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Proceedings
NINTH ANNUAL
CONVENTION
Great Falls, Montana
September 24,
25,
26,1940
Dedicated to the Task of Providing Adequate Water for Profitable and Diversified Agricul-ture in Western America—the Creation of New Homes—the Stabilization of Drought Areas. This Will Make America Strong!
NATIONAL RECLAMATION ASSOCIATION
1119 NATIONAL PRESS BUILDINGWASHINGTON, D. C.
THE WHITE HOUSE Washington
September 6, 1940. My dear Mr. Warden:
It is with pleasure that on the occasion of the ninth annual convention of the National Reclamation Association I again send greetings to those western leaders who are interested in the pro-motion of sound programs for water and land conservation.
In grave times it is important that we do not permit our atten-tion to be distracted from our long range plans for a better America. It is important that, consistent with the efforts that must be made for national defense, we do not permit the disruption of work essential to those long range plans. Conservation of our resources is a part of that program. The United States in another day will be stronger because of such conservation works as Grand Coulee Dam and its counterparts on numerous smaller streams, stronger because of the power that will flow from them, stronger because of the stable homes which will be founded on the land they will irrigate, and stronger because of the great new wealth that they will create. We must conserve, guard ourselves today, and continue to build for tomorrow.
Sincerely yours,
(s) FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT. Mr. 0. S. Warden,
President, National Reclamation Association, Great Falls, Montana.
SPEECHES
"Two hundred and seventy-five thousand comfortable homes is the gift of reclamation to the nation. Reclamation can give 275,000 more of these comfortable homes to the nation. Civilization in every country has taken its strength from the good earth, from the rain-fall in its season, from the rivers that flow to the sea, from the resources that nature put in storehouses when the world began. God will always bless and keep America if we care for and use these resources as He intended."
—From President Warden's Annual Message.
"Without the hundreds of affiliated organizations throughout the West which are members of this association and the thousands of individual members and friends keeping constantly posted on what is going on in Washington that affects our program, and they in turn keeping the Washington office posted on what is going on back in every nook and cranny of the 17 western states, so that the full force of western determination can be applied where and when needed, the western reclamation policy would still be largely deter-mined by men living in the humid sections of this country, probably a thousand miles from any irrigation ditch—and they would not be the policies of today !"
—From "A Review of the Year" by Secretary Hagie.
"The 1938 Convention of this Association went strongly on record opposing a proposed reduction of experimental stations on Reclamation Projects and partly due to the effort put forth in that convention, reductions which had been proposed were not carried out on Reclamation Projects. When the present war which is devast-ating Europe has exhausted itself, there will be a new set of eco-nomic and marketing problems that will face the American Farmer and Project Wateruser. The assistance of every agency possible will be needed at that time to meet conditions which will no doubt prevail then."
—From R. 0. Chambers' address "Problems of Water Users."
"I believe that every Reclamation project should start with a soil survey, complete in every detail; a land classification under-standable to the farmer; an economic survey which shows the re-lationship of agricultural products that are produced in that locality to the local and surrounding markets. A careful study should be
made of climate, rainfall, growing season, and range relationships. The water supply should have the most detailed analysis, and water should not be contracted beyond the reasonable safe supply. The survey of the project should not be considered complete without . collecting some data on soil-water relationships. How much water will the soil take? What is a good irrigation? How fast can the water be put in the soil? What is the rate of evaporation? What is the wind velocity? These" questions may sound ridiculous, but when you meet groups who have been on the lands for more than 10 years who claim their land needs from 7 to 10 acre feet of water, while lands with similar climatic conditions take only 2 or 3, something more needs to be done. Irrigation needs some guidance it is not getting."
—From William Peterson's address on "Soil and Water Rela-tionships."
"The principal objective of the 1939 Act is to place Federal reclamation on a sound, business basis and provide effective meas-ures for the repayment of the construction cost of projects that have been constructed by the Bureau, and it is the belief that the Act provides sufficient means for the Secretary to meet this objective and to solve the various problems that may arise from time to time in connection with the construction and operation and maintenance of these projects."
—From "The Reclamation Project Act of 1939" by George 0. Sanford.
"Still another part of the work, come war or remain peace, is needed to provide internal stability. I refer to the projects designed to furnish supplemental water to areas faced with depletion of sup-plies, surface or under-ground, upon which farmers and townspeople depend for a livelihood, such projects as the Central Valley project, the Colorado and Utah projects, and others. Projects of the type devised for the Great Plains serve this same end, and so fall into this category as well."
—From Commissioner Page's address "Reclamation in /94/ and 1942."
"The Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Engineers are en-gaged in a common endeavor—the development of our water re-sources. Each specializes in its delegated branch of activity for the common good of the Nation as a whole."
—From "Army Construction, Past and Future" by Col. Clarence Sturdevant.
tures have been taking place for several decades. The result is that agriculture in the region faces an acute situation. The Case-Wheeler Act offers real hope that to the extent that there is available water, people in the region can be rehabilitated and indirectly much of the surrounding area stabilized."
—From "The Great Plains Problem and the Case-Wheeler Act" by George 8. Knapp.
"Through the Land Office, the Geological Survey, the Bureau of Mines, the Indian Office, the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Petroleum Conservation Division, the Grazing Service—to cite several examples—and through the Bureau of Reclamation, Interior is tied to the West as is no other Department of our Government."
—From Frederic L. Kirgis' address "The Relation of the In-terior Department to Western Development."
"But in the field of agriculture, I consider reclamation to be the most important and constructive of all programs which can be counted upon to provide new farms for landless farmers and to render more secure the homes and farms of thousands of farmers in the region in which the district I have the honor to represent is located."
—Front "Interstate Migration of Destitute Citizens--h'eclumu-ticm, the Solution" by Hon. Carl T. Curtis.
". . . two things must be perfectly clear. The first is that the world market has become and is becoming constantly less and less im-portant from the standpoint of American agriculture. Contrariwise. the domestic market has become, and in the years ahead can become overwhelmingly more important. Both of these great trends should be of inestimable value to the farmers of the United States."
—From Dr. John Lee Coulter's addre.ss "World Trade and the Farmer."
"What being of a fugitive nature, the corpus is susceptible of use for irrigation only when controlled; and the only property rights which exist in water in its natural state are rights of use. Besides the land, it is this trinity of water, physical structures to control it and the right to use it which constitute the dominant factors in western agriculturateconomy. It has been repeatedly said that water is the 'life blood' of the arid and semi-arid West, but may I add that it is the 'right to use' which gives it life."
—From "The States and Their Constitutional Rights" by Clif-ford H. Stone.
"Today our national population is not increasing as rapidly as it has in past decades. Foreign immigration has dwindled gradually since 1914, and the birth rate has fallen almost as systematically. To some this seems to mean that we have no need for searching out of better land opportunities since, when we have ridden out the effects of the recent depression, we will probably not have an in-creasing farm population. To those, however, who know that there are something like 500,000 farmers located on land which should be farmed differently than is now being farmed, or should not be farmed at all, to those who know that soil erosion has already de-stroyed more than fifty million acres of once fertile soil, and to those who know that farm abandonment is the most economical adjust-ment possible in some older settled areas, the reclamation program is looked upon as a national land use adjustment program and reclamation areas are looked upon as another frontier to which our present and future population can go in the same way that past waves of migration flowed out of overpopulated or untenable situa-tions in past generasitua-tions, and successively settled area after area of our national land."
—From "The People's Part in Land and Water Conservation" by Dr. Carl C. Taylor.
CC. . . the production of sugar beets has become very largely an enterprise of Western states and on irrigated lands. In other words, as the acreage of irrigated lands has increased in Western states, so likewise has the need for cash-row crop increased. Sugar beets can meet this demand that are now prohibited from doing so because of restrictions of the existing 'Sugar Act' of the United States. Less than 30% of the sugar consumed in the Continental United States is produced in the Continental area, and at prices lowest in history while we import 70% of our consumption. The need for new legisla-tion is therefore apparent, and is to be discussed in statements which are to follow."
—From "Relation of Sugar Beet Growing and Reclamation" by E. W. Rising.
"We have in Wyoming and throughout the West a number of areas peculiarly well adapted to the production of beets, areas in which the farmers themselves have insistently and repeatedly as-serted a desire to undertake beet growing. These farmers cannot grow beets and these lands cannot be brought into sugar production be-cause the basic quota cannot be stretched to cover new areas. I cannot bring myself to feel that as a matter of principle we should take the position that the opportunity for raising sugar beets should be confined to only those farmers and those areas which are now engaged in that branch of agriculture."
Committee on Agriculture, in referring to the failure of farm in-come to reach parity: 'The three billion dollars of farm payments during the past seven years still left farmers with a deficiency of twelve billion dollars under parity income. For each dollar in pay-ments that farmers received, they contributed to consumers free— comparatively speaking—four dollars' worth of commodities.' Ex-cept for the figures the Secretary used, he might well have been speaking of the sugar beet industry and our sugar beet farmers." —From "Sugar Beets—Prices and Quotas" by Charles M. Kearney.
"While we are all hoping that reclamation with its incidental power can be used solely for peace-time production, we realize only too well from what is happening in Europe that we must prepare for National Defense, not only from the standpoint of materials of construction but through democracy of thought. We must have a democratic Army, a democratic industry, and with these superior materials of construction assured, there can be no dictator in America."
—From Dr. Coolbaugh's address **Reclamation, Incidental Power and National Defense."
. . I wish foreign policy took in the country west of the Mississippi River. If trade agreements could be negotiated with this western country, and if the State Department considered that west of the Mississippi was just as good as Canada, South America and other countries then we would have something. Why aren't we just as good a neighbor as they are?"
—From remarks by John W. Haw on "What the West Must Do to Maintain Reclamation."
"Just as reclamation was an essential part in the national pro-gram of recovery from economic depression, so reclamation is now indispensable to the program of national defense."
—From Marshall N. Dana's message to the convention.
"Benjamin Franklin said he hoped that his services would be beneficial, not only to his generation, but to generations to come. You and all the Directors and members of the National Reclamation Association and all of those who actively work with us in building the western half of the United States, will always very justly have the supreme pride and gratification of realizing that we have helped not only our own generation but all of our successors for all
generations to come. Your Association is rendering a great national service, one of the greatest of any organization in our country, and at a time in the history of our nation when it is most needed."
—From a message front Hon. Edward T. Taylor.
"It is a pleasure to me to see, not only this, but all phases of our broad conservation program make lasting gains. I count the quickening interest in conservation as a national policy among the great achievements of this national administration. I thank the National Reclamation Association for its fine efforts in this work, and I am confident that the work will continue."
—From Secretary Ickes' message to the convention.
"In grave times it is important that we do not permit our atten-tion to be distracted from our long range plans for a better America. It is important that, consistent with the efforts that must be made for national defense, we do not permit the disruption of work essen-tial to those long range plans. Conservation of our resources is a part of that program. The United States in another day will be stronger because of such conservation works as Grand Coulee Dam and its counterparts on numerous smaller streams, stronger because of the power that will flow from them, stronger because of the stable homes which will be founded on the land they will irrigate, and stronger because of the great new wealth that they will create. We must conserve, guard ourselves today, and continue to build for tomorrow."
—From President RooNcrelt's message to the convention.
National Reclamation Association
1119 National Press Building Washington, D. C.
(1940-1941)
OFFICERS
0. S. WARDEN - President
Oa A BUNDY First Vice President
ROBERT W. SAWYER Second Vice President
J. A. FORD Treasurer
FLOYD 0. HAGIE Secretary-Manager DIRECTORS
HUGO B. FARMER, Yuma, Arizona E. W. BOWEN, Tueuineari, New Mex. J. R. FAUVER, Exeter, California HARRY E. POLK, Williston, No. Dakota CLIFFORD H. STONE, Denver, Colorado FRANK RAAB, Canton, Oklahoma N. V. SHARP, Filer, Idaho ROBERT W. SAWYER, Bend, Oregon E. PORTER AHR.ENS, Seandia, Kansas W. D. BUCHHOLZ, Newell, So. Dakota 0. S. WARDEN, Great Falls, Montana R. E. BASKIN, Seymour, Texas C. E. ALTER, Alma, Nebraska ORA BUNDY, Ogden, Utah
ALFRED M. SMITH, Carson City. Nev. JAMES A. FORD, Spokane, Washington PERRY W. JENKINS, Cora, Wyoming
Ninth Annual Meeting
PROGRAM
Great Falls, Montana—September 24, 25, 26, 1940
Tuesday, September 24
9:00 A. M. to 1:00 P. M.—REGISTRATION OF DELEGATES—Civic Center 10:00 A. M.—STATE CAUCUSES
With the following order of business at each caucus: Elect one member of the Legislative Committee Elect one member of the Resolutions Committee Elect a Director
Discuss reclamation policies of the state
1:30 P. M.—FIRST CONVENTION SESSION—Civic Center Auditorium President 0. S. Warden, presiding
Invocation—Rev. P. W. Dierberger, Great Falls
Welcome to Great Falls—Mayor Julius J. Wuerthner of Great Falls
President's Address—O. S. Warden, Great Falls Treasurer's Report—J. A. Ford, Spokane, Washington Review of the Year—F. 0. Hagie, Washington, D. C. Report from State Caucuses—by Director from each state Announcements
Tuesday Evening
THE WATER USERS PROGRAM Civic Center Auditorium Vice President Ora Bundy, presiding 8:00 P. M.—PROBLEMS OF THE WATER USERS
R. 0. Chambers, Minature, Nebraska William Petersen, Logan, Utah L. H. Mitchell, Washington, D. C. Discussion
9:00 P. M.—THE REPAYMENT LAW IN OPERATION George 0. Sanford, Washington, D. C. Discussion
Wednesday, September 25 RECLAMATION SESSION • Civic Center Auditorium
Vice President Robert W. Sawyer, presiding
9:45 A. M.—RECLAMATION IN 1940-41—Commissioner John C. Page, Wash-ington, D. C.
ARMY CONSTRUCTION, PAST AND FUTURE—Colonel Clar-ence L. Sturdevant, Army Engineers, Kansas City, Missouri. THE GREAT PLAINS PROBLEM AND CASE-WHEELER ACT
George Knapp, Topeka, Kansas
THE RELATION OF THE INTERIOR DEPARTMENT TO WESTERN DEVELOPMENT—Frederic L. Kirgis, Washing-ton, D. C.
12:15 P. M.—LUNCHEON—Palm Room, Rainbow Hotel, Auspices of Great Falls Chamber of Commerce
James H. Rowe, Butte, Montana, presiding Entertainment
THE STATE OF MONTANA IN RECLAMATION—Hon. Roy E. Ayers, Governor of Montana, Helena
Adjournment
2:00 P. M.—AFTERNOON SESSION—Civic Center Auditorium President 0. S. Warden, presiding
INTERSTATE MIGRATION OF DESTITUTE CITIZENS— RECLAMATION, THE SOLUTION—Hon. Carl T. Curtis, Min-den, Nebraska
WORLD TRADE AND THE FARMER—Dr. John Lee Coulter, Washington, D. C.
THE STATES AND THEIR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS— Clifford H. Stone, Denver, Colorado
Announcements Adjournment
4:20 P. M.—FIRST MEETING OF NEW BOARD OF DIRECTORS—City Council Chambers, Civic Center
Thursday, September 26 Civic Center Auditorium President 0. S. Warden, presiding
9:45 A. M.—THE PEOPLE'S PART IN LAND AND WATER CONSERVA-TION—Carl C. Taylor, Washington, D. C.
RELATION OF SUGAR BEET GROWING AND RECLAMA-TION—E. W. Rising, Nampa, Idaho
Cheyenne, Wyoming
SUGAR BEETS—PRICES AND QUOTAS—Charles M. Kearney, Morrill, Nebraska
DISCUSSION OF UNCLE SAM'S SUGAR PROBLEM—E. W. Rising, Nampa, Idaho
RECLAMATION, INCIDENTAL POWER AND NATIONAL DEFENSE—Dr. Melville F. Coolbaugh, Golden, Colorado 12:15 P. M.—LUNCHEON—Palm Room, Rainbow Hotel, Auspices of Great
Falls Chamber of Commerce
William R. Wallace, Salt Lake City, Utah, presiding Entertainment
WHAT THE WEST MUST DO TO MAINTAIN RECLAMA-TION—John W. Haw, St. Paul, Minn.
Adjournment
2:00 P. M.—AFTERNOON SESSION—Civic Center Auditorium 0. S. Warden, Presiding
PROTECTING THE WATERSHEDS OF WESTERN AMERICA Major Evan W. Kelley, Missoula, Montana
WAR MINERALS AND THE NORTHWEST—Dr. Francis A. Thomson, Butte, Montana
2:50 P. M.--BUSINESS SESSION
Report of Auditing Committee Report of Budget Committee Report of Legislative Committee Report of Resolutions Committee Selection of next convention city Adjournment
4:00 P. M.—MEETING OF NEW BOARD OF DIRECTORS—City Council Chambers, Civic Center
Thursday Evening
7:00 P. M.—ANNUAL BANQUET—Banquet Room, Civic Center—Auspices of Great Falls Chamber of Commerce—Informal
Toastmaster—Roy H. Glover, Great Falls, Montana Entertainment
Messages from Friends of Reclamation—President 0. S. Warden, Great Falls
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NINTH ANNUAL MEETING of the
National Reclamation Association
Civic Center Auditorium Great Falls, Montana TUESDAY AFTERNOON
September 24, 1940
CALL TO ORDER
The ninth annual meeting of the National Reclamation Associa-tion was called to order on Tuesday afternoon, September 24, 1940, at 1 :45 o'clock in the Auditorium of the Civic Center, Great Falls, Montana, with Mr. 0. S. Warden, President of the Association, pre-siding. The proceedings are as follows:
0. S. Warden: Some of you know that I have lived in Great Falls for fifty-one years. I think it is a good town and the Mayor will tell you about that a little later. At one o'clock, 45 minutes ago, I inquired at the registration desk and I found that the number registered was 621. This is almost equal to the registration in the city of Denver one year ago. Naturally, we feel quite proud, and if we can get in as many tomorrow as at Denver, we will be even more proud tomorrow than we are today.
INVOCATION
The convention was opened with an invocation by Rev. Paul W. Dierberger of the Great Falls Congregational Church.
Mr. Warden: Now, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to have you know what you can do in the city of Great Falls and wLitt you can-not do in this city. I have told you that this is a good town—the Mayor will enlarge upon that for you. This building that we are in was constructed under his administration. It is my privilege to introduce to you the Honorable Julius Wuerthner, Mayor of Great Falls.
ADDRESS OF WELCOME
Mayor Wuerthner : Mr. President, distinguished guests, dele-gates, ladies and gentlemen: It is my happy privilege as chief executive of this city to bid you a most cordial and sincere wel-come to our city. Our people rejoiced when we learned that you had done us the honor of selecting Great Falls as your convention city.
We welcome you to this Convention and to this building—a building erected to take care of meetings of this kind. You have met in larger cities in the past but in no city has the welcome been any larger than you will receive here.
Your President has said that the Mayor will tell you what you can do and what you cannot do. So far as the city administration is concerned there is not a single thing you cannot do, providing you have the, ability. Of course, we want you to feel at home with our people. Our people are warmhearted, upright and cordial and it has ever been said that they love to take strangers in!
We appreciate and endorse your efforts in attempting to build for a greater and better Western United States. We feel and know that the stability of any Community is largely dependent upon the stability of the farmer, and when he and his products have been stabilized, then you have done something for Montana and for the Nation.
We know that the different Committees have arranged for you to see and do many things that should make your stay enjoyable. Your every wish will be cared for, I am sure, by this Convention Committee. We have a city of beautiful parks, and trees. I told a Convention not long ago that we had 28,761 trees, by actual WPA count. We also have some of the most beautiful boulevards that anyone would wish to see.
Earlier in this administration we did give out keys to tile city. However, there are no more keys to be given out as there has been some embarrassment caused by inability to find key holes. We are proud, to have so many distinguished guests and we are especially honored by having a Commissioner of Reclamation. The Reclamation program is simple and concise—it is so concise it is contained in one "Page."
We are happy to have you here—our heartiest and most cordial welcome and we want you to know in the words of our Pioneers that "The City Is Yours."
ANNUAL MESSAGE OF PRESIDENT 0. S. Warden, Great Falls, Montana
We are beginning today the ninth annual convention of the National Reclamation Association. Organized by the governors from eleven states—we now have seventeen upon the membership roll. It is worthwhile at the end of each year to reckon the values that have been built into the west—estimate cumulative benefits to the nation —study problems that press for solution—and plan the work that will begin when this convention adjourns.
My fifth year as your president is near to its conclusion. I have profited more than I have given in service. A loyal Board of
Direc-PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE 13
tors, a secretary who has never heard of the five-day week, or a vacation with pay, and a grandly growing and interested member-ship, have supplied a day-by-day support that has made my work much like a garden of pleasant privilege.
I am able to tell you again with renewing confidence that rec-lamation has made new friends at Washington, and out over the United States. This has come about through continuing effort and a growing individual support throughout the west. Frequent bulletins have given the facts to you. I have found that members of Congress somehow give much more attention to messages from their con-stituents than to anything I may say at any time.
The people of this country, after blundering for a hundred years, are finally believing that the natural resources are our most valuable and abiding possessions; and furthermore, that in any reckoning the land and the water have the foremost place. The nation that does not stop the destruction of property by floods is a heedless caretaker of its property. A country that does not protect its forests from fire, or does not build its forests up to the year-by-year consumption of timber, is heading for an economic catastrophe in several ways. These remarks may indicate to you where we are able to find friends.
Business and industry alone cannot bring about and keep pros-perity anywhere. How we use, restore and care for the land is of primary importance. From ocean to ocean, and boundary to the gulf, there is a varying regional problem. The older New England states, where I was born, have gone back in fifty years because there has been lazy abuse of the land as well as heedless attention to the maintenance and use of other natural resources. The south, with all of its industrial development, will never become thoroughly prosperous until the people who work upon the land have a larger annual income.
Reclamation and soil conservation will build agriculture into greater diversification, and help in the doing away of surplusses will in a few years completely solve the present vexing national problem of migration. Every industrious farmer in the west can have productive land, and a self-supporting home. That has been and is our intense objective.
At each annual convention we study the march of reclamation to find out where we are, and where we are going. At the opening of these sessions I would like to write into the record a distinct ac-complishment. We no longer have to defend reclamation—it is estab-lished as a sound national policy. There are still opponents, but we are winning the game in congress and out of it. We have a willing congressional support. The figures prove it. Total appropriations and allocations to the Bureau of Reclamation from 1902 to 1936--34 years—amounted to $537,000,000. From 1937 to 1941-5 yeam-÷
these appropriations totaled $307,000,000. Even many of the people who live in eastern cities are persuaded that reclamation projects which have enabled thousands of new homes, and have added tax-able wealth equal to the entire federal investment, are a benefit to the region where thy are located. It has been medicine hard to swallow, but they are also now convinced that these enterprises contribute to the wealth and to the welfare of the whole country. We are winning the argument with cold icicle facts. Ninety per cent of the crops produced under reclamation are consumed locally in the west, or are fed to livestock. In the year 1939 the western and Pacific states afforded a market for non-western and manufactured and agricultural products valued at more than $1,500,000,000. The value of this western business to the middle west, the east and the south exceeded the total value of the exports of the entire United States to this nation's five largest foreign customers—Canada, Great Britain, Japan, France and Russia. Development of the seventeen states of this association has done more for the welfare of the United States than all of the trade Americans ever had in China, in Mexico, in South America, or the whole of Europe. I could give you more figures, but a decision has already come down from the high court of public opinion that reclamation is a sound national policy.
The story of reclamation appropriations in the present congress is highly satisfactory. With national defense holding the center of the stage, the funds made available for use under the direction of the Bureau of Reclamation were equal to those supplied for the same purpose by the previous session of the congress. In many other departments of government activity there was a cut-back. The appropriations for federal reclamation by the present congress totalled more than $75,000,000—more than $60,000,000 in the In-terior Bill for the fiscal year 1941, and nearly $15,000,000 of de-ficiency items to carry on to the close of the last fiscal year. Your Resolutions Committee may appropriately give thanks to Uncle Sam. This is one of the big years in reclamation construction—per-haps the biggest of them all.
While the Interior Bill was before the congress, there was plenty to do. The National Reclamation Association, and western men in the congress, were trying all the while to bring about a balanced program—one that would, through additional sums both from the general treasury and the revolving fund, enable economic procedure upon the larger projects, consistent building upon all of the projects under way; and a reasonable sum for investigation of water supply. Aside from these three efforts it was deemed of great importance that the Case-Wheeler legislative authorization for smaller conservation and utilization projects, in cooperation with relief or C. C. C. helpful cooperation, be amended and adjusted to wider usefulness. As you know, $3,500,000 of new money was so appropriated. 'There is something more than $1,000,000 left of a
PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE 15
previous appropriation. Allocations have been made to six projects, two in Montana, two in North Dakota, one in Nebraska, and one in South Dakota. I wish to express the opinion that this legislation— perhaps with some amendments—is capable of contributing in a most substantial way to a uniform reclamation development throughout our 17 states. The investigation money was pushed from $300,000 to nearly $800,000, including the amount for this purpose under the Case-Wheeler Act. This comment outlines the money story of federal reclamation for 1940.
It goes without saying that the grand total of progress, and benefit to the western country through reclamation has to depend upon available funds from all sources for this sort of investment— government, state, local, improvement district, or private capital. Of them all, I think the state has done the least. I incline to the opinion that it should not be that way for all time to come. The state can help itself if it will. Montana has broken the ice and likes the experiment. Under its water conservation law state funds can be expended in cooperation with the government or otherwise. Mon-tana, at the end of a four-year period, is in this year 1940 completing the last three of eighteen projects, joining its money to public works administration grants and pay-out bonds. You will be inter-ested in a few of the completing figures. The state will be selling water to 2,129 irrigation customers. The total investment is $8,-678,000. The government actually paid 38.9% of the total cost. The acres benefited are 327,000. The reimbursible cost paid by the farmer per acre is $15.50. Any state of this association can at least investi-gate projects and supply engineering. A few states are doing this much. If the seventeen states would contribute cooperative money, the aggregate would be a large sum, and the government would be mightily pleased.
At this point I would like to put into my remarks a legislative recommendation that doesn't call for the appropriation of a single dollar. It might save millions. The government has been generous to reclamation. In forty years of experience we have found that there are many supplementing activities that may wisely follow the diversion of stream flow, or storage, to the field. There, however, has come about a confusion of agencies, and what they are author-ized to do. The congress can and should do away with this entirely unnecessary mix-up—together with consequent departmental striv-ing. May I be bold enough to make two suggestions? First, the reclamation act needs interpretation—perhaps amendment—so that the Bureau of Reclamttion may know more exactly what it is to do, and where it is to stop. Second, if the Department of Agriculture is to carry on through soil conservation, farm security, resettlement, water facilities and agricultural economics, there is no need for more than one agency—the functions of which may be easily defined so that at least the officials themselves may know what their duties
are under a defining statute. Early experimentation may have been desirable under executive order. We now need clearly defined pro-cedure. There are plenty of reasons. Officials have spent enough money, and time, running about and arguing to have financed at least one big project. Now the congress may wisely write authority into law. I am not offering these remarks because of the criticism in them, but because I would like to have the great heart of our common government give a continuing coordinating helpfulness to the strength and comfort of the farm homes we are building in the west. These homes will make a repayment contribution to tile na-tional defense strength of the nation for all time to come.
At the annual convention of the National Reclamation Associa-tion in Denver a year ago the following resoluAssocia-tion was adopted:
"NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by this association that the congress of the United States be urged, through proper legislation to provide for the progressive, orderly expansion of the production of beet sugar within the United States and to maintain the beet sugar industry on a reasonable income basis by quota regulations and adequate tariffs on foreign sugar."
Since the passage of this resolution the sugar question has been severely controversial at Washington. It really is not and should not be a political problem—it is purely a commercial scrap for fair opportunity, mingled with considerable striving for regional ad-vantage. There has been plenty of selfishness in evidence. Powerful interests, with foreign investments, have been determined that there shall be no increase of acreage in the production of sugar beets in the United States if thereby there would be any reduction in the amount of sugar we import from Cuba. This sort of opposition does not recognize the American principle that in the case of a non-surplus crop the first right belongs to the home farmer. I take no pleasure in critical comment at this time. I would be delighted, would work for and would welcome the enactment of a sugar law giving generous consideration to Cuban imports, but I cannot advise that this association be a better neighbor of a farmer in a foreign country than it is of a farmer in the United States, who merely asks that he be allowed to progressively increase his acreage. In simple language, the American farmer is asking for the privilege of raising, on an unhindered acreage, this highly essential cash crop of a non-surplus industry—protected by a tariff to cover differences in the costs of production, and under quotas that will allow progressive expansion fair to every interest—the farmer, the factory and the labor employed.
I wish I could report that the sugar question is being fairly considered in committees and in the congress. That would not be the truth. There have been plenty of tricky brick-bats in the air.
PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE 17
The beet growers themselves have not been united. It is too bad there has ever been a cause for two beet grower associations in the west--one group satisfied with long-used acreage, and only inter-ested in price—another begging for the chance to plant new and ready acreage. One group in my own state has been working at variance with a different group in another section. Men at Wash-ington were working differently from what they were talking at home. The same is true of some factory representatives. It isn't then so strange that some fair-minded congressmen are confused. The expansion cause would have won in the congress before now if there had been a united front of the beet growers, the cane growers and the factories—all looking for fair progressive legislation. Some day there will be unified effort. The American farmer will win. The sugar business will develop all the way from the sugar beet field to the sugar bowl of the consumer. That will be a consumma-tion of great value to the west.
Strangely enough—seated in my newspaper office preparing what at best can only be a scanty review of our present day recla-mation outlook—I somehow found my thoughts turning from American sugar to the terrible European war—to the tremendous and perilous questions of national defense that the congress and 140,000,000 people are trying to answer. I may as well give you the reason for this thought transition. Sugar did not win—from the western viewpoint—because there were gaps in the line. Going on a bit—I do not fear the great military strength of Germany. I am not afraid of our national debt. The resources of America will not be found wanting. If there is danger, it will be within American democracy. It will be because of breaks in the line supporting national defense. The test is not far away. When nearly 500 repre-sentatives in the congress have fully devised our plan of national defense, if there is then loyalty in the homes, America will continue to be strong enough. The strength of a nation does not come down from the army to the people. It goes up to the army from the people. If industry and agriculture and labor stand together behind the guns, national defense cannot be stricken down. Every man, woman and child who understands the blessings of democracy ought to be united behind the administration at Washington now that the congress has decided what to do. A great nation was killed by dis-loyal snipers—France. National Reclamation is trying to build strong homes. Reclamation alone cannot insure national defense. It always will help national defense.
After this comment and suggestions of the moment I would like to pry open the door for a look at what we may wisely do after this convention adjourns.
There are ten million people in the west who wouldn't be here except for reclamation. There will be room for ten million more if we use all of the water in all of the ways that have been and are
•
being devised. The Bureau of Reclamation has never done as good quality work as it is doing today. The horizon of reclamation is continually broadening in the use and re-use of water on the land. We can do more now than we could a while ago with the same amount of water. We are now saving water all the way from the stream, or the storage, to the field. These matters require additional investigation and research. Economy in operation looms into a big study. In a sense, therefore, the National Reclamation Association is a planning board.
What then are the problems of tomorrow and of the coming year ? I must state them in a concise way.
(1) This association may wisely continue to work with industrious intensity for reclamation as a national policy—not for a par-ticular project—but for each worthy development, large or small, in every state of our membership.
(2) Specifying more particularly and firmly fortifying reclamation as a national policy: there is need of consistent federal or state investment—not only in building great multiple purpose enter-prises like Boulder Dam, Grand Coulee and the Central Valley of California, but also in the construction of smaller projects, under an extending Case-Wheeler authorization principle, pro-viding irrigation water for projects all over the west, to piece out rainfall in the Great Plains area, and to build up the water supply of many old time projects built by private funds or by the federal government.
(3) Furthermore, speaking of the projects building with appropria-tions from the reclamation revolving fund: there are now 28 of these projects. Three additional ones have been authorized by the recent congress. It seems quite clear that the revenue now coming into the revolving fund will amount to perhaps $8,000,000 annually for the next five years. The total cost of completing these 31 projects is reckoned at about $159,000,000. The arithmetic, therefore, is simple. It will take twenty years to finish these projects which under any economic procedure ought to be finished in six or seven years. To reconcile this situation is a problem of large importance, which may be solved by contributions from the general fund, by a loan from the same source, or by new otherwise devised revenue.
(4) There is need of a quickly developing and intimate study of water saving in main canals. Water loss in transition is a serious infraction of investment values in many places.
(5) Indirectly—indeed directly—we are and must continue to be interested in the great forests of America that protect the rec-lamation water sheds. Diminishing water is a present-day peril. The government will soon stop loss by forest fires, and will see to it that timber growth is equal to timber use.
(6)
APPRECIATION OF WARDEN'S SERVICE 19
Who owns the water—the states or the federal government? Every governor, and the attorney general of every western state, have a responsibility until the court of last authority clears up pending issues.
(7) Conflicting federal statutes and authorizations need coordinat-ing until there is clearly defined procedure from engineercoordinat-ing construction on through all the differing problems of land use. I guess this will be enough work to keep us busy through the coming year.
We are making a new land of homes and crops and pleasant li•(-ing. The snow in the mountains is a continuing promise of harvest in western America. There will be better homes along every river, from the ice of the glaciers to the ocean that now waits for the water we fail to use. We must not be content as long as a single farmer has to haul the water for his stock, or for his house. There can be no failure if this association clings to its task. If difficulties appear, you can surmount them tomorrow as you did yesterday. I have read somewhere: Behind the clouds the sun is always shining. Two hundred and seventy-five thousands comfortable homes is the gift of reclamation to the nation. Reclamation can give 275,000 more of these comfortable homes to the nation. Civilization in every country has taken its strength from the good earth, from the rain-fall in its season, from the rivers that flow to the sea, from the re-sources that nature put in storehouses when the world began. God will always bless and keep America if we care for and use these resources as He intended.
TESTIMONIAL OF APPRECIATION TO PRESIDENT WARDEN Mr. Sawyer: Mr. President, may I have the privilege of the floors
Mr. Warden: If there is no objection.
Mr. Sawyer: Some twelve years ago I had the honor of being a member of the Oregon State Highway Commission, and as it was my good fortune to meet with the members of the other State High-way Commissions, I became acquainted with Mr. Warden at that time. I also had the pleasure of working with him in the American Association of Highways. Then there came a time when our paths did not cross until five years ago when I was glad to find him attending, as a delegate, this Association's meeting at Salt Lake. 11 was a pleasure to find him again and to join with the other Directors in Making him President—it has been a continuing satisfaction to make him President since. Our feeling for him has grown into an affectionate regard for his great service to this Association and to all the West. We want to make a tangible expression of our feelings and to do so we have had prepared a testimonial of appreciation,
which, after reading to you, I wish to present to our President, Oliver Sherman Warden:
"A testimonial of appreciation presented to Oliver Sherman Warden by the 17 states of the National Reclama-tion AssociaReclama-tion assembled in annual convenReclama-tion on this 24th day of September in the year 1940.
"True pioneer of Montana and western America; sub-stantial, unselfish servant of public good in community and nation through more than a half century; unfalteringly courageous thinker and molder of public thought; aggres-sive advocate of improved highway and aviation facilities; persevering protagonist of water conservation as a sound policy; virile, indefatigable force for reclamation as a na-tional betterment; wise, foresighted, tactful counselor and leader; five time president of the National Reclamation Association—
"In recognition of these first five epoch-making years of service, this grateful acknowledgment, as a sincere per-sonal tribute from innumerable friends in 17 states, is here-with tendered here-with respectful affection to Oliver Sherman Warden."
(Signed)
HUGO B. FARMER, Arizona J. R. FAUVER, California CLIFFORD H. STONE, Colorado N. V. SHARP, Idaho
W. E. DANNEFER, Kansas C. E. ALTER, Nebraska
ALFRED MERRITT SMITH, Nevada E. W. BOWEN, New Mexico
KENNETH W. SIMONS, North Dakota FRANK RAAB, Oklahoma
ROBERT W. SAWYER, Oregon W. D. BUCHHOLZ, South Dakota CARL HINTON, Texas
ORA BUNDY, Utah
JAMES FORD, Washington PERRY JENKINS, Wyoming
ROY E. AYERS, Governor of Montana F. 0. HAUTE, Secretary-Manager
REPORT OF TREASURER 21
PRESIDENT WARDEN RESPONDS
Mr. Warden: My good friend, Judge Sawyer, and fellow Mem-bers. What can a fellow say that will adequately express what he, feels at this time? I have enjoyed serving this association day by day and week by week and year by year. The association has been most pleasant and as I said a few moments ago in my annual re-marks—I have taken from it a great deal more than I have given in service. After one has lived 60 or 70 years and has taken part in some of the developments in this Western country, I think one begins to feel that there is something more in life than the ac-cumulation of wealth, or the peculiarly personal accomplishment he may bring about. Twice before this membership has been most kind in presenting me with tokens of regard made from wood col-lected in these great Western states. I have fully appreciated the kindness.
I think I will mention again what I had to say about the values of life. A year ago while I was in Denver an annual dinner was held by a group of my employees in the newspaper and at that time they presented me with a testimonial like the one you are giving me today—it set forth the value of industrial peace in my plant for a period of fifty years. I said at the time—that testimonial has a greater value than the building where the paper is published or the presses that produce the paper. So, my friends, these are some of the conclusions that we reach after living 50 years in this great western country. I surely appreciate this kindness of today. I thank you with all the feeling of my heart that I can express—and some that I cannot. (Applause).
We now come to the report of the Treasurer and of course the report of the Treasurer reveals one of two things. If there is plenty of money it is a cause for gratification. If there is lack of money it is a matter of great concern. I call upon our Treasurer, Mr. Ford, to tell us where we are at in regard to money—Mr. Ford.
REPORT OF TREASURER J. A. Ford, Spokane, Washington
Mr. Ford: Mr. President, and friends, a year ago the Board of Directors adopted a slightly new proceeding for auditing the books of the association. Heretofore it has been the custom to bring all the books and cancelled checks and appoint an Auditing Com-mittee and this ComCom-mittee would spend the three days of the Con-vention going over the accounts. This year we adopted the policy of having the books audited by an official auditor. The books of the Treasurer were audited as of September 1—the Secretary-Manager's September 16. The following reports are the official audits of the Auditing Company. Further information may be called .for by the Auditing Committee.
TREASURER'S REPORT
NATIONAL RECLAMATION ASSOCIATION Cash Statement for 1940
Cash on hand, Nov. 14, 1939 $ 2,507.57 Budget collections from Nov. 14, 1939, to
Sept. 23, 1940 26,779.00 Total Cash Receipts for 1940
DISBURSEMENTS, 1940
Remittances to the Secretary $22,500.00 Treasurer's bond renewal premium 37.50
Bank exchange charges 17.05
Office supplies 1.02
$29,286.57
Total Disbursements by Treasurer,
1940 $22,555.57
Cash on hand in treasury Sept. 23, 1940 6,731.00 $29,286.57 Next, Mr. President, I desire to submit to you and the conven-tion the quota statement of the year 1940 showing the quotas that were allotted to each state and the amount of money raised by each state as follows:
TREASURER'S REPORT
NATIONAL RECLAMATION ASSOCIATION Quota Statement for 1940
Due from 1940
Paid on 1939
Paid on
1940 Balance State 1939 Quota Quota Deficit Budget Unpaid Arizona $ 1,200.00 $ 1,200.00 Arizona $ 318.00 $ 318.00 California 4,667.00 4,667.00 California 610.50 610.50 Colorado 1,667.00 1,777.76 Cr. $110.76 Idaho 1,000.00 1,000.00 Kansas 500.00 13.00 487.00 Montana 1,000.00 1,018.00 Cr. 18.00 Nebraska 500.00 310.00 190.00 Nevada 267.00 218.00 49.00 Nevada 7.00 7.00 New Mexico 500.00 421.00 79.00 North Dakota 250.00 145.00 105.00 Oklahoma 500.00 330.00 170.00 Oregon 1,000.00 1,001.00 Cr. 1.00 South Dakota 250.00 250.00 Texas 500.00 105.00 395.00 Utah 1,000.00 1,000.00 Utah 47.00 47.00 Washington 4,667.00 4,003.50 663.50 Wyoming 1,000.00 484.00 516.00 Wyoming 69.00 69.00 Miscellaneous 10,000.00 6,031.00 3,969.00 Miscellaneous 2,000.00 2,000.00 $ 3,051.50 $30,468.00 $ 3,051.50 $23,844.50 $ 6,623.50
REPORT OF TREASURER 23
In connection with this report, Mr. President, I want to call your attention to the fact that the states of Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming, which a year ago promised to make good the deficits on their 1939 budgets, have made good those deficits and, at the same time, have paid their current budget.
I also want to call your attention to the fact that eight states have paid their 1940 quotas in full or a little in excess. The other nine states in our association have agreed to assume their deficits in this year's budget and make that deficit up with the 1941 budget.
While this report, Mr. President, shows Wyoming lacking about $500.00 of making its full quota at this time, I am glad to report that that remaining $500.00 was in transit at the time this report was written but did not get here quite in time for any readjustment on the figures of this report for this convention.
Recapitulation of our cash statement is as follows:
Cash on hand in the hands of the treasurer, Sept. 23, 1940...46,731.00 Cash on hand in Washington office, Sept. 18, 1940 353.41
Total cash on hand $7,084.41
However, Mr. President, we are a little better off than that. At the time these reports were made up there was a $2,000.00 in transit between the office of the Treasurer and the office of the Secretary-Manager so that $2,000.00 does not show on either the Treasurer's report or the Secretary-Manager's report. However, it is cash just as good as the other cash and so, adding this to the total, we have a net cash on hand for the association as of this date amounting to $9,084.41.
NATIONAL RECLAMATION ASSOCIATION
WASHINGTON, D. C., OFFICE, F. 0. HAGIE, SECRETARY-MANAGER STATEMENT OF CASH RECEIPTS AND DISBURSEMENTS FOR THE
PERIOD NOVEMBER 8, 1939, TO SEPTEMBER 16, 1940
Cash on hand, November 8, 1939 $ 996.16 Cash received from J. A. Ford, Treasurer 20,500.00 Total cash $21,496.16 DISBURSEMENTS
Expenditures Budget for
Allowance Budget Period Nov. for for 8, 1939, to One Year 10 Months Sept. 16, 1940 President's Budget $ 2,000.00 $ 1,666.67 $ Secretary's Traveling Expense 2,500.00 2,083.33 1,847.18 Furniture and Fixtures 1,000.00 833.33 561.24 Rent 1,200.00 1,000.00 1,220.00 Office Supplies 600.00 500.00 172.87 Printing and Mimeographing 4,200.00 3,500.00 3,874.85 Postage and Express 1,300.00 1,083.33 1,028.90 Telephone and Telegraph 900.00 750.00 486.24 Books and Publications 150.00 125.00 42.70 Salaries and Extra Help 14,000.00 11,666.67 9,980.75 Miscellaneous and General Expense
in-cluding Social Security and D. C. taxes 2,618.00 2,181.67 1,928.02 TOTALS $30,468.00 $25,390.00 $21,142.75 TOTAL DISBURSEMENTS NOVEMBER 8, 1939, TO SEPTEMBER
16, 1940 $21,142.75
Cash balance in Hamilton National Bank, Washington, D. C., Sep-tember 16, 1940 ... $
Respectfully submitted,
J. A. FORD, Treasurer. Mr. Ford: May I report that since this above report was typed Oklahoma brought in $175.00, so that cash on hand is now $9,259.41, which you can compare with the $2,507 of last year.
When the Testimonial was given to Mr. Warden, I could not help but think that five years ago we did not have a cash statement of this kind and I feel sure that he can enter upon next year with a feeling of security since he now has $9,000 to jingle around in his
pockets.
Mr. Warden: We are all grateful that we are entirely solvent and are able to go ahead with the business in hand.
Mr. Ford: This is, of course, a ten month report.
Mr. Warden: May I say that a Treasurer who can collect more in ten months than he can in twelve is a good Treasurer. (Applause). This report will be referred to the Auditing Committee—the usual procedure.
REVIEW OF THE YEAR 25
I wish to say that while I have been your President for the last few years I have been given a great deal of credit that does not belong to me. Much of that credit should go to a hard working Secretary in the city of Washington, and it is my pleasure now to introduce our Secretary-Manager, Mr. F. 0. Hagie, who will tell you what he thinks about the year that has just passed.
Mr. Hagie: Mr. Warden, ladies and gentlemen: Mr. Warden has asked that I review for you some of the high lights of the year just passed.
A REVIEW OF THE YEAR
F. 0. Hagie, Secretary-Manager, Washington, D. C.
I have recently returned from a hurried six weeks' trip through fifteen of the seventeen states which are associated here together in this common cause. I wish I could devote the time allotted me to depicting to you the crying need which I saw and heard throughout my trip for just one thing—water—just plain water!
In the Great Plains and so-called dust bowl states where ten years ago 28 or 30 inches of rainfall was producing fair crops, today, in some places, the rainfall is down to 18 inches or less. These once humid area farms have taken on the color and habits of the desert. Ground waters have fallen; wells have gone dry; the trees, wood yards, and hedge rows are dead or dying; vacant houses are on both sides of the roads, villages and towns are dwindling with desertion and buildings are ill-kept. One has the feeling that here a great country is gradually slipping toward the desert—a country with 300,000 less people today than ten years ago—five states with near the highest birth rate in the Union, but today with 300,000 less people than a decade ago. And that's only half the story, for a million or more of those still remaining are largely dependent upon triple A checks, farm security loans or WPA jobs. If those were withdrawn, you would witness the greatest exodus this country has yet seen. Let us hope that they will not be withdrawn until their own flood waters can be stored and utilized for irrigation—or at least until farm lands with an assured water supply are made avail-able for them elsewhere.
Drought has issued her summons, drafting the western half of these great states as allies of the arid and semi-arid sections of western America. Methods which have proven successful through-out a lifetime in the West must now be applied there. The water-sheds above much of the country I have described are subject to flash floods, sometimes six or eight a year, so it is not uncommon to see streams run bank-full past fields of burned and worthless crops for a day or two, and then dry up until another rain storm hits another tributary, and discouraged, broken farmers—many of whom have been hauling water ten or fifteen miles for domestic and
stock purposes--again witness another flood of precious water past their farms—of no value _whatever to them because they have no dams or reservoirs in which to store the water for irrigation pur-poses. One ingenious farmer had installed gasoline motor-driven pumps which, by operating a day or so during each such flood, had more than tripled that portion of his crop upon which he was able to pump a supplemental supply of water. He reckoned the amount of irrigation water by the number of hours during which there was water in the river and he was able to run his pumps.
Growing a half--a fourth of a crop—or no crop at all, year after year, is poor business for any American and for the American Nation. Nothing succeeds like success. Likewise, nothing is so dev-astating as constant failure; it eats out the heart and warps the mind; it weakens initiative, destroys morale, enslaves men and leaves them without hope. Unless checked, it will destroy a democracy.
The same condition prevails in many of the irrigated sections farther west. Private irrigation projects, constructed with little or no storage capacity, a declining rainfall, streams going dry in June or July, and crops which could be saved and matured into a profit for the farmer and the nation, dry up into failure and defeat for want of a reservoir that would catch and hold the spring freshets and the summer floods.
In other areas visited, where storage reservoirs are lacking, irrigation from wells has lowered or depleted the water table to the place where salt water intrusion threatens the whole agricul-tural structure of the areas. Here again reservoir storage water is all that can save present investments and correct the present abuses and prevent failure.
At the same time there are a half million people who have al-ready been driven from the soil who have turned migratory farm laborers a few months of the year and to Federal relief agencies the rest of the time, pending completion of Federal reclamation projects that will bring in new land and upon which they hope for a new opportunity.
Reclaiming lands by the conservation and use of water to make profitable and happy American homes, of course is the aim of the Bureau of Reclamation. To expedite such a program is the purpose of this association.
My purpose this afternoon, therefore, is to review what your association, through its members, officers and directors, has ac-complished in this regard, working through our representatives and senators in Congress and the federal and state agencies in charge of reclamation and allied subjects since we last met in Den-ver just ten months and ten days ago today.
REVIEW OF THE YEAR 27
Ten months and ten days is a short year. Last year we had a thirteen-month year. When you adjourned last year at Denver, you left your officers and directors twenty-one resolutions, covering specific things which you wanted done. That you expected us to undertake many other important matters was quite definitely implied. Then as we returned to Washington, the exigencies of the times heaped other problems and obstacles before us.
Specifically, the 1939 fall drought in the six Great Plains and dust bowl states became the worst in recorded history, thereby necessitating the advancement of the Case-Wheeler program and factual study of migration.
The fact that America must undertake huge expenditures to arm herself for defense became apparent. The threat of over-running the country's legal debt limit gave us an economy-minded Congress. Simultaneously, several of the large reclamation projects, undertaken a few years back, had come into that construction period when the maximum of labor and material had been required to keep construction going so that in place of 50 or 60 millions of dollars being needed, $75,000,000 appeared to be the least that would carry the work forward economically, and $15,000,000 of that had to be secured in deficiency bills in order to make the money immediately available for the current fiscal year.
-Such was the peculiar paradox which we faced in Washington. To make matters worse, when the President's budget went to Con-gress early in January, instead of recommending to ConCon-gress the appropriation of $61,000,000 for reclamation—the amount which had been appropriated the previous year—the budget called for only $44,097,000, and, in spite of the intensified drought conditions in the six Great Plains states, there was no budget estimate what-ever for water conservation projects under the Case-Wheeler Act. To help the western senators and congressmen rectify these conditions became our first order of business.
President Warden and a number of your directors and the rep-resentatives of many of the supporting state and regional organiza-tions came to Washington to lend a hand. Conferences were called; careful plans were laid, and soon the West and the Congress were united back of those plans, and I am happy to report that your congressmen and senators were successful in carrying out those plans in all of their details, so that $14,867,000 was made available in deficiency bills to carry projects through the fiscal year of 1940; $60,822,000 was appropriated for construction during the fiscal year of 1941, of which $3,500,000 was for water conservation projects under the Case-Wheeler Act, and there was a total of nearly $800,000 appropriated for general investigational work by the Bureau.
In other words, with one of the lowest budget recommendations in several years, the Congress finally made available for
reclama-tion nearly $14,000,000 more than had ever before been appropri-ated by any single Congress for reclamation and irrigation purposes. The association focused attention upon the drought, the migra-tion, and the threatened evacuation of parts of the Great Plains. We pointed out that unless irrigation and reclamation were applied in those areas to the extent of available water, a real evacuation threatened parts of the Great Plains area. At the instance of Senator Hayden, the Secretary of the Interior proposed a tentative program of small projects the type of which, if undertaken, would prove feasible in stabilizing sections of the drought areas throughout the West. That program is now moving forward as fast as the engineers can discover and plan for the construction of feasible projects.
The association has been interested from the very first in the work and study of the congressional committee appointed by the Congress of the United States to study and inquire into the inter-state migration of destitute persons, its cause, effect, and possible cure or remedy. Since the migration is largely caused by drought, we believe it will eventually be solved and corrected by storage of water and by irrigation. Congressman Carl T. Curtis, a member of the congressional committee on migration, from Nebraska, a state that has lost more than 60,000 people in the last ten years, is sched-uled to report to you personally tomorrow afternoon from this plat-form on the work and preliminary findings of this important
com-mittee.
Other items to which the association devoted considerable time and effort include: an effort to amend the 1937 Sugar Act to make possible an orderly increase of sugar beet acreage for irrigation farmers throughout the West. This is a subject that you will hear more about Thursday morning from two or three of the men who have been on the firing line for more beet acreage.
This association, probably more than any other group, is re-sponsible for persuading Congress to again appropriate $500,000 for the water facilities program after they had voted the item down and rejected it on more than one occasion.
Further study and effort in behalf of increasing the reclama-tion fund resulted in passage in the Senate last week of the O'Mahoney bill which would turn over to the reclamation fund in excess of $3,000,000, being 521/2% of the amount recently retrieved from the Elk Hills oil suit in California. While this windfall helps, it does not solve the problem confronting the projects now being built from the reclamation fund. The accretions to the reclamation fund are at the rate of about $8,000,000 a year. The projects which now must look to that fund for construction should have from 20 to 25 million dollars a year for the next six or seven years for economical construction, or a number of the larger projects should be transferred to the general treasury for future funds. Either that,
REVIEW OF THE YEAR 29
or the reclamation funds will be forced through necessity to negoti-ate another loan from the general treasury for a sum adequnegoti-ate to complete the present projects within an economic time schedule.
Since the Case-Wheeler Act calls for WPA and CCC subsidies of labor, the association last spring set the wheels in motion to have a reasonable number of Civilian Conservation Corps camps assigned to the Bureau of Reclamation. I am informed that preliminary plans have been consummated to bring about a transfer of a small block of camps in the immediate future for this purpose.
We rendered aid and assistance to those who were sponsoring the Boulder Canyon Adjustment Act, as we were called upon both last year and this year until it finally passed and became law early this summer.
Each of the two great political parties are again pledged by their 1940 convention platforms to carry the federal reclamation program forward if returned to power in November. This is the first such pledge from either party since 1928. The western states are indebted to their political leaders in both parties for tireless effort during six or eight months preceding the party conventions this spring, and they are particularly indebted to those who under-took to organize such sentiment among their party members in ad-vance of the conventions, as well as to senators, congressmen and association members and officials who appeared personally before the Resolutions Committees of the respective parties at their ventions in Philadelphia and Chicago to argue the merits of con-tinuing the federal reclamation program. To have both of the great political parties of this country pledged to carry this program for-ward during the next four years is of tremendous importance to the West and to our association at this particular time.
The cooperation of community, regional and state organizations with this association has long been one of its main sources of strength. The number of such agencies, particularly those organized to ad-vance reclamation and water conservation for a particular state or area, are growing in numbers year by year and add greatly to our influence and strength. As they form and fill in, and solidify the reclamation line and contribute their thought and planning and strategy, they are like new and freshly added reserves to a football team just at the time when they are needed most. Recent among such organizations are the Brazos River Conservation and Reclama-tion AssociaReclama-tion of Texas; the Panhandle Water Authority with offices at Amarillo, Texas; the Southwestern Idaho Water Conserva-tion Project, Inc., of Boise, Idaho; and the Republican Valley Con-servation Association of McCook, Nebraska. We welcome these or-.ganizations and their members into our great family of
reclama-tionists.
Eternal vigilance is the price of recognition and success in the hurly-burly of legislative preferment, where provincialism,
section-alism, lack of understanding, and some little selfishness must be successfully met and overcome by a small western minority such as the West represents in the Congress of the United States.
Without the hundreds of affiliated organizations throughout the West which are members of this association and the thousands of individual members and frienls keeping constantly posted on what is going on in Washington that affects our program, and they in turn keeping the Washington office posted on what is going on back in every nook and cranny of the 17 western states, so that the full force of western determination can be applied where and when needed, the western reclamation policy would still be largely de-termined by men living in the humid sections of this country, prob-ably a thousand miles from any irrigation ditch—and they would not be the policies of today!
In knowledge, there is power. It is in knowing what reclamation has done for the West, and in visualizing what the West would be if there was no irrigation, that gives us the determination and strength to win against the five-to-one odds which we regularly must face in the Congress.
It's the knowledge that at least six and a half million people have been able to make homes and a living in the West as a result of our present irrigation, and that future irrigation can make good American homes for at least as many more, that gives you and me and our western congressmen and senators what it takes to carry on this program and win the new friends and supporters that are .necesary to secure for this program its national acceptance.
In knowing, and in getting that knowledge over to the nation as a whole, that in the last ten years, the five Great Plains states of North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma lost over 300,000 population, you call justify full steam ahead on the Case-Wheeler water conservation program. During the same decade the population in the eleven western states increased 15% as against a national average gain of 6.5%. With such population pressure, what else can the West do to absorb these people except to move forward expeditiously with the whole reclamation program of fur-nishing supplemental water where needed and, where feasible, the bringing in of new land?
Most people are beginning to realize that an insignificant amount of our bothersome, exportable surplus crops are grown on federal reclamation projects, that a slight raising of our tariff walls will do more to curtail surpluses than would the drying up all of our federal reclamation projects.
Gradually these facts of research are becoming known to our members and to their neighbors, to the press, and to the magazine writers. As this educational work proceeds, our horizon widens, a little of the fog rises, a few more people are beginning to know at
