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 MAR 29 
 
 FROM THE PRESIDENT'S OFFICE 
 TO THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 EDITORIAL 
 OPINIONS 
 
 ON FLOOD CONTROL 
 AND RECLAMATION 
 
 WITH REFERENCE TO 
 
 SUTTER BASIN 
 PROJECT 
 
The articles reproduced here- 
 with are editorials from the 
 daily press of Sacramento, the 
 editors of which made thorough 
 personal investigation of the 
 situation now attracting the 
 attention of the California Leg- 
 islature, the State Reclamation 
 Board, and others interested in 
 flood control and reclamation 
 problems established by the Cal- 
 ifornia Debris Commission. 
 
(Sacramento Union, March 8, 1915.) 
 
 Big Reclamation Problem 
 
 The controversy over the Sutter 
 by-pass, which has aroused much 
 bitterness in Sutter county and has 
 provoked to harsh language the 
 opponents of the completion of the 
 proposed flood control system along 
 the lines laid down by the State 
 Reclamation Board, will be one of 
 the matters which the lawmakers 
 who reconvene today must finally 
 settle. 
 
 The flood problem is the great 
 question of the entire northern part 
 of the State. Private attempts to find 
 a solution of this problem cannot 
 succeed. A million acres of fertile 
 land are useless because of the win- 
 ter floods. 
 
 Haphazard methods have ruled in 
 this work for nearly half a century 
 and the situation has been only ag- 
 gravated. Under the system of recla- 
 mation that has grown up every man 
 is building against every other man. 
 
 Big levees are built to overtop little 
 levees and then still larger levees 
 are constructed by other reclaimers. 
 
 No account has been taken of the 
 fact that the flood waters must get 
 to the bay by some means and along 
 some route. Every land owner nat- 
 urally says : "You can't turn the 
 flood waters on me." No one wants 
 to convert his property into a water- 
 way to please his neighbor. 
 
 The system devised by the United 
 States and State engineers and em- 
 bodied in the flood control plan of 
 the Debris Commission is the first 
 attempt to treat this problem as a 
 whole. It takes into consideration 
 the needs of navigation. It proposes 
 a plan to care for all the flood waters 
 of the Sacramento Valley. 
 
 The people of Sutter County assert 
 that they are in thorough sympathy 
 with the proposed flood control sys- 
 tem. But they declare that in locat- 
 ing the proposed by-pass along the 
 eastern rim of the Sutter Basin the 
 
 engineers menace the orchards and 
 homes of thousands of farmers who 
 are now behind their own levees. 
 They have said in their resolutions 
 that they object to the cost of the 
 proposed work. 
 
 The State engineers contend that 
 the proposed route for the by-pass 
 through the center of the basin as 
 indicated in the Debris Commis- 
 sion's report is inferior to the east- 
 ern location from an engineering 
 standpoint because of the depth of 
 the center depression. 
 
 Furthermore, the engineers say 
 that whether the by-pass follows the 
 central or the eastern route, the cost 
 will be levied on the same land. In 
 other words, it makes no difference 
 which route is followed so far as the 
 cost to the farmers is concerned. 
 The assessment will be determined 
 by the assessors of the Reclamation 
 Board. 
 
 The vital thing for the State of 
 California is the completion of the 
 flood control system so that it will re- 
 claim the largest amount of land and 
 do the minimum amount of harm. 
 
 No one desires to see flourishing 
 orchards flooded. No one cares to 
 witness the destruction of farms in 
 order that other farms may be 
 created. 
 
 But certainly it is not to the inter- 
 est of the State to permit the fears 
 of the people of one section to pre- 
 vent the completion of a great sys- 
 tem of flood control which aims to 
 bring into cultivation great tracts of 
 land now useless, and which has 
 been designed by engineers after 
 years of study. 
 
 Some solution of the question 
 should be found which will remove 
 it from local prejudice. The law- 
 makers should provide means for 
 the completion of the by-pass sys- 
 tem without constant and apparently 
 endless litigation. Some machinery 
 should be provided to facilitate the 
 work in the interests of the greatest 
 good to the greatest number. 
 
 3932fiO 
 
(Sacramento Union, March 9, 1915.) 
 
 Some Fads on By-Pass Plan 
 
 There seems to be much misinfor- 
 mation abroad concerning the flood 
 control system officially adopted by 
 the State nearly two years ago after 
 the report of the California Debris 
 Commission was made. 
 
 The people, particularly the owners 
 of land in and around the flood dis- 
 trict, should remember that the cost 
 of the by-pass system will be placed 
 against all the land benefited, re- 
 gardless of the location of the 
 waterways. 
 
 The by-pass is not a levee system 
 in the old sense that it is a barricade 
 against water. On the contrary, it 
 is an artificial drainage channel. 
 
 As Engineer Bailey states it, "A 
 by-pass is two levees and the land 
 that lies between them." 
 
 While the promoters of a reclama- 
 tion district may advance for their 
 own advantage the money for the 
 construction of the by-pass levees or 
 part of them, they will be reimbursed 
 by assessments laid on all the land 
 which the reclamation engineers find 
 to have been benefited by the work. 
 
 The tax will vary in proportion to 
 the amount of benefit derived from 
 the drainage system. Naturally the 
 low land which would have been un- 
 der water for a great part of the 
 year will pay the heaviest tax. High 
 land which is comparatively safe 
 from flood will pay only a nominal 
 tax. 
 
 The Sutter Basin Company would 
 pay the same amount no matter 
 
 whether the by-pass runs through 
 the center of their property or down 
 the west side of the Sacramento 
 River. The same is true of every 
 other foot of land in the region af- 
 fected by the drainage system. 
 
 It will not save the farmers of Sut- 
 ter County one cent to move the by- 
 pass ten, twenty or fifty miles to the 
 west, if their land comes within the 
 area benefited by the waterway. The 
 only measure of the tax is the 
 amount of benefit derived. 
 
 It will be seen that the contention 
 of some that it is not the principle 
 of the by-pass system but the spe- 
 cific location of the Sutter by-pass 
 that causes opposition is not well 
 founded. 
 
 If it will be confiscation of the 
 farmers' lands to build the proposed 
 by-pass along the eastern route, then 
 the construction along the central or 
 any other route will be equally con- 
 fiscatory. 
 
 If the farmers are right, then our 
 proposed reclamation system is all 
 wrong and we might as well abandon 
 it. But the representatives of the 
 farmers in various mass meetings 
 have asserted that the flood control 
 plan is right. 
 
 The engineers of the Federal Gov- 
 ernment declare it is right. The en- 
 gineers of the State reclamation 
 service say it is right, and that it 
 will help and not hurt the farmers. 
 
 And there you are. 
 
 (Sacramento Union, March 12, 1915.) 
 
 By-Pass Plan a State Matter 
 
 While on its surface the contro- 
 versy between the promoters of the 
 Sutter Basin reclamation project and 
 the Sutter County farmers is appar- 
 
 ently a local matter, the fate of the 
 entire flood control system of the 
 Sacramento Valley is involved in its 
 settlement. 
 
A repudiation of the plan adopted 
 by the State of California after years 
 of study would practically mean the 
 abandonment of the entire by-pass 
 system. 
 
 The problem of the control of the 
 flood waters of the Sacramento Val- 
 ley has been under consideration by 
 the engineers of the United States 
 and the State of California for more 
 than thirty years. 
 
 After the study of the question by 
 three boards of engineers, the report 
 of the California Debris Commission 
 finally outlined a system of weirs 
 and by-passes to carry off the flood 
 waters which exceed the flow of the 
 river five times. 
 
 The special session of the Legis- 
 lature called by Governor Johnson 
 in 1911 provided for the Reclamation 
 Board, into the hands of which the 
 entire problem of reclamation was 
 given. 
 
 Under the authorization of the law 
 and by the direct action of the State 
 Reclamation Board and its engi- 
 neers, the lines of the proposed sys- 
 tem were located. 
 
 These lines were fixed without 
 reference to the ownership of any 
 part of the land. They were laid out 
 along the contours which the engi- 
 neers after the completion of their 
 surveys decided would best serve the 
 purpose of conducting the flood 
 waters to the bay. 
 
 Their only aim was to protect the 
 river and provide a way for the safe 
 and scientific reclamation of the 
 largest possible area of land. 
 
 All the claims and assertions of 
 the present opponents of the flood 
 control system, even to the objec- 
 tions to the specific location of the 
 by-pass, were presented to the Recla- 
 mation Board, but in spite of all 
 arguments that body approved the 
 plan of its engineers. 
 
 It should be borne in mind that 
 according to the testimony of the 
 
 men who fixed the location of the 
 proposed by-pass, engineering con- 
 sideration alone dictated the line of 
 the drainage channel. 
 
 If the local court of Sutter County 
 or Sutter County itself has the power 
 to put an end to the construction of 
 the by-pass along the route chosen 
 by the State engineers and approved 
 by the State Reclamation Board, 
 what assurance is there that some 
 other court in some other county 
 may not take the same action in 
 reference to some other part of the 
 system? 
 
 This system cannot be a thing of 
 shreds and patches. It must be con- 
 structed as one big system. Each 
 fragment is dependent on every other 
 portion. 
 
 The aim of the engineers is not to 
 reclaim this or that parcel of land, 
 but to provide a method of carrying 
 the surplus waters with the least 
 possible damage to an outlet at the 
 bay. 
 
 The question of the ownership of 
 the land on either side of the by- 
 pass is not involved. To the State of 
 California it makes no difference who 
 owns all or any of it. 
 
 We as a State are concerned with 
 the problem of flood control and the 
 broad question of reclamation. 
 
 If we are not to carry out the sys- 
 tem of flood control designed after 
 years of study, we might just as well 
 drop the matter and permit the in- 
 dividual land owners to continue the 
 senseless system of building against 
 each other and fighting through the 
 courts the thousand and one ques- 
 tions that arise. 
 
 The legislators either should clear 
 the way so that the State can pro- 
 ceed along the line mapped out by 
 its engineers and commissioners or 
 we might as well abandon the by- 
 pass plan and consign the Reclama 
 tion Board to the junk pile. 
 
(Sacramento Bee, February 25, 1915.) 
 
 Fighting Each Other While 
 
 the Floods Overwhelm All 
 
 The losses created by the floods 
 of this month in the Colusa Basin 
 and the Knights Landing Ridge Dis- 
 trict have been great; but the injury 
 has been so widespread, affecting so 
 many districts and individuals, that 
 the warring reclamation owners may 
 recognize the absolute futility of in- 
 dependent protective efforts and 
 unite to secure the speedy comple- 
 tion of the only plan which spells 
 safety for all. In that event the 
 floods, notwithstanding the imme- 
 diate damage, will have proved of 
 actual benefit. 
 
 As it is, District 108 has 26,000 acres 
 of seeded land destroyed, so far as 
 concerns this year's' crop, an actual 
 loss of $5 per acre ; District 730 has 
 been flooded, with great damage ; 
 private holdings about the Ridge are 
 under water, as are portions of the 
 town itself. 
 
 + None of these things would 
 + have happened had the Knights 
 ^ Landing cut been in operation. 
 * That cut would have been com- 
 <> pleted and affording relief to- 
 ^ day, but for the opposition and 
 ^ litigation of reclamation land- 
 4* owners, many of whom are al- 
 + ready suffering loss in conse- + 
 ^ quence of the delay. 
 
 Similar conditions exist in the Sut- 
 ter Basin. The Reclamation Board 
 approved the plans of District 1500, 
 with the reservation that its levees 
 must not be closed for two seasons, 
 thus allowing time for owners and 
 districts on the east and north basin 
 to co-operate and secure similar pro- 
 tection for their own property. Many 
 of them preferred, instead, to oppose 
 the entire flood control project and 
 
 prevent or delay its completion. It is 
 not unlikely that they also will find 
 themselves the sufferers by their 
 action. 
 
 District 1600, extending along the 
 Sacramento River from the mouth of 
 the Feather to a point south of the 
 Elkhorn weir, was granted permis- 
 sion by the Reclamation Board to 
 complete its levee system provided 
 the levees were not closed for two 
 seasons. This was intended to 
 allow time for Sacramento City and 
 others interested to construct the 
 Sacramento by-pass and secure re- 
 lief thereby for flood waters, prior 
 to the closing by District 1600 of 
 openings at Elkhorn weir, Butchers 
 Break and elsewhere on the Sacra- 
 mento. 
 
 Sacramento City thus far has 
 failed to take advantage of the op- 
 portunity offered. Unless her Com- 
 mission completes before December, 
 1915, the Sacramento weir, the city 
 must face next Winter the menace 
 not only of the American River 
 floods, but also of those from the 
 Sacramento and Feather Rivers, un- 
 relieved by any breaks north of her. 
 
 It would seem, with object lessons 
 of this kind, and the positive assur- 
 ance from the Government engineers 
 and all other competent authority 
 familiar with the matter, that only 
 the flood control project can control 
 the river and save the valley, the 
 warring reclamation land owners 
 would come to their senses. They 
 can now either continue to fight 
 until they are all submerged, or unite 
 to hasten the construction of the 
 one life-raft that can carry them to 
 safety. They may not like the mem- 
 bers of the Reclamation Board, and 
 they may disagree with some details 
 of the engineers' plans; but to seek, 
 for a reason of this kind, the defeat 
 of the entire project, is suicidal. 
 
(Sacramento Bee, March 6, 1915.) 
 
 Misapprehension Regarding the Sutter Basin By-Pass 
 
 A large mass meeting of citizens 
 of Yuba and Sutter Counties was 
 held at Marysville yesterday after- 
 noon, at which resolutions were 
 adopted in opposition to the Sutter 
 Basin by-pass, as now located. A 
 full report of the proceedings ap- 
 pears in The Bee's news columns 
 to-day. 
 
 A circular announcement of the 
 meeting, issued by a joint commit- 
 tee of Sutter and Yuba taxpayers, 
 declared the by-pass, as now located, 
 
 will not only mean ruin to thou- 
 sands of their citizens engaged in 
 agricultural and mercantile pur- 
 suits, but will prove to be a work 
 of monumental folly which would 
 ever be a dangerous menace to the 
 entire Sacramento Valley. 
 
 Either the Federal, State or other 
 competent engineers do not know 
 their business, or some of the people 
 in those two counties are unneces- 
 sarily disturbed. 
 
 It is explained that all lands in 
 and adjoining the Sutter Basin will 
 be fully protected on completion of 
 the flood control project as outlined. 
 
 The closing of District 1500's 
 levees was delayed two years to al- 
 low of co-operation of other parts 
 of the Basin. Naturally, if some in- 
 sist on blocking the work, there will 
 be temporary danger to unprotected 
 lands. The same thing occurs on 
 the river when one district builds 
 
 strong levees and its neighbors fail 
 to do so. 
 
 The Sutter people say they favor 
 the central location of the by-pass. 
 The engineers explain that the cen- 
 tral location by-pass, when com- 
 pleted, would accomplish no more in 
 protection of various districts than 
 the eastern one, and has various 
 disadvantages. 
 
 The central location raises the 
 flood plane, too, though not as much 
 as the eastern, and the same dan- 
 gers would be created in building 
 the west levees on the central loca- 
 tion, if owners declined to permit 
 construction of the east levees 
 thereof. 
 
 The official statements of the 
 Sutter County people certainly con- 
 tain a number of errors as to facts. 
 It would appear wise to learn first 
 those facts, and then co-operate in 
 completion of the plan which will 
 protect them. 
 
 As The Bee understand it, even 
 the Sutter County engineers do not 
 assert that the complete project as 
 approved by the Reclamation Board 
 will not protect all lands, including 
 those of the protestants. 
 
 They object to a part of the pro- 
 ject being carried out by District 
 1500, but have thus far refused or 
 failed to co-operate in carrying out 
 portions which would insure protec- 
 tion to themselves. 
 
 (Sacramento Star, March 2, 1915.) 
 
 The Sutter Basin Project 
 
 The Star offers no apology for 
 favoring the early completion of the 
 great Sutter Basin drainage project. 
 In common with all other concerns 
 in this city, who have the good of 
 Sacramento at heart, The Star wants 
 to see Sacramento a city of 250,000 
 prosperous and busy people and 
 
 three times as many busy and pros- 
 perous people upon the farms and 
 in the villages and towns of North- 
 ern California tributary to Sacra- 
 mento. 
 
 With a soil not excelled by that of 
 any other region in the world ; with 
 a climate surpassing that of every 
 
other part of the world so far as the 
 purposes of productivity are con- 
 cerned; with transportation facilities 
 almost unbelievable and with oppor- 
 tunities for growth such as are pos- 
 sessed by scarcely any other country 
 in the world, Northern California 
 still lingers in the forward proces- 
 sion. 
 
 True, the assessed valuation of 
 Sutter County has shown an increase 
 of nearly 100 per cent in ten years 
 and Sacramento County has also 
 shown a large increase in values, but 
 after all there is not a man or woman 
 of intelligence in Northern Califor- 
 nia who does not know that this 
 region ought to have ten families 
 where now we have one. 
 
 Reclamation of the overflowed 
 lands of Sacramento River will do 
 much to bring about this condition 
 so greatly to be desired, and of the 
 projects now under way or being- 
 considered that of Sutter Basin ap- 
 pears to be one of the most favorably 
 conditioned. 
 
 The great fault of the Wright irri- 
 gation law was not in the plan at 
 all, but merely in the administration 
 of the districts. Bonds were peddled 
 
 at high interest and heavy discounts 
 and all sorts of offers were made for 
 money to carry on the work. In 
 most cases the districts simply fell 
 down for lack of capital and intelli- 
 gent administration. No such handi- 
 cap operates against Sutter Basin. 
 Here we have the very highest form 
 of management, engineers, the best 
 procurable, practically no manage- 
 ment expense, a minimum of over- 
 head expense, and no promotion. No _ 
 stock for sale and no bids for money. 
 As George Peltier explained in his 
 river speech the other day, he has 
 plenty of money to carry the project 
 to success, although it will require 
 several millions more to be spent in 
 this immediate region for labor alone 
 but Sutter Basin wants merely the 
 moral support of the people of Sac- 
 ramento and adjoining counties. 
 
 It is but the first unit in that grand 
 comprehensive scheme outlined in 
 the Jackson plan by which 1,000,000 
 acres of swamp and overflow lands, 
 lying in the Sacramento River basin, 
 will ultimately be reclaimed, and in- 
 stead of being a vast game preserve 
 will be made over into homes for the 
 people upon the soil. 
 
 (Sacramento Star, March 12, 1915.) 
 
 The Sutter Basin Project 
 
 As usual, when a bitter controversy 
 is engenderd, the real issue is lost 
 sight of in the Sutter Basin by-pass 
 matter now before the California 
 Legislature. 
 
 The proposition which the Legis- 
 lature will have to decide within the 
 next few days is not whether or not, 
 a certain project known as the Sutter 
 Basin, or Reclamation District 1500 
 project, shall be permitted to com- 
 plete certain levees and canal not 
 that at all. 
 
 The proposition is simply whether 
 the authority of the State of Cali- 
 fornia, in relation to the reclamation 
 of the swamp lands of the Sacra- 
 mento RiVer V'^KjNjr s*ha v ll be sus : - 
 tained or not. 
 
 The protesting Sutter County^ land 
 owners insist that their -f!g*ht is 
 wholly with the so-called "Armour- 
 Gerber project," but such is not the 
 case. The Star makes no charge of 
 disingenuousness against its many 
 friends in Sutter County and else- 
 where in Northern California. The 
 men who are fighting this particular 
 plan at this particular time are airi- 
 
 Ne>ws Print 
 
 ] questionably not only honest, but 
 patriotic citizens as exist anywhere 
 in the State of California, but the 
 trouble seems to be that they have 
 not yet grasped the big, broad ideal 
 of flood control as a State-wide 
 proposition. 
 
 The State-wide control, is, how- 
 ever, just as inevitable as the tides. 
 Nothing, humanly speaking, can pos- 
 sibly prevent it. As well try to stem! 
 the mighty Sacramento in flood byi 
 building a dirt dam across the river 
 at Sacramento. As well try Prof. 
 Zueblin's plan of turning the Amer-j 
 ican by levees ! 
 
 The separate boards of engineers] 
 of Nation-wide reputation, the Cali-j 
 fprnia Debris Commission and the 
 State Board of Reclamation have all 
 recommended this by-pass plan after 
 mature and careful study of the 
 whole problem. The lines of the pro- 
 posed by-passes have been fixed! 
 without reference to the ownership 
 of land, and The Star cannot under- 
 stand what possible interest will bel 
 served ultimately by defeating the} 
 plan at this time. 
 
 Sacramento 
 
YCi 07658 
 
 3932GO 
 
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