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Mr. HAYDEN. Is it proper to assert our rights to that extent? Could there not be an equitable division of the water between the lands in the United States and in Mexico, recognizing in each case that the lands in each country have acquired a valid appropriation of water?

Mr. YAGER. I will state this, that the engineers have told us that there is water enough in the Colorado River for the irrigation of the whole watershed, but it will require storage to get that water so that there will be equalization of the stream throughout the year. If we go ahead about our own business and build this canal and if there is a shortage of water below the line, they will come to usthe people of the United States-and offer to pay for storage for additional water, but I do not believe Mexico has acquired any right, either equitable or legal, to these waters.

Mr. HAYDEN. You would not object if the Governments of the United States and Mexico should negotiate a treaty with the result that the people of Mexico should pay their fair share of the cost of any storage works which might be constructed in the United States?

Mr. YAGER. No; I can see no objection. I think the United States could furnish these Mexican lands with water provided they paid an amount which would justify the United States in building storage.

Mr. HAYDEN. The condition now is that the Mexicans have a right to the use of one-half of the water that passes through Mexico. You propose to change the conditions by the construction of an allAmerican canal, so that when there is not enough water in the Colorado River to supply all the lands in the United States and Mexico, the American lands shall use it and the Mexican lands shall go dry?

Mr. YAGER. There is no obligation upon the United States to continue running water through Mexico, and if Mexico does not wish to bear the expense of obtaining this water let her lands go dry. American lands should not be forced to bear the expense of irrigating Mexican lands.

Mr. HAYDEN. You decline to recognize that the Mexicans have any rights whatever by reason of the fact that they have been applying the waters to beneficial use on their lands?

Mr. YAGER. The fact that Mexicans have been using these waters does not deprive American citizens of their right to the use of them. Mr. HAYDEN. I am not referring to a legal right, but to an equitable right.

Mr. YAGER. They have no equitable right such as referred to in that letter of the Secretary of State, nor can those interests come before this committee with clean hands claiming an equitable right.

Mr. HAYDEN. If the irrigable area in the Imperial Valley is enlarged by the construction of an all-American canal of sufficient capacity to take all the water out of the Colorado River, for the two or three months of the year when the water is low, it would then be your purpose to see that the entire flow of the stream is diverted into the United States and let the lands in Mexico go absolutely dry during such seasons?

Mr. YAGER. It has been American lands that have built up and paid for the irrigation of that Mexican land. The Imperial Irriga

tion District voted bonds and paid for the canals through which the Mexican lands get water. They are under no equitable obligation to continue to furnish them water. If we go ahead and build an allAmerican canal and make it a business of our own and use the waters of the Colorado River on American lands, they can come to the United States and get plenty of water by paying for the storage, and if they do not want to pay for the irrigation of their lands, let them go dry.

Mr. HAYDEN. That is, you would require the Mexicans to pay for the construction of storage works in the United States to provide for the same supply of water which they now have without paying anything?

Mr. YAGER. Yes; for they are not entitled to these waters without paying anything.

Mr. ROSE. Your statement is correct, Mr. Hayden, without paying anything. We paid for the canal down there.

Mr. HAYDEN. There is no dispute about the fact that the Mexicans have a very one-sided contract in their favor at the present time, but this committee is bound to, in good faith, answer the objection made by the Secretary of State. I am trying to get your opinion, what you would have us say when this issue is raised in the House when consideration is given to this legislation. The Secretary of State is of the opinion that Congress in passing the Kettner bill would be dealing inequitably and violating the comity which should exist between nations. Your idea is I want to clearly get your viewsthat the United States should simply take all the water because we have the legal right and a physical way of doing it, and let the lands in Mexico go dry and be without water when the American lands can use the total supply from the Colorado River?

Mr. YAGER. Let me go ahead and explain here. They can get water for their lands if they will pay for it. Heretofore the Mexicans have been getting water and Americans have paid for it. I say let us go about our own business and get our own water. If they want water, they can get it; and if they don't care enough about it to come and say, "Here, we want more water, and we are willing to pay for it," let the Mexican lands dry up. It is up to them whether they want, water or not. It is not right or equitable that American lands be taxed to build canals and furnish water to Mexican lands when American lands are bare and the water ours.

Mr. HAYDEN. Would you limit the Mexican landowners by permitting them to obtain only such a supply of water as they could get by paying for storage works which would provide for their lands, or would you also provide that they might pay for their proper share of the all-American canal, with the privilege of obtaining water from the Laguna Dam from irrigation works which might be undertaken immediately?

Mr. YAGER. I think that the United States should make a fair charge for any water furnished Mexican land; and if the United States has to build a dam or canal to supply Mexico with those waters, the charge should be regulated by the cost in furnishing the

waters.

Mr. HAYDEN. Then, you would have the Mexicans pay their pro rata share, based upon the land now in cultivation in Mexico, for storage,

for the privilege of connecting with the Laguna Dam, and for the cost of enlarging the canal capacity from Laguna Dam down to the Mexican border, so as to carry water to them. You think it is fair for the Mexican lands to pay all such charges?

Mr. YAGER. Yes, sir. If they obtain their water from the United States, this Government should charge for furnishing it.

Mr. HAYDEN. Do you believe that negotiations should be conducted by the State Department with the Government of Mexico to ascertain what they are willing to do in that regard?

Mr. YAGER. Of course at the present time they are not willing to do anything and very openly state that they do not need to do anything. They are getting their water for nothing practically. American people are paying for it; they don't need to do anything. They don't want a treaty. It has been only those American interests down there that have suggested a treaty in the face of this legislation. If we should enact this legislation and make it a law on our statute books, I don't think it would be five minutes before they would come to us and say we want to treat with you. This Government, I don't think, would be disposed not to treat fairly with them, but they are drying up our land by reason of their extended use of water; and if allowed to continue, it will be only a time before the Imperial Valley will be a dry desert, as it was years ago.

Mr. SMITH. In other words, you believe the American people have a right to use the water in their own way without the Mexican people having anything to do with it?

Mr. YAGER. Yes, sir. I would like to quote in that connection the opinion of Attorney General Judson Harmon:

The fact that there is not enough water in the Rio Grande for the use of inhabitants of both countries for irrigation purposes does not give Mexico the right to subject the United States to the burden of arresting its development and denying to its inhabitants the use of a provision which nature has supplied entirely within its own territory. The recognition of such a right is entirely inconsistent of the sovereignty of the United States over its national domain.

Mr. HAYDEN. Your idea is that if we were in the same position with respect to an equitable division of the waters of the Colorado River as the United States was at the time of the agreement entered into with Mexico regarding the waters of the Rio Grande-that is, if there was a law on the United States statute books authorizing the Secretary of the Interior to use all the water of the Colorado River as he saw fit-that would then be the time to conduct diplomatic negotiations with Mexico rather than to attempt to negotiate prior to the passage of such a law?

Mr. YAGER. Yes. Pass the law, and they will be willing to treat, I think. This Government, I don't think, has any disposition to impose any hardships on Mexico or deprive them of anything they have there. All we want is not to be deprived ourselves.

Mr. HAYDEN. If precedents amount to anything, the United States certainly was liberal enough in the Rio Grande case to insure the Mexicans that they will get justice in the apportionment of the waters of the Colorado River.

Mr. YAGER. After the way we have been treated regarding these waters and after the many insults we have received from Mexico I can not understand why our State Department suggests that comity requires so much from us. We can't pick up a newspaper hardly

any day but what we see an insult has been made to the United States by demanding thousands of dollars for a ransom. So that is our contention with regard to the position of the Secretary of State. I don't believe it is tenable. I think it is directly against our interests as American citizens.

Mr. ROSE. There is one thing that strikes me. It strikes me as queer that the Secretary of State of the United States should be pleading for the interest of some foreign country rather than the interests of 60,000 citizens of the United States.

Mr. HAYDEN. That is not a fair attitude in which to place the Secretary of State. He is compelled to frequently deal with the Government of Mexico with regard to the rights of Mexican citizens in the United States and the rights of American citizens in Mexico. He wants to be in position to treat with them about all matters of mutual interest. It is entirely proper for the Secretary of State to advise that there are relations between the two Governments which deserve fair consideration by Congress. You think only of the Imperial Valley situation, which is deplorable; but you must remember, Mr. Rose, that the Secretary of State has to deal with a great many other situations which are just as difficult, with probably as large interests involved, in which he must act fairly by the Mexican Government.

Mr. Rose. But the Mexican people haven't asked anything. He comes in and makes the suggestion, evidently provoked to do it by large interests in the United States.

Mr. HAYDEN. I do not think your inference is warranted for the reason that away back in 1912 Secretary Lansing states that negotiations were pending between the United States and Mexico regarding the waters of the Colorado River.

Mr. ROSE. Mexico turned them down. It was Otis. He asked them for. an equitable division. They asked him what that meant. Equal division, he told them. They said no; they didn't want an equitable division, but an equal division. There isn't anything on record, and we have asked for it and searched for it, where they have asked for an equitable distribution.

Mr. HAYDEN. If the situation was changed by the passage of the pending bill do you believe that the Mexican Government would then want to negotiate for a distribution of the waters of the Colorado River?

Mr. ROSE. That is another thing I want to say. By the passage of this act, if it was taking all of the water out of the Colorado River and making it impossible at any time in the future to negotiate, it would be different, but the facts before this committee show that there is enough water in this river to irrigate the land of both countries, and if we build the canal there is yet opportunity for the Mexican interests to get it by building storage, and you still have the opportunity to negotiate with them for a division of the water.

Mr. YAGER. All we ask is that we sever connection with Mexico, and if they want to come to the United States and negotiate for this water I think it will be all right. But as for us going on for years and years paying their bills I don't think it is just and I don't think this Congress should stand for it

I would like to state a word in regard to the position of the Secretary of the Treasury in regard to this matter. You have his letter filed with this committee objecting to certain portions of the bill, more particularly the form of underwriting the bonds of the district, accepting our bonds and issuing certificates of the Treasury in lieu of that. In our attempt to provide here in this bill some adequate way in which the districts can go ahead and pay for their own irrigating system and build up their own land at their own expense, we have met with a great many objections.

One of them we find in the Farm Loan Board. The Imperial Valley has, of course, made application for farm loans and have received a great many thousands, believing they were justified in taking advantage of the opportunity of getting a cheaper rate of interest the same as other districts, and I will say right here, in the 19 years that the Imperial irrigation district has been in existence they have created a valuation there of over $100,000,000. Last year they produced out of that district produce of the value of over $50,000,000. Imperial Valley is the third largest shipping center in the State of California, including San Francisco and Los Angeles. So we have a valuation there that is entitled to at least the consideration of our Government and our Government's departments in making loans. The building up of this territory has been done not through the help of the Government but through the tenacity of the farmers and Americans who have gone down there and taken it as a desert plain and built it up to what it is; and notwithstanding the valuations created here, when we attempt to make farm loans we received such letters as this. I don't believe this has been read into the record or brought to the attention of the committee as a committee. It is a letter from the president of the Farm Loan Bank at Berkeley, who has jurisdiction over that district in California, to Judge Charles E. Lobdell, who was then and is now chairman of the Farm Loan Board here, and reads:

MY DEAR JUDGE: Following the suggestion you made during your last visit here, I recently went to Los Angeles and had a long conversation with Mr. Harry Chandler, of the Los Angeles Times.

You will probably recall that Mr. Chandler and his associates are large landowners in the Imperial valley, and especially have tremendous holdings across the line in Lower California, Mexico. These lands are deriving their water through the main canal which supplies the most of Imperial Valley.

It will be impossible for me to recite all the subjects and points discussed, but I simply want to say that I finally asked him this question. If he were in my position, knowing all the circumstances, conditions, menaces, and uncertainties which exist in the Imperial Valley, and knowing the type of farmers with which we have to deal, would he make long-term loans in that country? Or if he were in the mortgage business, would he lend his own money there on the same terms as our loans are made?

He answered flatly that he would not; that the situation was indeterminate; that the farmers, generally, were undecided, were pioneers, and largely of that class of people who made no permanent homes; that very few of them had any conception of the dangers that constantly menaced them, both from flood and from lack of water; that they were contentious, quarrelsome, and unreasonable. I know positively that Mr. Chandler would not want to be .quoted in this, and that he gave me his views as man to man and on account of the very friendly relations we have maintained for many years past. I do not want to make any further loans in the Imperial Valley until the water conditions are settled, and this may require two or three years. Furthermore, I believe it would be unwise to give as our reason for refusing to make these loans that it is on account of an unfavorable report made by our engineer. This would, of course, do that country a great deal of damage.

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