The others will probably be on. Our information is that at least eight or ten, altogether, will be here. But we asked the chairman of the subcommittee to give us this hearing to-day because there was an intimation from him that he might have to leave the city to-morrow, and we thought we could present the case, although all the members of the delegation are not here.

The time is too short to make anything like an extended argument. In the Fifty-fifth Congress a convention or draft of treaty was submitted by the then Mexican minister, which is substantially quoted or referred to in this bill, proposing a bill "to provide for the equitable distribution of the waters of the Rio Grande." That is the innocent title of the bill. At that time I appeared two or three times before Mr. Day, who was then Secretary of State

Representative BROWN. In what cap city, please?

Mr. FERGUSON. I was then a Delegate from New Mexico in the Fifty-fifth Congress, and at that time I am sure that he had decided against any such treaty.

Subsequent to that a bill was introduced in Congress authorizing the Secretary of State to proceed to consummate that treaty. I believe I had better read that bill, because we can not on account of lack of time make anything like an extended argument, and after stating the capacity in which we appear, we simply desire to call to your attention the very great interest which all the people of New Mexico have in this bill. While all of you are not far Western men the subject of irrigation has been so frequently before Congress of late that you can very readily realize that in a country where no agricultural product can be raised except by irrigation (as is the case in New Mexico), irrigation is the very life of the people.

The Rio Grande Valley has been settled by the ancestors of its present population for two hundred years, and during all of that time the people have lived by taking water out of the Rio Grande for irrigation purposes. It is absolutely the foundation of our very life.

Now, there has lately been a very great accretion or addition to the agricultural development of Colorado, north of us. The Rio Grande runs through Colorado, crosses the line, and runs down through about the center of the Territory, passing out into Texas at El Paso, and below that point becoming the boundary between Old Mexico and Texas.

I think I had better read this bill, because its terms are certainly very drastic, and I want to call to the attention of the subcommittee the consequences which will ensue to our Territory in case this bill is put in force, because of the very great taking out of water in Colorado. Before beginning to read the bill, I want to come to that point, because that is the gist of our complaint.

It has lately been noted in the public press that the State of Kansas, through its attorney-general, has attempted to get some relief against Colorado on account of the immense amount of water taken out of the Arkansas River by that State for irrigation purposes. The value of the agricultural product of Colorado surprised me very much when I read it a few years ago, especially as compared with its mineral output. The whole world is resounding with the fame of Colorado as a producer of the precious metals; but the agricultural production of the State during the last few years has become greater in money value than its precious-metal production.

The people of Colorado have taken so much water out of the Arkansas River that quite lately there has been a great agitation in the State of Kansas to devise some means to protect the interests of the people in the State of Kansas who had theretofore used the water from the Arkansas River and who lived by means of irrigation, as we do in New Mexico. They tried to devise some means of equitably dividing the water there, as this bill innocently proposes here. I do not know just what the result of that controversy will be, but the matter is now the subject of agitation between those two States. We, as you know, are but a Territory.

Now, there is one thing in this bill which I want to call to your attention, and if the honorable gentleman who introduced it will enlighten us on that point, the information will be very gratefully received by us.

The title of the bill is "A bill to provide for the equitable distribution of the waters of the Rio Grande River between the United States of America and the United States of Mexico, and for the purpose of building an international dam and reservoir on said river at El Paso, Texas."

The first whereas is what I want to call to your attention:

Whereas the Republic of Mexico has made reclamation of the United States to the Secretary of State, through its legation in Washington, for a large indemnity for water alleged to have been taken and used by the citizens of the United States in Colorado and New Mexico, etc.

Now, when we come to the enacting clause, we find it to be as follows:

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That nothing in the acts of March third, eighteen hundred and ninety-one, January twenty-first, eighteen hundred and ninety-five, February twenty-sixth, eighteen hundred and ninety-seven, and May eleventh, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, shall be so construed as to authorize the appropriation and storage of the waters of the Rio Grande or its tributaries in the Territory of New Mexico.

It leaves out Colorado altogether. Is that because we are supposed to be helpless, as a Territory, without any representation either in the Senate or in the House, while Colorado has two strong representatives in each body? At all events, just as Colorado has caused this great agitation in the State of Kansas, through the effort on the part of the people of Kansas to protect themselves from the undue use of the waters of the Rio Grande in the State of Colorado, so we have, from year to year, with an increasing burden, seen Colorado take more and more water from that river. While formerly in the Mesilla Valley, which is or has been in the past one of the garden spots of the whole West, there was, from the natural flow of the water in the Rio Grande, an abundance of water for agricultural purposes, by means of which that valley has been developed into a fruit, alfalfa, corn, and wheat raising section second to none in the United States (because the valley of the Rio Grande, when properly watered, is as fertile as the valley of the Nile), now the farmers of that valley are without water from a month to six weeks in every year because of the increasing quantity that is taken out in Colorado; and whereas in former years the waters of the Rio Grande went, unimpaired for irrigation purposes, clear to the Mesilla Valley, 200 miles and over below Albuquerque, I myself have in the last two or three years seen my alfalfa suffer for water. I

have seen my fruit trees in a little farm of 3 or 4 acres which I have right near the city of Albuquerque suffering and dying for water 200 miles north of that point. And why? Because Colorado has made such a great inroad on the amount of water that is allowed to cross the line between Colorado and New Mexico.

This bill proposes simply to prohibit us from taking any more water than we now have appropriated; or, rather, it is worded in a little different way. It prohibits us from impairing the flow of water to those in Texas who had theretofore appropriated it. But we are between the upper and the nether millstone. If this bill is enforced, and Colorado is permitted to hold even the water she takes now, it will be but a short time before absolutely vested rights will be destroyed, and the valley of New Mexico will be made a desert. If we are prohibited from taking a drop of the little water that now escapes from Colorado and her immense irrigation enterprises (which are enlarging every year) and is allowed now to cross the line into New Mexico in order to fill this dam at El Paso for the benefit of the citizens of old Mexico, where will we be? On the face of the bill the gentlemen say: "We do not propose to interfere with vested rights; we propose to recognize your prior appropriation of water. We are not after that. You can keep what you have; but you are not allowed to increase the irrigated districts in New Mexico."

That is ostensibly the object of this bill. Shall we be put in that attitude by the Congress of the United States in behalf of citizens of old Mexico? Shall we be put in that attitude by the Congress of the United States in behalf of foreign citizens? Will Congress say that they can develop old Mexico, but we can not develop New Mexico any further?

Even stating the proposition in that way, we have a just cause to come here and protest. But that is not "the meat in the cocoanut," gentlemen. The plain effect of this bill, which makes it a criminal offense for us to take water out of a river that flows over 500 miles through the Territory of New Mexico from north to south, is to absolutely reverse the law of riparian rights. We are prohibited from taking from the river any more water than we now have gotten. From one standpoint-their standpoint-it seems to be fair to leave us with our vested rights in water heretofore appropriated; but when you consider it in connection with the fact (which is absolutely uncontroverted and uncontrovertible) that Colorado is vastly increasing her irrigation enterprises year by year you will see what the effect of this bill will be. On the south we are prohibited not only from taking any more water, but from building dams to catch even the storm water in the Rio Grande or in any of its tributaries. We are prohibited from reclaiming any more land along the banks of any of these little rivulets that begin up in the mountains, along which we now have prosperous farms. Not only that, but we are prohibited from supplying the deficiency; and that is how we have lived during these years. We have lived notwithstanding the aggressions of Colorado on the north of us. Why? Because we have a big rainy season in New Mexico in the months of July, August, and September; because, almost always, in the month of May, when the sun first begins to get warm and melt the snows, we have something like a flood. And in the Fifty-fifth Congress this gentleman (Mr. Stephens) came to me and asked me, because of my acquaintance with the Rio Grande, to help him get an

appropriation through Congress (and he got it through) for $10,000. For what? To recompense the poor citizens of the city of El Paso who, by a great flood which came down the Rio Grande in May, 1897, had lost their little homes because the river went out of its banks and flooded everything.

Now, by virtue of being able to catch those storm waters, we have, during the past years, been able to live in spite of the aggressions of Colorado. We have constructed little dams, in which we catch the storm water and save it until the dry season comes in June and July, when the corn and wheat and alfalfa and fruit need water, and then we get it from this source. This bill prohibits us from ever building another dam in the Rio Grande. Then there is a natural drain from the watersheds which eventually finds its way into the Rio Grande. The beds of the little tributaries that come into it are where the storm waters flow, and if, as provided in this bill, we can not hereafter build any more dams for the purpose of catching those storm waters, and Colorado is permitted to take all the water it pleases (and there seems to be no way in which Kansas, with all its powerful representation in the Senate and in the House, can check Colorado; its officials seem now at a loss to get a legal remedy to protect them against Colorado along the valley of the Arkansas in Kansas), what can we, in our helpless Territory, do except what we are doing appealing to the sense of justice of the Congress of the United States? We want justice, that is all. We have no vote on which to trade or use as a club, but we simply come to you and explain our awful situation in New Mexico. We have had that water in the past. We have had the right, under the general law of riparian rights, to take the water that flows down for domestic purposes, to live with and to live on. Under the terms of this bill we can not supply the deficiency by building dams, either in the bed of the Rio Grande or in the beds of any of its tributaries, and if we attempt to do so the man who attempts it is subject to a criminal penalty as well as to be stopped and forced by an injunction to take out his dam as provided in this bill.

Representative BROWN. Let me ask you, just there, a question which can be answered very briefly.

Mr. FERGUSON, Yes, sir.

Representative BROWN. You understand this law will prevent you from appropriating the waters of any of the tributary streams, do you? Mr. FERGUSON. Yes, sir; it says so.

Representative BROWN. Just tell us a little about those tributary

streams.

Mr. MARRON. Every stream in New Mexico, with the exception of two, is tributary to the Rio Grande.

Representative BROWN. How many are there, and how many miles do they extend? I simply want a brief statement covering that point; I do not want to interrupt you.

Mr. FERGUSON. The width of New Mexico, sir, from north to south, is over 500 miles; and you will understand that it is a mountainous region. We live in what is called the Rocky Mountain Plateau. The city of Albuquerque is situated right on the banks of the Rio Grande, and yet it is nearly 5,000 feet above sea level. In other words, we are on what is called the Rocky Mountain Plateau, and the Rio Grande drains it by running down, you might say, through the middle of that plateau; and there are tributaries at the foot of each of the hundreds

of little mountain ranges which go to make up the great Rocky Mountain Range, with timber alongside of them, making a sort of protection to that water until it gets started.

I can not answer your question exactly, Mr. Brown; but there are, perhaps, a thousand miles of tributaries in the Territory, when you take into consideration the little ones, from 5 to 20 miles long, that arise directly from the melting of the snow, and also from the natural springs which result from the melting of the snow.

Representative STEPHENS. I will ask you if it is a fact, in your opinion, that New Mexico contains four-fifths of the watershed of the Rio Grande River above El Paso?

Mr. FERGUSON. No, sir.

Representative STEPHENS. What proportion does it contain?

Mr. BURKHART. Only 10 to 20 per cent-not more than 20 per cent at the most.

Representative STEPHENS. I am speaking of the watershed.
Mr. BURKHART. So am I.

Mr. FERGUSON. The watershed in Colorado is larger than it is in New Mexico.

Representative STEPHENS. The watershed of the Rio Grande?

Mr. BURKHART. Yes, sir; the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and the Conejos Range. There is where we get our supply of water in the Rio Grande.

Representative BROWN. I am talking about the number of square miles of watershed, not the amount of water.

Mr. FERGUSON. Now as to tributaries; the Pecos River, in one sense, may be said not to be a tributary of the Rio Grande in New Mexico; but the Pecos River flows into the Rio Grande in the State of Texas, and I do not see why the broad terms of this bill would not also apply to it. There has lately been put in the Pecos Valley an irrigation enterprise that has cost over $3,000,000. It is being enlarged; settlers are coming in. Lands have been sold there for farms. Fruit farms, alfalfa farms, and cattle-raising farms are being established all up and down that valley. We are progressing and growing. And now, by this bill, it is proposed to put a perfect blight upon any further progress in New Mexico.

Representative HITT. Does the watershed of the Pecos extend into Colorado?

Mr. FERGUSON. Practically, I think it does work into Colorado. Does it not?

Mr. BURKHART. Yes.

Mr. FERGUSON. A little; but it goes out on the southern line of New Mexico, between Texas and New Mexico, and then winds up along the eastern line of the Territory, and around to the north.

Representative STEPHENS. I beg to differ with you. It does not come within 50 miles of touching it.

Mr. FERGUSON. The Pecos rises in New Mexico, but near the Colorado line. Now, the main point which I had in mind (because these other gentlemen are much better posted on this subject than I am) and which I want to emphasize, because it will appeal to the sense of justice of every man who considers this bill, is the fact that while, ostensibly, it only prohibits us from taking additional water, yet, as a matter of fact, when it prohibits us from building dams to catch any of the storm water, it prohibits us from supplying the deficiency