THE ELEPHANT BUTTE DAM.

On September 9, 1893, the Rio Grande Dam and Irrigation Company was duly organized as a chartered corporation under the laws of New Mexico, with a capital stock of $5,000,000, and designating Las Cruces, N. Mex., as the principal place of business, with offices also at El Paso, Tex., and the city of Juarez, Mexico. The names of the incorporators were Edwin C. Roberts, Edwin V. Berrien, John L. Campbell, Peter E. Kern, Phoebus Freudenthal, John H. Riley, Solomon Schulz, Albert M. Loomis, L. Bradford Prince, a majority of whom are residents of the United States, and at least one-third are residents of this Territory. The purposes for which such company is formed are for the purpose of constructing and maintaining dams, reservoirs, and canals, and ditches and pipe lines for the purpose of supplying water for irrigation, mining, manufacturing, domestic, and other public uses, including supply of water for cities and towns, for municipal and commercial uses, and for power and all other useful purposes to which water can be supplied; and for the purpose of colonization and the improvement of lands in connection therewith; and for such other purposes and with such other objects, powers, and privileges as may be permitted or conferred by general or special acts of this Territory, or by the acts of Congress of the United States or the Government of Mexico. And it is the purpose of this company to carry on and transact any and all operations pursuant to the purpose and within the powers herein set forth, as well as in the Territory of New Mexico and the State of Texas and the Republic of Mexico; and to acquire, mortgage, and dispose of property. and transact business in any place or jurisdiction within or without the United States of America. And the beginning point and terminus of the main line of such canals, ditches, and pipe lines shall be to begin at the dam or dams to be built across the Rio Grande at any point or place or various and several places within townships 13 and 14, and ranges 3 and 4 west, in Sierra County, N. Mex., and to terminate at any point or place and various and several places in the Territory of New Mexico, State of Texas, and Republic of Mexico, to which it may be practical to carry the waters so accumulated; and the general courses and directions of such canals, pipe lines, and ditches shall be southerly and southeasterly along the Rio Grande and through the Mesilla Valley and into the Republic of Mexico, and south westerly and easterly to such places as may be practical to extend such canals, pipe lines, and ditches and convey the waters so accumulated; and the length thereof shall be from 50 miles to 5,000 miles, it being impossible to state the point of beginning, terminus, course, and length of said canal, ditches, and pipe lines more definitely at this time.

After the preliminary surveys had been made it became evident that the undertaking would require a very large amount of capital, much more than had originally been counted on to carry it through, so Dr. Nathan E. Boyd, a Virginian, then a health seeker at Las Cruces, undertook to finance the enterprise in London. As a résult a company known as the Rio Grande Irrigation and Land Company, Limited, of London, acquired the rights of the Rio Grande Dam and Irrigation Company. The object of this company, in a word, was to store the overflow waters and irrigate the Rio Grande Valley in the southern part of this Territory. Of this overflow water there is an immense quantity that goes to waste every year, as there are no dams on the Rio Grande to store these waters.

The general plan of this company was to construct a mammoth dam at the Elephant Butte, near Engle, N. Mex., and form at this point the largest storage reservoir in the world. In addition to the large dam, a series of smaller ones were to be constructed, together with canals, and by this means bring under irrigation and cultivation hundreds of thousands of acres of the most fertile land on the continent.

Work on the smaller dams and canals was commenced in November, 1896, and continued until the spring of 1897, upward of $90,000 having been expended. At this point the United States brought suit

Work had to

to enjoin the company from building the storage dam. be stopped, and that already done was left in such a condition as to be subjected to great damage by the annual floods. The ground for seeking the injunction was that the Rio Grande was a navigable stream.

This claim is preposterous. The Rio Grande is not and never has been a navigable stream, except where it is affected by the tide. The true secret of the attack can be found in the effort of certain persons to have constructed at El Paso, at Government expense, a so-called international dam, and, under the impression that the Elephant Butte dam would interfere with their plans and monopolize the water, they oppose the enterprise. A careful investigation goes to show that instead of the Elephant Butte dam monopolizing all the water, the reverse would be the result, and the people at or near El Paso would have more water after its construction than before.

It is to be hoped that this question will shortly be settled and the company permitted to resume operations, for with the completion of this work will blossom forth one of the richest agricultural, fruit, and dairy sections in the West. It will outrival California and supply the East with a superior and better quality of fruits and vegetables than can be produced in any other section of America. The vast interests involved are now pending in one form or another in the Supreme Court of the United States and before Congress. Before the latter body the subject has assumed the form of a measure known as the Culberson-Stephens bill, which actually seeks to deprive the citizens of New Mexico of the use of the waters of its most important stream, the Rio Grande, for irrigation purposes.

DEFENDING NEW MEXICO'S RIGHTS.

On January 12, 1901, in behalf of the people of this Territory, I had the honor of appearing before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations at Washington, at which time I filed the following argument in the premises:

Mr. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN OF THE COMMITTEE: I appear before you representing the 250,000 people in the Territory of New Mexico, as well as the material interests of that great Territory, which are vitally affected by Senate bill No. 3794, now under consideration. This bill is identically the same as introduced in the House by Mr. Stephens of Texas, and against the passage of which the people of New Mexico in their legislature and in various political conventions have entered their earnest protests. The same bill now appears, introduced by the honorable Senator from the State of Texas, and has been favorably reported by the Committee on Foreign Relations of that body without any consultation with the people of New Mexico or any attempt to get their views upon the subject, and, indeed, without their knowledge until the report of the committee was made public on the 19th of December.

New Mexico has for fifty years been the ward of this Government and supposed to be by treaty stipulations and the relations existing between guardians and wards entitled to the fostering care of this great nation. But this bill introduced in the Senate and recommended for passage is calculated to deprive the Territory of its chief source of income and its main dependence for existence. Irrigation has been practiced in that Territory successfully for the last three hundred years. It was the first part of North America to be irrigated, and, while the methods were crude and the results of most of them small, in the aggregate they have made the valley of the Rio Grande a succession of vineyards and alfalfa fields for more than 200 miles along its borders.

This committee will observe that the Senate committee recommends in the fifth paragraph, under the head of recommendations, found at page 5 of the report which is before you, that in the proposed treaty for the final settlement of all questions regarding the distribution of the waters of the Rio Grande, some way shall be provided with which to prevent the construction of any large reservoirs on the Rio

Grande in the Territory of New Mexico. or, in lieu thereof, if that be impracticable. restrain any such reservoirs hereafter constructed from the use of any waters to which the citizens of the El Paso Valley, either in Mexico or the United States, have the right by prior appropriations."

It will be observed in this report that nothing is said in regard to the construction of such reservoirs in the State of Colorado, although in a previous portion of the report it is shown that a much larger amount of water is taken by that State than by the Territory of New Mexico. Thus it is proposed to absolutely prohibit any irrigation enterprises in the Territory of New Mexico, at a time when this Government is being urged by the representatives from Colorado to appropriate $12.000.000 for the construction of reservoirs in certain States named, this bill not including the Territory of New Mexico. With New Mexico a State, as of right it ought to be, no such proposition as this would for an instant be entertained by any one, and I most respectfully submit that our very helplessness in the national councils should be a most potent argument for the national Congress to see that our present rights are not infringed upon or curtailed for the benefit or to the advantage of the great State of Texas, or our sister republic on the south. Under the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo our citizens were forever guaranteed their rights of property as they existed at that time, May 30, 1848, and to the enjoyment of all the rights of citizens of the United States, according to the principles of the Constitution.

This report of the joint commission, which is made a part of the report of the Senate committee on this bill, was made November 26, 1896, and upon a wrongful assumption of the facts. After that date the United States instituted a suit against the Rio Grande Dam and Irrigation Company to restrain it from constructing or maintaining a dam across the Rio Grande at a point about 100 miles north of the city of El Paso, Tex., where the boundary line between the United States and Mexico is the center of that stream. The defendants below demurred to the bill. the demurrer was sustained in the district court, the United States took it to the supreme court of the Territory, which, on the 5th of January, 1898, sustained the district court. It was then taken by the Government to the Supreme Court of the United States, where, on the 22d day of May, 1899, the case was reversed and remanded, with instructions to set aside the decree of dismissal, and to order an inquiry into the question whether the intended act of the defendants in the construction of the dam and in appropriating waters of the Rio Grande will substantially diminish the navigability of that stream within the limits of present navigability, and, if so, to enter a decree restraining those acts to the extent that they will so diminish. This case is reported in 174 United States, at page 690, in which Judge Brewer, delivering the opinion, says, at page 699: "I am not therefore disposed to question the conclusion reached by the trial court and the supreme court of the Territory that the Rio Grande, within the limits of New Mexico, is not navigable; neither is it necessary to consider the treaty stipulations between this country and Mexico." In accordance with the mandate of the Supreme Court of the United States testimony was taken for several weeks before Judge Parker, of Las Cruces, near the Mexican border, and a large number of witnesses were examined with reference to the fact whether such a dam would substantially diminish the navigability of the Rio Grande within the limits of present navigability. All of this testimony was to the effect that such a dam as was contemplated would not have any effect in that direction. and the court so found. From this judgment of the district court the United States took an appeal to the supreme court of the Territory, which affirmed the judgment of the court below. Thereupon the United States again appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, where it is now pending, and will not be reached for argument at the present term; and I submit to this committee that, until the decision of that court, it would be highly improper for a coordinate branch of the Government, i. e., the legislative, to act in such a way as is contemplated by the bill in question while the matter is sub judice.

The transcript of the record in that case contains an enormous amount of testimony from reliable parties upon the subject in controversy, to which I would invite the attention of the committee, as my time is too limited to read even a portion of it.

It will be observed that this "joint commission " earnestly recommends the construction of a damn across the Rio Grande at El Paso, at an expense of $2.317,133.36, and the ceding by the United States to Mexico of a portion of the Territory of New Mexico, and that the Senate committee agrees in these recommendations in its report on this bill, while the United States, by its law department, has for more than three years past been endeavoring to prohibit the construction of a similar dam 100 miles north of El Paso upon the ground that it would materially impair the navigability of that river at a point between 800 and 900 miles below El Paso,