio Grande has been appropriated by the people of the San Luis, for the irrigation of their fields of cowpeas and potatoes, that Mexico protested to the United States government, alleging that the water that for two hundred years had been used by the Mexicans for the irrigation of their lands across the river from El Paso, Texas, had been entirely appropriated by Colorado...
...He went farther than any previous speaker had done in his demand for federal control, but he had the delegates yelling their approval...
...And to these interests have now been added the irrigation promoters...
...Interstate corporations cannot be controlled by single states, any more than interstate rivers can be controlled by single states," he said...
...there is an old feud between the states over the conflicting claims to the waters of the Arkansas...
...A part of the California delegation favored states' rights, but John Fairweather, of Fresno, succeeded in lining up his state, by a narrow margin, in favor of federal control...
...But, if it was socialism, it evidently did not alarm the delegates...
...The Rio Grande river, which forms the boundary between Texas and Mexico, rises in the high Colorado mountains which enclose the San Luis valley, one of the richest agricultural sections of Colorado...
...it was he who acted as chairman of the meeting of the Colorado delegation at which the resolutions were drawn, which later were presented to the Congress...
...These resolutions condemned the Reclamation Service for attempting the construction of the Elephant Butte project, and petitioned the United States Congress to order the work stopped and to restore to entry the lands in the San Luis which had been withdrawn in order that no more water might be appropriated from the Rio Grande watershed...
...George L. Knapp, correspondent for the Denver News, the chief exponent of the states| rights crowd...
...There is one enemy we all have to fight, without distinction of party, creed, state, locality or any other distinction whatever—it is the man who ts in politics to feather his own nest...
...The resolutions committee had voted down, 24 to 1, the Colorado states' rights resolutions...
...The Texans chartered a special train to the congress...
...This charge was flatly denied by President Fowler, and, as a matter of fact, the Coloradoans were given all the time they wanted for the presentation of their case against the construction of the Elephant Butte dam project in New Mexico by the United States Reclamation Service...
...the Arkansas into Kansas, the Rio Grande into New Mexico...
...The Bone of Contention FOR it was over that question that the trouble arose...
...And this meant that no more such reservoirs or canals might be constructed in the San Luis valley, for any such projects would have been compelled to use government land...
...They found plenty of assistance...
...Men representing every section of fly] west put the emphatic seal of their apf proval on the idea which Gifford Pinchoi first advocated, that the nation must conserve for future generations all the great natural resources of the county...
...This brought to his feet, F. C. Finkle of Los Angeles, whe, after announcing himself an engineer employed by a power company, "and not ashamed of it," made a plea for state control...
...But all her neighbors rose in arms at this, Colorado is in a unique position...
...Congress Stande by Pinchot IF ANY delegates wavered from their support of the doctrine of federal control as a result of Thursday's debate, they were driven back into line the next morning, when, just before the vote on the resolutions, Francis J. Heney, the 'Frisco graft prosecutor, made a brilliant plea for the conservation of the nat| ural resources of the country, by the nation, for the use of the nation...
...Thursday was the big day...
...Gifford Pinchot, just arrived from Los Angeles, where he had spoken at the mining congress, was hurried to the Mineral Palace, where the sessions of the congress were held, without a chance to rest...
...He went further, and suggested that every delegate to the Irrigation congress who is in the employ of a corporation should make known publicly his corporation affiliations...
...And not even Colorado was united...
...Pinchot on the Firing Line AND so, in the end, the divided Colorado delegation stood alone against all the rest...
...they drummed up a large delegation from the Mesilla valley, in New Mexico, which would be deprived.of the hope of water if the Colorado idea were adopted, and brought them along...
...They claimed that, according to the well-known principle of priority of use, they should be given back the water that they claimed had been stolen from them...
Vol. 2 • November 1910 • No. 44
