The Path Not Taken: The Development Company Of America's Hudson Reservoir Project, Arizona Territory,

Transcription

1 The Path Not Taken: The Development Company Of America's Hudson Reservoir Project, Arizona Territory, During the early summer of 1900, a group of businessmen held clandestined meetings over lunch or in private offices in New York City to discuss the building of the nation's highest dam and creation of a thirty-three square mile reservoir. Among them was Elton Hooker, the chief engineer of New York state's Public Works and a just returned member of the U. S. investigatory commission that studied the possibility of a canal across the isthmus of Panama. Ex-Secretary of War Russell Alger, soon to be Senator from Michigan, was in attendance as was Henry M. Robinson, New York City corporate lawyer and player in the underway consolidation to create U. S. Steel, the first billion dollar corporation. Two westerners, Governor Oakes Murphy of Arizona Territory and his brother Frank, a rising financier of the territory's mines and railroads, brought the group together to negotiate with Henry Man, of Man & Man, New York City lawyers, and possessors of the right to build a dam on the Salt River upstream from Phoenix. The editor of the Arizona Republican, the Phoenix newspaper, shadowed the group in New York and leaked the story. 1 It appeared that the long-awaited storage dam and reservoir to ease all water shortages in the Salt River Valley was to be built, if, the editor asked, the citizens would agree to supply a $500,000 bonding subsidy. In the months following, two factions in the Salt River Valley soon coalesced, one supportive of the private project, another demanding that the federal government take charge of the site and build the dam. 2 Instead of supporting the Murphy brothers, the other group in Phoenix accused the governor and his brother of trying to bilk taxpayers of $500,000 and defraud the Salt River Valley's residents. For the next two years the two factions clashed, one pro-murphy and private enterprise, the other in opposition and pro-federal control. Today, the tale of the passage of the Newlands Act in 1902 and the federal construction of Roosevelt dam at the site on the Salt River, , is well known. What is left out is the other group, the proponents of corporate dam building projects, of the path not taken. 3 The leading promoters of the private project were the Murphy brothers, Frank and Nathan Oakes. Born in Maine, but raised in the lumber camps of Wisconsin, the two men followed separate paths West, sometime together in Kansas or California, sometime not. In December 1877, Frank moved to Prescott, Arizona Territory. After a period of varied jobs -- stage driver, haberdashery clerk, scribe for the territorial legislature -- Frank found his calling as mine promoter. In 1883, his older brother Nathan Oakes, always known as 1

2 Oakes, joined him in Prescott. 4 Oakes had taught school, served in the military, then joined his brother in the firm of F. M. Murphy & Brother. One of the properties they acquired were the hydraulic gold mining operations along Lynx Creek, ten miles east of Prescott. Hydraulic mining used a stream of water to cut down stream banks, which then flowed into sluice boxes where the gold nuggets and flakes were washed out of the gravels. In the late 1880s, F. M. Murphy & Bro. operated their diversion dam, flume, and hydraulic nozzles during the high water of each spring. 5 As others have pointed out, the basics of western water law came from the experience of hydraulic miners in the placer gold mining regions of Colorado and California. The experience at the Lynx Creek hydraulics would be used by Oakes, in training to be a mining lawyer, in his later irrigation views. He also understood the engineering basics as evidenced in his promotional pamphlet printed ca in an effort to sell the mines. A British company, the Lynx Creek Gold & Land Co., Ltd., bought the property, built a sixty foot dam, cleared a storage reservoir site, and by 1891 began working the Arizona gold fields. By then Oakes had taken his profits and moved to Phoenix. 6 Oakes had become active in Republican politics and rose through various appointed positions, first as personal secretary to the Governor, then Secretary of the Territory, similar to a Lt. Governor today, and then, finally, Governor in his own right in Forced to move to Phoenix with the removal of the territorial capital from Prescott, Oakes soon became a leader in the growing agricultural community in the Salt River Valley. 7 Phoenix had risen from the ruins of the prehistoric Hohokam peoples's homes and irrigation system. After 1867, a series of ever larger and longer ditches and canals supported the new farms and ranches along the Salt River. Phoenix became a territorial trade and political center, especially with the arrival of the capital in The 1890 census takers counted 3,152 residents. 8 When Oakes arrived in the small town, the city fathers had been working to build a railroad connecting the northern and southern parts of the territory via Phoenix. He organized a company, ushered through a twenty year tax exemption from the territorial legislature, and ceremoniously broke ground for the Santa Fe, Prescott, & Phoenix Railroad. Because of his gubernatorial duties, he passed the leadership of the project to his brother Frank, who completed the line to Phoenix between 1892 and February Wealthy investors from Chicago and Detroit backing the Murphy brothers' railroad also invested in Salt River Valley canal companies and land. 9 During the 1890s the diverted water from the Salt River did not meet demands of boosters and land speculators, especially during drought years. Oakes Murphy became a leader in the 2

3 political debate over water and irrigation, especially governmental support. At the 1892 National Republican Convention, Oakes was able to have included as part of the major party's platform the first call for federal support of private irrigation projects. 10 In 1894, Oakes ran for and was elected to the U. S. Congress as Arizona's delegate or non-voting member, and again pushed for support for irrigation projects in the territories. During his tenure as member of the U. S. Congress, Phoenix hosted the National Irrigation Congress, one with many ideas but dominated by disputing factions and many resolutions. Murphy pushed for the ceding of lands for irrigation projects, in line with the 1894 Carey Act. 11 When Oakes left office in 1897, he turned to developing a resort and opening a land office in the Adams Hotel, Phoenix. Among the investors who had backed the Santa Fe, Prescott & Phoenix Railroad were some of the nation's most prominent businessmen, who now invested in his new projects. These investors included Dexter M. Ferry and C. C. Bowen of Detroit, the nation's largest seed producers. Through a field man, Dr. Alexander. J. Chandler, they had bought Salt River Valley lands and built a major canal. Simon Murphy, a millionaire timber man from Detroit and "uncle" of Frank and Oakes, also invested in Salt River Valley lands, and supported the canal and land promotions of the Ferry and Bowen crowd through Simon's ranch manager A. C. McQueen. 12 Included in the group of Detroit men was Russell Alger, another millionaire timber man. Alger had been a one-time candidate for U. S. President, but relinquished his bid to aid the Republicans and elect Benjamin Harrison. Eight years later, as pay-back, President William McKinley appointed Alger as his Secretary of War. Alger provided access to the White House for the Murphy brothers, and, in 1898, helped Oakes Murphy receive a second appointment as governor of Arizona. 13 Upon his return to office Governor Murphy joined other residents in stating that the biggest need in the Salt River Valley was a means to store enough water to ensure that a steady stream could be provided for the expanding farmlands. He spoke at national arid lands meetings, raised awareness within the federal government, and sought incentives to assist private enterprise. By 1898 too, he, with his brother Frank, looked at ways to take over the company owning the best dam and reservoir site along the Salt River, the foundering Hudson Reservoir & Canal Company. 14 Some sixty air miles east of Phoenix, the Salt River flows from a broad twenty-six mile wide valley into a narrow canyon barely two hundred feet across, an ideal water storage dam site. An 1889 visit by a Senatorial committee to Phoenix spurred the finding and description of the dam site, followed by a savvy New York lawyer who lay claim to it under the revised 1891 Federal land laws. In 1893, Wells Hendershott organized the Hudson Reservoir & 3

4 Canal Company to build the dam and create a reservoir estimated, at first, at eighteen square miles. U. S. Senator John Martin of Kansas became president and secured the company's claim from the federal land office. 15 However, 1893 was the worst time in the nineteenth century to promote new ventures. Across the nation railroads, banks, and canal companies went bankrupt as the country entered a depression that lasted from 1893 to Hendershott, a tall handsome promoter personality, raised only $3,900. Sims Ely, secretary for Senator Martin, recalled that Hendershott had borrowed from the New York City law firm of Man & Man in order to keep an office open in Phoenix, take water measurements, and do minimal engineering assessments for the Hudson company. The amount of capital needed -- the Hudson company had estimated $2.5 million -- was beyond the reach of the Salt River Valley financial world at that time. Overextended, Hendershott transferred his control of the company to the Man brothers, particularly Henry Man. Sims Ely moved to Phoenix in 1895 as manager for the company. 16 The company received a boost two years later when the U. S. Geological Survey published a report that confirmed that the site was the best along the river -- indeed, was one of the best sites for a reservoir and storage dam in the West. That year Frank Murphy with Dr. Chandler visited the Hudson site. In addition, Sims Ely, Hudson company manager, became part-time reporter for Frank Murphy's Arizona Republican newspaper. The following spring 1898, Ely also became personal secretary to Governor Murphy. 17 In his first report as governor, Oakes Murphy outlined in optimistic terms the products of the Salt River valley, but added that without the Hudson Reservoir the limit of water for irrigation had been reached. His report also contains a lengthy description of the potential of the Hudson company project, written as a promotional tract by secretary Ely. It stated "the further development of water supply is, therefore, one of the most absorbing problems with which the people of this Territory have to deal with." 18 The Governor proposed several legislative initiatives to help build the dam, which was to remain a private enterprise. The Territory should be given federal lands which it could then sell and use the revenues for irrigation projects. Also, the dam project should receive subsidies like railroad projects had, including tax breaks and county or territorial bonds. Frank Murphy had been in Washington asking Congress to allow the territory to issue gold bonds for public improvement projects, including water systems. He also boasted to a New York Times reporter that Arizona oranges could reach eastern market two days ahead of those grown in California. 19 Frank was the key to raising capital to build the dam. Ferry, Bowen, Simon Murphy, and Alger all helped back Frank Murphy's Santa 4

5 Fe, Prescott & Phoenix Railroad. These men owned large tracts of land southeast of Phoenix. They also pushed for a railroad extension to these undeveloped farmlands. The railroad could also support the dam building effort. 20 In 1900, Frank Murphy and his partners owned the territory's richest gold mine, were consolidating its richest silver mining district, and held one of its most profitable railroads. They also owned newspapers, banks, mercantiles and other support business. 21 Imitating others, they began discussing the formation of a large holding company, ultimately called the Development Company of America (DCA), to transfer their operating companies to and then seek other opportunities for investment. The DCA would investigate new business proposals and, when one had promise, undertake its initial financial support by setting up an operating company. They would control the operating company by holding half its stock and bonds, but selling shares and mortgage bonds to the general investing public to raise funds. The Hudson dam project was an obvious choice for the group. 22 The meeting in New York City in the summer of 1900 was followed by the drafting of the proposed company. George W. Kretzinger, Chicago attorney, a director of Murphy's railroad, and investor in Arizona mines, described the best way to organize the company. The Hudson company was to be taken over by a new corporate entity, all the canals in the valley were to be acquired, the canals were to be improved and extended, all water franchises acquired, and the operation of an electric power system begun. This company would be controlled by a holding company, the Development Company of America (DCA). 23 The DCA would be presided over by Frank Murphy. Engineer Elton Hooker would serve as vice president and general manager; he also represented his father-in-law Dexter Ferry. Making up the rest of the holding company directorate would be Senator Alger of Michigan; New York City lawyer Henry M. Robinson; N. K. Fairbank, Chicago grain and flour millionaire; Benjamin P. Cheney, representing the Santa Fe railroad and a Boston millionaire; Clement A. Griscom, Philadelphia shipping magnate; Eliphlet B. Gage, president of the Phoenix National Bank, Tempe Land Co., and the Tombstone Consolidated Mines Co., Ltd; and seven other directors. Each had holdings in Arizona, were participants in earlier Murphy projects, and controlled wealth in their own fields. 24 More importantly, while they were discussing possible projects in Arizona, they were ready to come into massive amounts of investment funds. Robinson was negotiating for steel and coal men in Michigan and Ohio with banker J. P. Morgan, who would buy them out to form U. S. Steel in At the same time, Frank Murphy was negotiating the sale of the Santa Fe, Prescott & Phoenix Railroad to the Santa Fe Railway for a reported three million, 5

6 consummated in October These funds would be directed through the DCA to Arizona projects. 25 The firm of Man & Man were ready and willing sellers of the Hudson project. Man & Man had continued to hold claim to the site and had funded Sims Ely, its Phoenix agent, to monitor water flow, collect statistics, and to work with local canal companies to ensure, if built, there would be water for all. In 1899, he had arranged an agreement with the canal companies that ensured certain water levels and levels of profit for the Hudson company. 26 The canals on the south side of the river, controlled by the Michigan group, would come into the new DCA operating company. Murphy was discussing cooperation with lawyer W. B. Cleary, manager of the New York controlled Arizona Water Company, owners of the Arizona, Grand, Maricopa, and Salt River canals, all the major canals north of the river. Also in support was Moses H. Sherman, now of Los Angeles, but major owner of the Phoenix municipal water and electric power system, trolley line, and an extensive land owner. 27 Governor Oakes Murphy pushed the territorial legislature to pass a tax break of 15 years for new reservoir projects, and then began pushing for a bond package, up to $2 million worth. During , various backers of the consolidation and holding company visited Phoenix. Senator Alger visited as did others including Chicagoan Marshall Field, backer of Murphy's railroad and one of the ten richest Americans of all time. Most importantly in May 1901, President William McKinley visited Phoenix and the Congress gold mine, owned by Frank Murphy's group. McKinley made quips about Arizonans backing the gold standard, but, unstated, he supported his governor and his pro-business political attitude. 28 During the fall 1901, the finishing touches on organizing the Development Company of America were completed, and the initiation of construction of the Phoenix & Eastern Railroad began. The railroad would support valley communities and the dam construction. Papers were drawn to transfer the Hudson company to the DCA. DCA vice-president and engineer Elton Hooker readied himself to take charge of the DCA's many projects, including building the nation's largest dam. Construction engineer F. S. Washburn of Tennessee, expert in water control systems, joined DCA. 29 As Oakes Murphy pushed for bonding legislation and Frank Murphy drafted papers for the organization of a strong operating company, the federal irrigation advocates continued to oppose private projects. Fate would be on their side. Outspoken leader of the group George Maxwell, a California lawyer specializing in water and irrigation law, was adamantly opposed to private sector involvement. The residents of Phoenix were of mixed minds; some, when meeting with Maxwell, followed his lead. Just as easily, when meeting with the Murphys, the same groups backed the Murphys's program of bonds and tax support for private projects. The name 6

7 calling begun in the summer of 1900 when the Murphy's newspaper first announced the plan had died down -- one can speculate that this abusive rhetoric was part of a political attack on Oakes Murphy, then the Republican candidate for Delegate to Congress (he lost). But the desire for public ownership and control continued to grow. 30 In 1901, events took a decided turn. In September 1901, President McKinley was assassinated and Vice President Theodore Roosevelt took office. Unfortunate for the old guard, including Oakes Murphy, their access to the White House closed (Roosevelt had been a major critic of Secretary of War Alger during the Spanish- American War). In his first message to Congress, December 1901, Roosevelt also became a friend to federal irrigation project proponents by including a strong statement pro-federal reclamation and concluding that such projects were "too vast for private effort." The president's speech was followed by resolutions and outpourings of popular Western support of a federal program. 31 At that time, Frank Murphy wrote to a business partner, I have about made up my mind there is not much use trying to organize a local company on the lines we discussed, as I am inclined to believe we would find great difficulty in placing the securities of a reservoir company if controlled by local influences. I am about convinced that if the water consumers and tax payers are not willing to let a private enterprise take hold of the reservoir proposition on a fair basis, the next best thing for them to do is to get authority to issue their county bonds for enough money to construct the dam..." 32 As the Maxwell contingent gained access to the White House through Roosevelt's friend Gifford Pinchot, Governor Murphy was rapidly falling out of favor. Oakes met his new boss at the Grand Canyon April 6, 1902, and announced his resignation the next day. In a letter to a friend two weeks earlier, Governor Murphy had written that he would be relieved to quit the "very unprofitable and thankless office." 33 The Murphys continued to push for support of the bond issue for the reservoir project. In May 1902, Frank met with some 300 business leaders in the Adams Hotel, Phoenix, asking their support for bonding their county for $1 million in order to get the reservoir built. At the same time, Governor Murphy, not officially out of office until July, was in Washington as part of a lobbying effort to influence reclamation legislation. The group worked with Senator Francis Warren of Wyoming for a reclamation bill friendly to the territory, especially its businessmen. Unfortunately, Senator Warren left suddenly because of his wife's death, and Oakes Murphy wired Phoenix that there would be no passage of the bond bill, it would not even make it to the floor of the House. 34 7

8 As we know today, that another group, led by George Maxwell, inserted instead the legislation introduced by Francis Newlands, Representative from Nevada, which passed June 17, At the last minute the initial proposal to provide support for only undeveloped federal lands was changed to allow for aiding private lands. As Karen Smith wrote, with this change, Salt River Valley land speculators "saw their land turn golden." 35 With the passage of the Newlands Act, if not before, the Development Company of America halted the Hudson dam project, a project later completed by the U. S. Reclamation Service as the Roosevelt Dam. Elton Hooker left in the fall of 1902 to become a leader in chemical manufacturing. The Murphy brothers continued to promote land deals in the valley, Oakes opening an office in the Adams hotel. He profited from his speculations, sailed Europe, and died in 1908 at the Coronado Hotel in San Diego. 36 Frank Murphy and the DCA turned primarily to mining and operated some of the territory's largest mines. Unfortunately, the holding company's Tombstone Consolidate Mines, Ltd., hit an underground river equivalent to the flow of the Salt River and spent $8 million trying to pump the mines dry. The firm lost nearly as much as the Roosevelt dam would cost in the unsuccessful attempt and closed operations in 1911, the year Theodore Roosevelt dedicated his namesake dam. 37 The different tracks followed by the Murphys from the well known triumphal story of the events leading to the passage of the Newlands Act and the construction of Roosevelt dam brings up the question, could private industry have built and profited from the project? Were 90% of canal and irrigation companies in financial straights in the 1890s, as proponents of the federal act claimed? Evidence suggests that proponents of federal reclamation overstated the crisis of the time. They claimed that not enough capital existed to build such works. Obviously, the Development Company of America had the funds. The muckraking critics of the era pointed to the government's Roosevelt Dam project as being a scandal, called Uncle Sam a lawbreaker. The government by its lax regulation of land laws, one muckraker wrote, had encouraged fraudulent irrigation of thousands of acres of the public domain held by Dr. Chandler and his backers, when the water was to aid small farmers and owners of 160 acres or less. Further accusations were aimed at giveaway electricity. The Reclamation Service's contracts with Pacific Gas & Electric, heir of Moses Sherman, Murphy and other investors' Phoenix Light & Water Company, the muckraking critic pointed out, were scandalously low priced. 38 Finally, Man & Man, through Sims Ely and ex-governor Murphy, gained less than they hoped but their rights were bought out for a profitable $40,000. The New York, Michigan, and Chicago investors also made money selling their canal companies to the government. 8

9 In short, the Murphys and their friends were not hurt by the passage of the Newlands Act. 39 The Development Company of America's Hudson Reservoir project fit well into the politics-as-handmaiden-of-business outlook of the William McKinley era of the 1890s. But, like many such projects, it was never undertaken by private enterprise. Instead, Teddy Roosevelt and the progressives brought new ideas and legislation, and for the West, irrigation projects beyond the imagination of any nineteenth century empire builder. 9

10 1. Arizona Republican (Phoenix) July 19, Arizona Republican, August 3, 1900; Earl A. Zarbin, Roosevelt Dam: A History to 1911 (Phoenix: Salt River Project, 1984), pp Ibid.; Karen L. Smith, The Magnificent Experiment, Building the Salt River Reclamation Project, (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1986). 4. Portrait and Biographical Record of Arizona (Chicago: Chapman Publishing Company, 1901), pp. 61; Albert Nelson Marquis, Who's Who in America, vol VIII, (Chicago: A. N. Marquis & Co., 1914), pp Ibid.; William O. O'Neill, Central Arizona, For Homes, For Health, For Wealth (Prescott: Hoof & Horn, 1887), p On hydraulic mining and water law see Augustus J. Bowie, Jr., A Practical Treatise on Hydraulic Mining in California, with Description of the Use of Ditches, Flumes, Wrought-Iron Pipes, and Dams; Flow of Water on Heavy Grades, and its Applicability, Under High Pressure, to Mining (New York: D. Van Norstrand & Co., 1885), pp ; Charles F. Wilkinson, Crossing the Next Meridian, Land, Water, and the Future of the West (Washington, D. C.: Island Press, 1992), pp ; and Norris Hundley, Jr., The Great Thirst, Californians and Water, 1770s-1990s (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), pp Also see Jim McBride, "Hydraulic Mining in Arizona, Using the Giant Monitor in an Arid Territory," in J. Michael Canty, H. Mason Coggin, and Michael N. Greeley, eds., History of Arizona Mining, vol. III (Tucson: Mining Foundation of the Southwest, 1999), pp ; Nathan O. Murphy, comp., Lynx Creek Hydraulic Mining Water Storage Enterprise, Illustrated, Located near Prescott, Yavapai County, Arizona, no date, no publisher, Cline Library, Northern Arizona University; and Thomas G. Barlow- Massicks collection, Lynx Creek hydraulics papers, Sharlot Hall Historical Society, Prescott. 7. His political career is sketched in Jay J. Wagoner, Arizona Territory, , a Political History (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1970), passim.; and Howard R. Lamar, The Far Southwest, , a Territorial History (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, revised ed. 2000), passim. 10

11 8. Bradford Luckingham, Phoenix, the History of a Southwestern Metropolis (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1989), pp John W. Sayre, The Santa Fe, Prescott & Phoenix Railway, the Scenic Line of Arizona (Boulder: Pruett, 1990), pp. 13, Geoffrey Padraic Mawn, "Phoenix, Arizona: Central City of the Southwest, ," Ph.D. Dissertation, Arizona State University, 1979, p Ibid. 12. Castle Hot Springs Resort file, Sharlot Hall Historical Society, Prescott; Earl Zarbin, "Dr. A. J. Chandler: Practitioner in Land Fraud," Journal of Arizona History (Summer 1995), pp ; Simon J. Murphy (Detroit: Union Trust Company, 1905); Arizona Republican February 2, Rodney Ellis Bell, "A Life of Russell Alexander Alger, ," Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Michigan, 1975, pp , Zarbin, Roosevelt Dam, pp Ibid.; Smith, Magnificent Experiment, pp. 8-9; Earl Zarbin, "In Pursuit of a Reservoir," in G. Wesley Johnson, Jr., editor, Phoenix in the Twentieth Century, Essays in Community History (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993) 16. Sims Ely reminiscences, Arizona Historical Society, Tucson. 17. Ibid.; Murphy and Chandler visited as part of survey of a proposed railroad Phoenix to Globe. 18. N. O. Murphy, Report of the Governor of Arizona to the Secretary of the Interior, 1899 (Washington: G. P. O., 1899), pp ; Arizona Republican, February 28, Ibid.; "Against State Cession," Irrigation Age, July 1899, pp ; Arizona Graphic, September 16, 1899; New York Times May 16, Sayre, Santa Fe, Prescott & Phoenix Railway, p

12 21. Mason H. Coggin, "Frank M. Murphy -- Arizona Gold Miner," in J. Michael Canty and Michael N. Greeley, eds., History of Mining in Arizona, Volume II (Tucson: Mining Club of the Southwest Foundation, 1991), pp William F. Stanton, "Reminiscence," Special Collections, University of Arizona, Tucson, p. 105, 126; Stanton was general manager for DCA. 23. Ibid.; Zarbin, Roosevelt Dam, p Tombstone Consolidate Mines Company, Ltd., prospectus, ca. 1902, Lawler collection, Sharlot Hall Historical Society, Prescott; The Development Company of America, Annual Reports, , Historical Corporate Reports files, Baker Library, Harvard University. 25. Rockwell Hereford, A Whole Man -- Henry Mauris Robinson, and a Half Century, (Pacific Grove, California: Boxwood Press, 1964), pp ; Sayre, Santa Fe, Prescott & Phoenix Railway, pp Ely, Reminiscence, p. 20; Murphy, Governor's Report, 1899, p F. M. Murphy to L. H. Chalmers, Phoenix, January 13, 1902, M. H. Sherman to My Dear Chal, September 27, 1901, M. H. Sherman to My Dear [E. B.] Gage, June 6, 1903, Louis H. Chalmers collection, Arizona Historical Foundation, Tempe. 28. Zarbin, Roosevelt Dam, p. 31; Arizona Republican, May 8, Stanton, Reminiscence, p. 126; Sayre, Santa Fe, Prescott & Phoenix Railway, p Zarbin, Roosevelt Dam, pp. 32-8; Donald J. Pasani, To Reclaim a Divided West, Water, Law, and Public Policy, (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1992), passim. 31. Ibid.; William E. Smythe, "Public Works of Irrigation," Out West (January 1902), p declared, "The President of the United States is for irrigation! But that is only half the glorious truth. He is for irrigation on lines of wisdom and everlasting justice. In dealing with the delicate relations of State and Nation -- of the vested rights of capital, on one hand, and the vested rights of humanity on the other -- he has plucked the flower Safety, from the nettle Danger." 12

13 32. F. M. Murphy to L. H. Chalmers, Phoenix, January 13, 1902, Louis H. Chalmers collection, Arizona Historical Foundation, Tempe. 33. N. O. Murphy to Mr. Banta, March 20, 1902, A. F. Banta Collection, Sharlot Hall Historical Society, Prescott. 34. Arizona Republican May 28, 29, June 14, 1902; William Lilley III and Lewis L. Gould, "The Western Irrigation Movement, : A Reappraisal," in Gene M. Gressley, ed., The American West, a Reorientation (Laramie: University of Wyoming Press, 1966), pp Karen L. Smith, "The Campaign for Water in Central Arizona, ," Arizona and the West (Summer 1981), Arizona Republican August 23, 1908; on Hooker see Who's Who in America, , pp Stanton, Reminiscences, passim.; The Copper Handbook, , p Frank Blighton, "Uncle Sam, Lawbreaker," Everybody's Magazine (April 1913), pp ; Earl Zarbin, "Desert Land Schemes: William J. Murphy and the Arizona Canal," Journal of Arizona History (Summer 2001), ; Earl Zarbin, "Dr. A. J. Chandler: Practitioner in Land Fraud," Journal of Arizona History (Summer 1995), pp Ibid.; Smith, Magnificent Experiment, p. 58; Ely, Reminiscence, p. 22; F. M. Murphy, New York City, to E. P. Ripley, A. T. & S. F. Rly, Chicago, July 8, 1902, Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Papers, Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka. 13