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.)