A heavy set man, tanned and cheaply dressed, said: "Mr. Secretary, I was born in Hungary. I am a tinner by trade. I lived in Sioux City. I have a wife and six children. I got consumption and a real estate man fixed it up with a friend of his on the Makon Project that I go out there, see? It took all I saved but they told me crops the first year will pay all my living expenses. I buy forty acres.
"Mr. Secretary, I get no crops for five years. I hauled every drop of water we use seven miles from a spring for five years. Some days we got nothing to eat. Me and my oldest boy, we work for Mellin when we can and we stayed alive till the water come. I get cured of my consumption. But my money is gone. I can buy no tools, no nothing. And, Mr. Secretary, when the canal do come they run it through Mellin's place. My money is gone and I can't afford to dig the long ditch to Mellin's. Mellin's place is green and mine is still desert."
"Are there no small farmers or settlers who are succeeding on the Makon Project?" asked the Secretary.
"Yes, sir," replied the man, "many, but also, many like me."
"Then is your complaint against the real estate sharks or the government?" persisted the Secretary.
"Against both!" cried the man. "Why did that Freet give Mellin and the other big fellow first choice in everything? Why must I pay for what I can't get?"
There were several farmers from different projects who had stories that matched the ex-tinner's. When they had finished, the Secretary called on a real estate man who had come with a protest about the running of the canals on the Makon.
"What was the net value of the crops on the Makon Project last year," asked the Secretary.
"What was it, say the year before the Reclamation Service went in there?"
"We are to believe, then, that some people have found the Service useful?"
"Oh, yes, Mr. Secretary, there are a whole lot of contented farmers up there who are too busy with their bumper crops to come to Washington, even if they wanted to."
The real estate man sat down and the Secretary called on the Chairman of the Congressional investigating committee to make a brief summary of his charges.
The Chairman said, succinctly: "I charge the Service with graft, gross extravagance and inefficiency. I call on you to remove the Director and four of his engineers, including Arthur Freet and James Manning, who are present."