flat cars by a gang of men, or by as many men as could get around a
stone. In some cases the pieces were so large that it was necessary
to break them by what are called ‘pop-shots’ of dynamite laid upon
the stone while it rested on the cars. In this way the stones were
broken and then could be readily thrown overboard by hand. The scene
at the closure of the break was exciting. Train after train with heavy
locomotives came to the place and the stones, large and small, were
pushed off by hundreds of workmen as rapidly as the cars could be
placed. While waiting to get out upon the trestle the larger stones
were broken by ‘pop-shots,’ and the noise sounded like artillery in
action. Added to the roar of the waters were the whistle signals, the
orders to the men, and the bustle of an army working day and night to
keep ahead of the rapid cutting of the stream.
“As the rock heap rose gradually, it checked the river, causing it
also to rise higher and higher and to cascade over the pile of stone.
Riffles were caused, and an undercutting of the lower slope of the rock
heap allowed it to settle and the stones to roll down stream. All of
this undercutting and settling had to be made up and overcome by the
rapid dumping of other large stones.”
“It was necessary to raise the river bodily about eleven feet. As
the water rose and became ponded on the upper side of the rock heap,
train load after train load of small stone and gravel from the nearby
hills was dumped to fill the spaces between the large rocks. Finally,
after days and nights of struggle, the water was raised to a point
where it began to flow down its former channel and less and less to
pass over the rock heap. Then finer material was added and rapidly
piled up on the accumulated rock mass. At first, a large amount of
water passed through, and steps were taken as rapidly as possible to
close the openings by dumping sand and gravel, finishing this work by
hydraulicking silt or mud over the area and washing this in with a
hose. By thus piling up finer and finer material and distributing it,
the seepage or percolation through the mass was quickly checked and
the barrier became effective.” (“The Salton Sea,” by F. H. Newell,
Director of the U. S. Reclamation Service; Annual Report of the
Smithsonian Institution for 1907, p. 331.)
The crevasse was closed and the river forced into its old bed on
the 10th of February 1907, fifty two days after President Roosevelt
appealed to Mr. Harriman, and fifteen days after the first “battleship”
load of rock was dumped from the first completed trestle. In
order, however, that this gigantic work might be accomplished,
the transportation of commercial freight on the western part of
the transcontinental railroad had to be temporarily abandoned. In
testifying before a House committee, about a year later, Chief Engineer
Cory said:
“For three weeks, two divisions of the Southern Pacific system,
embracing about twelve hundred miles of main line, were practically
tied up because of our demands for equipment and facilities. We had
a thousand flat cars exclusively in our service, and shipping from
Los Angeles’ seaport--San Pedro--was practically abandoned for two
weeks until we returned a considerable portion of the equipment. It
was simply a case of putting rock into that break faster than the
river could take it away.... In fifteen days after we got the trestle
across and dumped the first carload of rock we had the river stopped.
In that time I suppose we handled rock faster than it was ever handled
before.... We hauled it from Patagonia, Arizona, four hundred and
eighty five miles, over two mountain passes; from Tacna, sixty miles
to the east; from three other quarries--one on the Santa Fé, one on
the Salt Lake road, and one on the Southern Pacific--all near Colton,
two hundred miles to the west, and over the San Gorgonio Pass.... We
brought in about three thousand flat cars loaded with rock from these
immense distances, and we put in, all together, about 80,000 cubic
yards of rock in fifteen days.”
But the work of the Southern Pacific engineers was not confined solely
to the closing of the crevasse. In order to prevent a future break in
some other part of the irrigation company’s defensive system, they were
compelled to extend their branch railway, and to build or reinforce
levees all up and down the river. Describing this work soon after its
completion in 1907, the Director of the U. S. Reclamation Service said:
“There now extends from the head works in the United States along the
river, between it and the canal, a double row of dikes, the outer
one being occupied by a railroad. These extend in an unbroken line for
a dozen miles near the river and shut it off from the lowlands to the
west. The river side of this dike is protected by a thick layer of
gravel, and the railroad affords immediate access to all parts, so that
if menaced by the cutting of the banks it will be possible to bring
men and materials to check the floods from encroachment upon the dike
itself. Secondary dikes or cross levees run from the main structure
to certain subsidiary works, so that if the outer main dike is broken
or water flows through, this will be ponded, for a while at least,
against the inner line of defense, thus affording time to assemble the
necessary equipment to fight another intrusion.”
[Illustration: Hind-Clarke Dam by which Crevasse was Finally Closed in
January 1907]
[Illustration: Railroad Track on Reconstructed Levee]
In closing the second crevasse and completing the so-called
“Hind-Clarke” dam[16] there were used 1200 ninety-foot piles; 16,000
feet of eight-by-seventeen-inch pine stringers, and 5765 carloads
of rock, gravel and clay. In reconstructing and extending the levee
system nearly 900,000 cubic yards of earth were excavated or placed in
embankments, while 5285 carloads of gravel for blanketing were brought
from the Mammoth Gravel Pit, forty miles west of the river on the
main line. The total cost of the defensive work done after President
Roosevelt made his appeal to Mr. Harriman was about $1,600,000,
and this added to the cost of previous operations made a total of
approximately $3,100,000 expended in the effort to control the Colorado
and keep it out of the Imperial Valley. But the work was thoroughly
and effectively done. The river has never broken through the Southern
Pacific defences, although since the final closing of the second
crevasse in 1907 there have been two floods in which the discharge of
water has exceeded 140,000 cubic feet per second, or twelve billion
cubic feet every twenty four hours.
The great service thus rendered by Mr. Harriman to the people of
the Imperial Valley and to the nation has never been set forth more
clearly, perhaps, than it was in the message sent by President
Roosevelt to the Congress on the 12th of January 1907, while the work
of closing the second crevasse was in progress. In that historic paper
he said:
“The governor of the State of California and individuals and
communities in southern California have made urgent appeals to me
to take steps to save the lands and settlements in the sink, or
depression, known as the Imperial Valley, or Salton Sink region, from
threatened destruction by the overflow of Colorado River. The situation
appears so serious and urgent that I now refer the matter to the
Congress for its consideration....
“By means of the facilities available to the Southern Pacific Company,
the break in the west bank of the Colorado River was closed on November
4, 1906. A month later, however, a sudden rise in the river undermined
the poorly constructed levees immediately south of the former break,
and the water again resumed its course into the Salton Sea.
“The results have been highly alarming, as it appears that if the water
is not checked it will cut a very deep channel which, progressing
upstream in a series of cataracts, will result in conditions such
that the water cannot be diverted by gravity into the canals already
built in the Imperial Valley. If the break is not closed before the
coming spring flood of 1907, it appears highly probable that all of the
property values created in this valley will be wiped out, including
farms and towns, as well as the revenues derived by the Southern
Pacific Company. Ultimately the channel will be deepened in the main
stream itself, up to and beyond the town of Yuma, destroying the homes
and farms there, the great railroad bridge, and the Government works at
Laguna dam above Yuma....
“If the river is not put back and permanently maintained in its natural
bed, the progressive back-cutting, in the course of one or two years,
will extend upstream to Yuma, as before stated, and finally to the
Laguna dam, now being built by the Government, thus wiping out millions
of dollars of property belonging to the Government and to citizens.
Continuing farther, it will deprive all the valley lands along the
Colorado River of the possibility of obtaining necessary supply of
water by gravity canals.
“The great Yuma bridge will go out, and approximately 700,000 acres
of land as fertile as the Nile Valley will be left in a desert
condition. What this means may be understood when we remember that
the entire producing area of southern California is about 250,000
acres. A most conservative estimate after full development must place
the gross product from this land at not less than $100 per acre per
year, every ten acres of which will support a family when under
intense cultivation. If the break in the Colorado is not permanently
controlled, the financial loss to the United States will be great. The
entire irrigable area which will be either submerged or deprived of
water, in the Imperial Valley and along the Colorado River, is capable
of adding to the permanent population of Arizona and California at
least 350,000 people, and probably 500,000. Much of the land will be
worth from $500 to $1500 per acre to individual owners, or a total of
from $350,000,000 to $700,000,000....
“The point to be especially emphasized is that prompt action must be
taken, if any; otherwise the conditions may become so extreme as to be
impracticable of remedy.... It is probable now that with an expenditure
of $2,000,000 the river can be restored to its former channel and
held there indefinitely; but if this action is not taken immediately,
several times this sum may be required to restore it, and possibly it
cannot be restored unless enormous sums are expended.” (House Report
No. 1936, 61st Congress, 3rd Session, pp. 153-157.)
FOOTNOTES:
[12] The settlers had made desert or homestead entries on the land,
were actually in possession of it, and had an equitable right to it;
but the original survey of this part of California had been found
inaccurate and defective, and the Government would not--possibly could
not--issue patents until boundaries had been more clearly defined by
a re-survey. The settlers, therefore, could not raise money on their
farms by mortgaging them, because the legal title was still vested in
the Government. This became a very serious matter when they wished to
help the Southern Pacific in its fight with the river.
[13] Maxwell Evarts.
[14] Where the soil, on the site of a proposed levee, is loose and
porous, so that water percolates rapidly through it, a “muck-ditch”
is dug, to a depth of six or eight feet; material of more solid
consistency is packed into it, and the levee is then built on the
impervious foundation.
[15] The text of the agreement may be found in Report 1936, House of
Representatives, 61st Congress, 3rd Session, Jan. 18, 1911.
[16] The northern part of this dam, across the by-pass and intake,
was built under the immediate supervision of Superintendent Thomas J.
Hind, and the southern part, across the second crevasse, under that of
Superintendent C. K. Clarke. Both were Southern Pacific engineers.
THE RECOMPENSE
One might naturally suppose that when a private citizen, at the head
of a great railroad company, averted a national calamity, and saved
for the country public property that was actually worth $25,000,000 and
that had a potential value of “from $350,000,000 to $700,000,000,” he
would be entitled, at least, to the thanks of the national legislature.
If, even in Russia, a railroad president, at the request of the Czar,
controlled a great flood in the Volga, barred that river out of the
city of Astrakhan, and saved from total destruction “700,000 acres” of
fertile land potentially worth “from $350,000,000 to $700,000,000,”
he would certainly receive the thanks of the nation, expressed in a
suitably worded resolution of the Duma and the Council of the Empire.
It is more than probable that, even in China, something of this kind
would have been done for a railroad president who had controlled
a disastrous flood in the valley of the Hoang-ho. But no such
acknowledgment of valuable service was ever made by the Congress of the
United States.
Perhaps, however, Mr. Harriman was not entitled to credit, for the
reason that the work in the field was done by the Southern Pacific
Company and its engineers. This was not the view taken by the company
and the engineers themselves. If Mr. Harriman, personally, had been
asked who finally controlled the Colorado River and saved the
Imperial Valley, he undoubtedly would have replied: “Epes Randolph,
H. T. Cory, Thomas J. Hind, C. K. Clarke, and their associates.” But
these gentlemen have publicly said that the driving power behind
their work--the one thing that made it successful--was the invincible
determination of their chief. In a written discussion of the operations
on the lower Colorado, which was conducted by the American Society of
Civil Engineers, Mr. C. K. Clarke said:
“The writer desires to put on record the fact that the accomplishment
of the work was due primarily and exclusively to the independent
judgment and courage of Mr. Harriman, who persisted in his belief that
the breaks could be closed, and his determination to close them, in the
face of opposition, and regardless of the positive assertions of a host
of eminent engineers that the closure was a physical impossibility.”
(Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Paper 1270,
pp. 1551-2.)
In the course of the same discussion, Mr. Elwood Mead, Chief of
the Irrigation and Drainage Division of the U. S. Department of
Agriculture, said:
“It was the duty of the State or Nation to take charge, and provide
the money and men needed to restore the river to its former channel.
Apparently no one in authority was interested; the State Government
only considered the matter long enough to write a letter to the
President, and the President, having Congress on his hands, shifted the
responsibility to the head of a railroad company; and it was not until
the railroad company took charge that we have the first refreshing
example of generosity and public spirit. Nothing could have been finer
than the action of Mr. Harriman. The loan of $250,000, when his time
and resources were overtaxed by the earthquake at San Francisco, and
the providing more than $1,000,000 for the last hazardous attempt
to save the valley, furnish an inspiring contrast to the supine
indifference and irresponsibility shown by both the State and Federal
authorities.” (Same Paper, p. 1510.)
Mr. Epes Randolph, who as President of the California Development
Company directed and controlled the engineering operations in the lower
Colorado from 1905 to 1907, said, in a private letter to a student of
the subject:
“It was a great work, and I do not believe that any man whom I have
ever known, except Mr. Harriman, would have undertaken it. All of those
of us who actually handled the work were merely instruments in the
hands of the Master Builder.”
From these expressions of opinion it clearly appears that, in the
judgment of the men “on the firing line,” the fight with the Colorado
was inspired, directed and won by E. H. Harriman; but no acknowledgment
of indebtedness to him personally was ever made by the Congress of the
United States. The service that he personally rendered was recognized
and publicly acknowledged only by the people of the Imperial Valley. In
testifying before the House Claims Committee, in March 1910, Mr. J. B.
Parazette, speaking for the farmers of the Valley, said:
“We do feel rather differently in that Valley toward Mr. Harriman
from the way others seem to feel elsewhere over the United States. We
believe that Mr. Harriman felt a very human interest in our troubles
there.... We volunteered to furnish about five hundred horses, and to
bed and board them, and to furnish men to work during the time that the
break was being closed; but we heard that Mr. Harriman said that the
farmers down there, he supposed, had a great deal to do (it was seeding
time with them) and they had about all the work to attend to that they
could handle, and the Southern Pacific would fix the break anyway. What
we could have done would not have amounted to much to the railroad
company, but it would have amounted to considerable to the farmers
there, taking their teams out at that time of the year when they wanted
to put in crops.”
This expression of gratitude to Mr. Harriman for “showing a human
interest” in the farmers’ “troubles,” and for declining to increase
their hardships by shifting a part of the burden of work from his own
shoulders to theirs, must have pleased him more than any formal vote of
thanks from Congress could have done.
When Mr. Harriman, on the 20th of December 1906, telegraphed the
President that, “in view of” his “message,” he would resume efforts
to control the Colorado, he ventured to express the modest hope that
the Government, as soon as the necessary Congressional action could be
secured, would “assist with the burden.” Mr. Roosevelt replied that
he would recommend legislation to “provide against a repetition of
the disaster and make provision for an equitable distribution of the
burden.” (House Report No. 1936, 61st Congress, 3rd Session, p. 163).
Three weeks later, however, when the work was actually in progress,
he merely said, in his message to Congress, that “the question as to
what sum, _if any_, should be paid to the Southern Pacific Company
for work done since the break of November 4th, 1906, is one for future
consideration. For work done prior to that date no claim can be
admitted” (Same Report, p. 157). This may have seemed to Mr. Roosevelt
a proper recommendation, and one likely to secure “an equitable
distribution of the burden;” but it would not have made that impression
upon an irrigation expert, say, from the planet Mars, because it
suggested a doubt whether “_any_” of the burden should be borne by
the chief beneficiary, namely the Government. However, when a bill to
reimburse the Southern Pacific Company was introduced in the House of
Representatives in 1908, the President did give it cordial support by
saying, in a letter to the chairman of the Claims Committee:
“... I accordingly wrote an earnest appeal to the officials of the
road” (the Southern Pacific) “asking them to act. They did act, and
thereby saved from ruin many people in southern California, and saved
to the Government the Laguna dam.... I feel that it is an act of
justice to act generously in this matter, for the railroad, by the
prompt and effective work that it did, rendered a notable service to
the threatened community. In no other way could this result have been
accomplished.” (House Report No. 1936, 61st Congress, 3rd Session.)
Mr. Roosevelt’s “earnest appeal” had been addressed, as a matter of
fact, to E. H. Harriman, not to “the officials of the road;” but
the President, apparently, could not bring himself, either in this
letter or in his previous message, to mention the name of the man
who, at the very time when he was struggling with the Colorado River
at the request of the Government, was being prosecuted by that same
Government as a malefactor. Names are often embarrassing, and the name
in this case might have suggested to the public mind the obnoxious
idea that Mr. Harriman, after all, might not be a wholly “undesirable
citizen.” Then, too, there would have been a certain incongruity in
denouncing “Harriman,” by name as a public enemy, while asking the
same “Harriman,” by name, to render a great public service; so it was
apparently thought safer to mention the name in one case and drop it
out of sight in the other.
The President’s appeal to Congress to “act generously,” was not
so successful as had been his appeal to Mr. Harriman to stop the
Colorado River and save the Imperial Valley. Congress seldom acts
“generously” except on measures likely to influence votes, such as
pension bills, public building bills, and bills for the improvement
of rivers and harbors. Mr. Harriman and the Southern Pacific
Company had “improved” a national river, at a cost to themselves of
about $3,000,000; but inasmuch as they were then under a cloud of
unpopularity created by official and unofficial misrepresentation,
their influence on Congressional elections was negligible, and Senators
and Representatives might safely--perhaps judiciously--ignore their
claim regardless of its merits. The reimbursement bill, therefore,
dragged along without action for about three years. Hearings were held,
witnesses from California and Arizona were examined, expert engineers
were consulted, and the whole subject was thoroughly threshed out.
Memorials in support of the bill were received from towns, communities
and chambers of commerce in the Imperial Valley; and the entire
Congressional delegation from California, as well as almost all the
newspapers of the State, urged reimbursement as a matter of simple
justice. But Congress could not make up its mind to do justice, either
to Mr. Harriman or to a railroad company. In 1909, when William H.
Taft became President, he at once took up the matter, and in his first
message to Congress referred to it in the following words:
“This leads me to invite the attention of Congress to the claim made
by the Southern Pacific Company for an amount expended in a similar
work of relief called for by a flood and great emergency. This work,
as I am informed, was undertaken at the request of my predecessor,
and under promise to reimburse the railroad company. It seems to me
the equity of this claim is manifest, and the only question involved
is the reasonable value of the work done. I recommend the payment of
the claim, in a sum found to be just.” (House Report No. 1956, 61st
Congress, 3rd Session.)
Two years later, when nothing had been done, President Taft sent to the
Chairman of the House Committee on Claims the following letter:
White House
Washington, Jan. 16, 1911.
HON. GEORGE W. PRINCE,
Chairman of Committee on Claims,
_My dear Mr. Prince_:
As I recommended in my message, I sincerely hope that Congress, at
this time, will compensate the Southern Pacific Railway for work which
it did in the Imperial Valley under stress of great emergency. I do
not know what amount is just, but I do know that that company came to
the rescue of the Government at the instance of President Roosevelt,
and that there was an implied arrangement under which they were to be
compensated, and I think that Congress should take up the matter and
do justice to that corporation in this instance.
Sincerely yours,
W. H. TAFT.
Under this pressure from the White House, the Committee on Claims
finally acted. On the 28th of January 1911, after having reduced the
proposed appropriation from $1,663,000 to $773,000, the committee, by
a divided vote, reported the bill to the House with the recommendation
that it pass. Five members, however, namely Representatives Goldfogle,
Kitchin, Candler, Shackleford and Adair, presented a minority report
in which they described the bill as “an attempted raid on the Federal
Treasury;” denied that there was “any legal, equitable, or moral
obligation on the part of the Government” to pay this sum, “or any
amount, for closing the break in the Colorado River;” referred to
the proposed appropriation as “purely a gratuity,” “a gift of the
people’s money,” and declared that they were opposed to this “gift
to the Southern Pacific Company, as well as all other gratuities to
private enterprise.” (House Report No. 1936, part 2; 61st Congress, 3rd
Session.)