postponed pending completion of arrangements and Government ratification. Advise as to course to be pursued."

Not a word about the sacred rights of navigation! I was in London at the time and replied by cable, which, decoded, read as follows: "Under no circumstances whatever postpone inquiry pending completion of arrangements. In the event of final terms not being satisfactory, which is likely to happen, valuable time would be entirely lost. If Government appeal, it will constitute convincing proof that action is only pretext. Send full details as to proposal. Despite shameful treatment English investors have received at the hands of the Government, we purpose honorably doing justice to all parties concerned, whether above or below El Paso. Reverse would be altogether opposed to our policy. Storage reservoir at Elephant Butte, and smaller dams at Selden and El Paso, will suffice for the whole valley."

Further, Judge Burch, in an interview published in the El Paso Herald, in which he corrected certain statements credited to him by the Washington correspondent of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, said:

"Of the attitude of the Government towards Mexico, no one outside of the State Department, or the President and his staff, have a right to speak.

"As to the Department of Justice, it is composed of the lawyers of the Government, and men of our profession do not travel in band waggons or try cases in the newspapers beforehand, or after the contests in the courts.

"The Department of Justice, however, contains no enemies to irrigation, nor has it any partisan friends of navigation as opposed to irrigation. Its attitude, therefore, is most friendly to all parties interested in good faith in irrigation along the Rio Grande.

"This means Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas, and the Republic of Mexico. But further than that, it aims to be aggressively impartial between sections and localities, if need be. To be more definite, it will not be fair for the Government of the United States, which alone has control of this great river, to stand by and permit one section to monopolize such waters for any purpose to the exclusion and at the expense of all others.

"To such extent as the Elephant Butte project threatens this, the United States will be active in its opposition; it will not be unfriendly, but rather friendly, to any course which will not endanger the relative rights of those who need water further downstream, as, for instance, in the El Paso Valley.

"So far as the dams here, or in this vicinity, is concerned, the Department of Justice can do nothing but keep the field clear for fair play-for equal distribution of water-leaving Congress and the other departments to deal with the question of international interest, as well as to the policy of using public money for irrigation. "We are just in this matter, with a friendly feeling for all, and desire to see fair play at all hazards."

As evidence of the sinister influence that has been at work in the promotion of the international dam scheme, I beg to quote the fol

lowing from the "El Paso Daily Herald" (Republican) of December 16, 1900. The "Herald" says:

"When Gen. Anson Mills went to the City of Mexico last month, he went there to ask the Secretary of State and President Diaz to continue their objections to the Elephant Butte Dam and other dams on the Rio Grande above El Paso.'

It is noteworthy that, notwithstanding Gen. Anson Mills' efforts at the City of Mexico, the Mexican Minister has not, within the last two years at least, pressed his Government's claim, and that Gen. Anson Mills and his associate promoters of the international dam project have been its only supporters.

I enclose herewith copy of a letter from Mr. J. A. Smith, of El Paso, to Judge J. R. Harper, of that city, as published in the El Paso Daily News of the 14th instant, I especially call your attention to the paragraph in which Mr. Smith says:

"I believe that the Secretary of State will refer them to Mills or call him into the consultation, and I went at once to see Burch and paved the way for the Attorney General to refer them to him. If this should be the course taken in the matter, we are practically sure of a favorable report from the subcommittee."

Although New Mexico is now a Territory (soon to be admitted into the Union as a sovereign State), and therefore, as a ward of the Federal Government, entitled to all possible protection at the hands of the several Federal departments, the history of the Elephant Butte Dam case reveals that, in derogation of the inherent and fundamental rights of our people, rights guaranteed by the Federal Constitution and by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the General Government, by its Department of Justice, has persistently maintained, for five years, this cruel and unrighteous attack upon the Territory's most precious heritage. For more than 50 years our people have been denied their full civic rights as citizens of the Union; and for five years, the United States Treasury and the resources of the Federal Department of Justice have been employed by Gen. Anson Mills and his associates in support of their international dam scheme. And this has been done despite the prayers and petitions of our people and our public officials.

Trusting that the foregoing, and the enclosed, will be of some service to you in arriving at an opinion as to the merits, or demerits, of Mr. Burleson's bill, H. R. 13361,

I am, sir,

Yours obediently,

NATHAN E. BOYD.

Enc. copy of Mr. J. A. Smith's letter to Judge J. R. Harper, as published in the El Paso Daily News of the 14th instant.

[Enclosure.]

[From the EL PASO DAILY NEWS of Monday, April 14, 1902.]

"J. A. SMITH THINKS SOMETHING WILL SOON BE DONE IN THE MATTER.

"Judge J. R. Harper, one of El Paso's commissioners sent to Washington to work for the international dam, has received a letter from J. A. Smith urging him to return to the capital at once.

"Smith thinks that with proper management the dam is a sure winner. The letter, in part, is as follows:

"JAMES R. HARPER, Esq., El Paso, Tex.

"DEAR JUDGE: I wired you to-day that Burleson had introduced a new bill into the House, and that it had been referred to the committee, and by them to a subcommittee consisting of Gillette, Clarke, and Landis; this leaves our friend Heatwole out of the deal, as far as the subcommittee is concerned, and I think he will likely be away from here when the committee receives the report of the subcommittee.

"The latter has been requested to confer with the Attorney General and the Secretary of State, and report back next week. "I believe that the Secretary of State will refer them to Mills or call him into the consultation, and I went at once to see Burch and paved the way for the Attorney General to refer them to him. If this should be the course taken in the matter we are practically sure of a favorable report from the subcommittee.

666

"Now, Judge, I telegraphed to Stewart to-day, as well as to you, that it was necessary for you to return here at once. I feel that now is the critical time with the bill, and I believe that it is best for you to come here and stay, either until the bill is killed in the committee or until it is brought up in the House.

"Culberson and Burleson are working together and are apparently accomplishing a great deal; however, it is necessary that some one should be here and keep up the little odds and ends that they can not look after.

666

66 6 OLSHAUSEN'S CONFIRMATION.

"I expect Olshausen to be confirmed early this week, and there will be no necessity of my staying here on that account any longer, but I do not feel as if I can go away from here and leave the bill without anyone here to look after it as long as there is as much hope for it as there is now.

"The committee has nothing else before them, and Burleson is pushing them right into action on the matter. I do not think that they should be hurried too much, for I believe the more they look into it the better they will be satisfied to vote favorably upon it.

"I have had a couple of talks with Adams, of Pennsylvania, and he seems considerably interested. I spoke to him of the opinions of the Mexican lawyers and the international law they quoted.

"This seemed to interest him more than anything else, as he said he had given considerable study to international law.

"The main trouble seems to be to get them to consider that Mexico has any just claim against us in this matter.

"Yours truly,

"(Signed)

J. A. SMITH."

Mr. M. C. Burch to the Attorney General.

The ATTORNEY GENERAL.

WASHINGTON, D. C., April 24, 1902.

SIR: Assistant Attorney General Hoyt submits to me a letter from one Nathan E. Boyd, addressed to him under date of April 21, 1902, and also an enclosure purporting to be an item from the El Paso Daily News of Monday, April 14, containing what purports to be a letter to one James R. Harper, signed by J. A. Smith. I am asked to make a report concerning the same, and am glad to do so.

The case of the United States v. The Rio Grande Dam & Irriga tion Co. and others was placed in my hands by Attorney General Griggs about the 1st of June, 1899. Soon after I began correspondence in various directions concerning the same, and visited Las Vegas, Tex., for an interview with W. W. Follette, the constructing engineer of the International Water Boundary Commission. I returned here and submitted my views concerning the case to Attorney General Griggs and received further instructions. A month or so later I visited Albuquerque, El Paso, and Las Cruces in preparing for the trial of the case. While at the latter point the occurrences detailed in my letter to Hon. John H. Stephens, M. C., and quoted, as far as suits his purpose, on pages 8 and 9 of Boyd's letter, took place. After returning here I submitted to Attorney General Griggs the request of the directors of this company, as submitted to me by them at Las Cruces, and, although the Attorney General had misgivings as to their good faith, he authorized and directed me on my return to El Paso to confer with the defendant with a view to making a compromise of the case upon the line of reserving the Government control over the Rio Grande, but allowing the dams to be built under Government supervision and instructions in such a manner as not to interfere with navigation, but to allow the flood waters to be saved by the various parties who desire them. in proportion to their rights to the same. I had not proposed any settlement of the litigation, but the proposition had come from the

directors and attorneys of the defendants, and had been submitted by me to the Attorney General, and by him, through me, the negotiations were entered into.

I took the precaution to retain and take with me Judge W. B. Brack, of El Paso, and there need be no room for dispute over what occurred at said conference. I offered to do everything which equity and good conscience would sanction for the interests of the defendants, or of New Mexico, in these waters, but in pursuance of a telegram alleged to have been received by them from Boyd as the representative of the English portion of the defendants, they peremptorily declined to settle in any form except upon the basis of the complete surrender of the United States to them of all the water in the stream and its absolute monopoly, and thus I had the mortification of having brought a request from them to the Attorney General and presenting it to him in good faith, having in turn submitted it with his approval to them, and then with having them spurn it upon the orders of Boyd, then in London, and with having all of their action go to the public through the El Paso newspaper, strongly partisan to their interests.

When I returned here after the trial of the case I was waited upon by the Hon. John H. Stephens, Member of Congress from that district of Texas most involved in the controversy. He laid before me a bill which he proposed to introduce in Congress to regulate the disposal of the waters of the Rio Grande and practically to prohibit the building of the dam which we were fighting against. I was so careful that I merely promised to look it over and consider what to do. I did so, and wrote the letter dated January 27, 1900, in which I expressly, as will be seen, declined to do or say anything to influence legislation while this department was carrying on litigation against one of the parties, and simply expressed the opinion, less than which I could not have done, that the bill was well adapted to securing the interests which he, Stephens, was contending for. A careful reading of that letter will show its utter impartiality and how carefully discreet I was respecting it. This letter will be found on pages 6 and 7 of Boyd's letter. The following month (February 11) a letter was addressed to me by Stephens, asking me to detail the circumstances of my proposition of a compromise with the defendants at El Paso. I immediately took his letter to Attorney General Griggs. He read it and authorized me to reply to Mr. Stephens for the use of the committee by a simple recital of the facts concerning such proposed compromise. Reference to that letter will be found on pages 8 and 9 of Boyd's letter, in part, and only in part, because the remainder of it would not have suited his purpose in writing to Mr. Hoyt. It will be seen in the first paragraph that the letter was written with the consent of Attorney General Griggs, and