rado River and its development and control, for which every sane person is anxious, and which will involve, together with the aqueduct which Los Angeles and other cities will utilize, more than $500,000,000 of capital commitment; yet, today, because it has been taken into the political field, and some persons by fear are stopped from rational discussion of cost and engineering, the public at large, who must pay the tax bills, are thinking of Colorado River Development in terms of $125,000,000.

Were there utter freedom from political complexity, these engineering and cost facts would by this time have been brought vividly to the attention of the people, so that they would know precisely to what they were asked to commit themselves. Doubtless they would commit themselves, even with the facts in their possession. But it remains true, nevertheless, that the full facts are not being given to the people, and because politics has entered into the has entered into the proposition.

Coming to flood control. In the Los Angeles Flood Control District, $39,800,000 of bonds have been voted, and more than $26,000,000 are to be asked for in November; an aggregate of more than $65,000,000, and the end is not yet. It is officially announced that other requests for flood control bonds will be submitted to the people in the near future.

I submit that enterprises of such magnitude call for the most scrupulous care and the most searching preliminary inves tigation prior to asking for any such commitments, and the same was true before the $35,300,000 of bonds already voted were placed upon the ballot.

The list of flood control projects was made up and the money allocated therefor largely by political request of the people in a given locality, without careful hydrographic, engineering and economic studies as the base thereof. Instead of going to the engineer first and saying: What are the conditions in such and such a canvon? What are the hydrographic facts? How much storage capacity is needed to control and conserve the water there? What is the geological formation, and how deep need we go to get a firm foundation for a dam? And then, How much money is necessary to effect these results? There is political pressure for a dam in a given

place, and more or less of a guess as to how much money is needed.

If $25,000,000 is allocated to a given dam-the San Gabriel, for instance, it may be too much; it may be too little. In any case, if it be a guess, it is unscientific, repugnant to practice and ethics, unfair to the public, destructive of confidence in government and the remainder of the engineering profession, brings sneers and flings from the mass of the people, and opens the door to possible, almost inevitable, wastes of taxpayers' money.

The record is that the $35,300,000 of bonds allocated to the San Gabriel and other flood control and water conservation dams was not a resultant of exploration and investigation by core drillings and tunnelings, and hydrographic and economic studies, such as are necessary to a determination of the exact needs in a given case. There was in that instance a reversion to the guessing of Aristotle, apparently. By later evidence we find that this $35,300,000 guessing was just as far from the truth as Aristotle was when he guessed that a ten-pound ball would fall faster than a one-pound ball. So-called estimates are woefully out of alignment with later actual costs.

The official statement of the Flood Control District gave an estimate of excavations for three dam sites, 22,000 yards at Pacoima, 22,000 yards at Big Santa Anita, and 22,000 yards at Sawpit.

In the light of the revised estimates at this time, it is absolutely proven that these estimates of 22,000 yards were not true estimates at all. They were mere guesses. On the Pacoima Dam, instead of 22,000 yards of excavation, more than 100,000 yards have actually been paid for, and the excavations running into the abutment bases would add something like 20 per cent to this total, so that in the neighborhood of 120,000 cubic yards will have been excavated at Pacoima, making the original 22,000 yard so-called estimate an absurdity on its face.

One might multiply these instances, but in any event he would arrive in practically every instance at the same conclusion, namely, it was a process of guessing, and not a process of scientific determination by well settled rules of engineering.

Revert to the San Gabriel dam; $25,000,000 was allocated thereto for a 240,000

acre foot reservoir. Four million yards of concrete must be poured; a railway 11 miles long must be built and equipped; spillways, gates and appurtenances must be provided; rights of way must be bought; labor must be paid; materials must be bought, with a thousand and one other items of expense in construction of such an edifice. Is there anyone here who, in the light of broad experience in concrete construction, will say that four million yards of concrete may be poured at less than $7.50 a ton, all costs included? That would bring the cost to $30,000,000, but we know also that, in the light of experience, $8 a yard as the unit cost is safer, which would bring the cost to $32,000,000. Here is a discrepancy of around $7,000,000 between the cost of a 240 acre foot dam and reservoir as indicated by experience, and the amount allocated thereto, $25,000,000, by the Flood Control District.

On a basis of 4,000,000 cubic yards of concrete, the Flood Control District would have to pour it and provide all the other items of expense on a unit basis of about $6 a yard. I obtained from the United States government figures on a dozen dams of various sizes. The average was more than $12 a yard, all costs included.

Have we any evidence that there is such a super engineer in the Flood Control District as could reduce the unit cost on the San Gabriel dam to 50 per cent of the average cost on this dozen dams of similar

character which have been erected by the United States government?

Can the San Gabriel dam be built for $25,000,000 in the light of these facts?

In the case of these other dams, they were carefully explored; there was outside. consultation; there was a comparing of notes; there was every evidence of anxiety by those on whom was the responsibility that the final result be agreeable with engi neering rules.

I submit that these things justify the voter, anxious as he is, for the full solution of the flood control problem, to oppose the $26,000,000 bond issue which will be on the ballot November 2 for flood control; to insist that further studies be made and that independent advice be procured. All this matter leads us to the fair though serious conclusion that complete reorganization of the administration of the Flood Control District is the only basic solution of this large problem. There should enter into such conclusion no element of prejudice and it should be devoid entirely of personalities. Bitterness, prejudice, unfair statements, half truths and mere implications do not lend themselves to a judicial conclusion, but we are dealing with a serious subject. Each voter is a trustee of his own and others' rights in such matters, and especially is this of interest and perhaps a larger duty to those who are technically trained and who understand how to demonstrate rather than guess in such proceedings.

The Grange in California today occupies a position of importance and influence entirely out of all proportion to its membership. This place has been achieved and may be maintained only by the possession of a broad knowledge of public affairs, by dispassionate and calm consideration of agriculture's problems, and by the adoption of a Courageous and forward looking policy of SERVICE, not only toward those engaged as we are in farming, but all of the other industrial and commercial groups of the state. Our farmers must

remember that they are a part of this great com. monwealth and that their reasonable well being is necessary for the best interests of all of the citizens of California, but in working out OUR destiny we must not forget the rights and necessities of others.

Within the last year, our membership has shown a substantial increase, and this has come about almost without effort upon the part of our state organization. We believe, however, from the requests which are coming to us from parts of

the state where we at present have no local units, that during the coming year we should make an effort to organize subordinate granges in those places where grange interest is keenly aroused and a definite demand being made for grange service.

The farmers of California, in common with those of the other states of America, have upon many commodities and in a great number of widely separated localities, suffered an inadequate financial return as a result of the sale of this year's crops. Our present system of distribution of farm products is antequated and wasteful. The fact that only about one-third of the consumer's dollar ever reaches the farmer producer proves this. In the interest of both producer and consumer the system of distribution must be largely revised.

Cooperative marketing organizations, if properly administered, will greatly help, but agricultural finance must also be considered as a matter of primary importance. Whatever is done to remedy the defects of the system of distribution of agricultural products and the financing the movement of them to retail stores, must be worked out only after a calm consideration of as many of the pertinent facts as a comprehensive research can ascertain.

The recent publications of the economic research division of the U. S. Department of Agriculture show that, in the six-year period 19201925, the farmers of America earned about one half of one per cent net upon their investments.

The reward for labor and managerial services of the farm operators of this nation during this period averaged slightly less than $500 per year. During these six years the investment of the farmers of this nation suffered a shrinkage of perhaps seventeen billion dollars or about 20 per cent.

From the peak post-war prices of 1919 the value of farm products raised annually (at the ranch) have declined over three billion dollars or approximately 20 per cent.

The taxes paid by the operator upon his investment in farm property take over twice the portion of his net return which was required to meet this charge in 1919. So much for the national situation of Agriculture today.

If we look into the facts as they are reflected by statistics covering California only, we may be surprised to find that, while the value of farm products in the United States increased during the period 1913-1924 but 60 per cent, those of this state increased over 250 per cent. California's farmers, in the aggregate, today are cultivating intensively but little more land than they did forty years ago, but their individual acreage so used has declined about 66 per cent within this time.

Our California farm operators who have increased in number about 225 per cent during the last forty years, have gradually taken the land which once produced the great staple crops and have put it into the raising of the agricultural specialties for which this state is so famous. This very development, however, has added to their indirect burdens. From the figures furnished by our state comptroller we find that during the tenyear period 1914-1924 the assessed valuation of property outside of our incorporated cities and towns increased about 93 per cent, as against only 66 per cent for inside property.

During the eleven-year period 1914-1925 the

expenditures of the state of California and its political subdivisions increased about 285 per cent, the outstanding bonds increased about 197 per cent and the creation of new wealth increased about 120 per cent.

These figures seem unquestionably to show that our farmers cannot escape carrying a very much larger portion of any increase in taxation than their earning power justifies. Farmers everywhere labor under the fundamental disability, as do ali other producers of primary wealth, of being unable of passing on practically any of their taxes. This disability perhaps is most accurately reflected in the figures published by our Federal Depart ment of Agriculture, which show that the net earnings of our average farm operator have de clined about 30 per cent since 1919, while our factory workers are enjoying returns for their labor practically equal to those peak post-war

years.

That taxation has outrun all bounds of reason in this state may easily be shown by considering certain districts. Perhaps the worst of any sec tions, from an agricultural viewpoint, is that around Blythe in Riverside County. There in the Palo Verde District the rate is about 36 per cent on an assessed valuation supposed to be about one-third the value. As a matter of fact under such a frightful tax burden this year about onethird of the taxes are going delinquent. The county of Riverside, which is essentially a farming district as far as its development has gone, has shown a growth in tax delinquency starting at 5 per cent in 1918 and increasing to 11 per cent in 1925. A lack of time forbids the citing of other instances of economic suicide via the tax route. The recent organization of a state-wide Taxpayers Association in California, in which it is hoped that our farmers will actively function, is a most encouraging sign that some groups other than agriculture are becoming awakened to the alarming tendency of ever increasing public expenditures and the expansion of governmental activities along lines undreamed of by the founders of this nation.

BATTLE OF THE GRANGE

The battle of the Grange in this state today is upon the identical ground and for the same purpose which consumed the attention of its founders in California over half a century ago. Either farming as a means of earning a livelihood must come upon a permanent parity with other industry and commerce, or those who produce the food and clothing of the human race from the soil must sink (as they always have done in the past) to the lowest stratum of organized society, and the American Farm Home, as we have known it, become a memory!

Let us accept the gage of battle and at once resolve that all of those measures which are today before the electors of this state upon the ballot will be carefully scrutinized by us and those which would further increase the economic dis advantage of our farmers shall suffer overwhelming defeat at the November election. Our State Grange Lecturer has caused a statement of facts upon each, which is of great interest to us farmers, to be broadcasted through the September issue of our State Grange Bulletin, to the proper