Salt Lake Telegram | 1923-08-15 | Page 1 | Reclamation Now Based on Money Return

0ECQ0.I 1'10'seoo; i Secretary Work Explains Retirement of Director i Davis in Letter Reply in g to Protest of Engineers BUSINESS AID HELD PROJECTS' DIG NLHD k Methods to. Forestall i 'Farmers', Abandonment : . of Completed ProJ-c? ; Declared Important , WABHINOTOtf. Aug. II. Abolition Aboli-tion of tha post of director of the reclamation aervlce. Involving the retirement from office of Dlre-t"r A. PDevie, was said today by Secretary Sec-retary Work to be due to tha nt-ural nt-ural development of reclamati. n work past tha stage where ti fervlces of engineers were to be oonaldered the flrat consideration. Replying to the American Bocl.tr of Civil Engineer, which had aia.te rapraaentatlon aa a reeult of i'r Davis separation from the government govern-ment aervlce. Mr. Work de,-lr that Inatead of engineering i --lama --lama tha government . t t neceeslty of dealins , ,,,,, tems of vve'er ti-- toe r iectlon of ttie or k -1 r. . of i project as conn.. . 1 y ti, ABANDONMENT 1 r -AtENED. The Interior aecreterys siwerto the eoclety wss meae In e t-fer to fte eecretnry, Jnmes H, I";iho of New York, end enntslrM the statement state-ment that unless ron.i uons whif-h have obtained hitherto are Improved, Im-proved, many re.?ienietion projects will bo abandoned entire. y by aet-tier. aet-tier. , . "All of our prelects are not prosperous." pros-perous." Mr. Work wrote. "It le not a-question now of ene'neerlns o mu'-n e 1 le ons of t-u-if- acumen m'l i i 'uon 1 n i . -t-e pr-r.!ecis mtiet retmnuree it-e i n.nt for Ms mtlltons of dol lars advsnced for reclemetlofl, and our reorsanlaatton With this In mind seemed neceeeary.. . "Thla doee not'meen'a diminished dimin-ished constructlou program, but rather an Increased and accelerated eonetruction. beceue . with the money returned to the government under efficient business mensse-ment mensse-ment there will be freed a fund to continue construction that otherwise other-wise will be retarded. ENQINKIRS ftlTAINID. To handle tha engineering work, th engineering force of the service remains with the eama chief engineer engi-neer at its bead who baa been engaged en-gaged in the work for many years. Thsra Is no thousht of minimising th importance of reclamation engineering. en-gineering. It waa my purpoee to retain Director A. P. Davie in tba reclamation aervlce aa consulting engineer, he at first concerning, but subsequently declining tba appointment. appoint-ment. 1 "Tba ' secretary of tha Interior, who alone Is charged with tha execution exe-cution of the reclamation act, desires de-sires the greateat possible efficiency In every phase and aspect of reclamation. recla-mation. Ha believe that th change to whleh you refer la made necessary by esletlng conditions, for unleaa Improvement can be brought about, many projector will bo abandoned entirely by settlers. Rome already have gone, and tha government not only will lose millions mil-lions of dollars Invested, but the Bottler themselves will lose time, labor and money already placed oa their farms"