Attitude of the Administration Toward the Recla/' 

 mation of the Arid Lands of the West' 



By Hon, RICHARD A, BALLINGER, Secretary of the Interior 



I BELIEVE nothing has done so 

 much to stimulate and bring about 

 the development of the West and its 

 settlement as the policy of the Govern- 

 ment in connection with free home- 

 steads for landless settlers and the en- 

 couragement of exploration in the min- 

 eral regions. It is true the great land 

 grants were productive of railroad con- 

 struction, linking the Atlantic with the 

 Pacific, and the construction of these 

 railroads was an almost indispensable 

 element in the progress of settlement 

 west of the Mississippi River. Since 

 the adoption of the homestead and min- 

 eral laws, the public lands have been 

 considered less of a direct national as- 

 set than as a means for the advance- 

 ment of our people and the encourage- 

 ment of agricultural, industrial, and 

 commercial growth. 



Up to the last decade it was not fully 

 apparent that the vast resources of the 

 Government in the public domain were 

 rapidly disappearing, and that for set- 

 tlement nothing but arid and semi-arid 

 lands would be left ; that the forests 

 and streams and coal deposits were be- 

 ginning to be the prey of speculators 

 and the Government's title therein di- 

 vested by fraud and criminal devices. 

 The necessity for the conservation of 

 public utilities had not ripened into a 

 conviction that the Government owed 

 any responsibility either to the present 

 or to future generations. 



In reference to the forests, particu- 

 larly, tremendous loss existed, not only 

 from fires, but from the wasteful 

 methods of logging and of manufactur- 

 ing. Under pioneer conditions waste- 

 fulness on account of the necessity for 



existence may have its excuses. The 

 pioneer could not eat the timber, and 

 what may now appear to have been 

 reckless prodigality may have been, at 

 the time, abject necessity; nevertheless, 

 waste is always to be deplored, and true 

 conservation of all our natural re- 

 sources means the elimination of waste 

 so far as possible, and the production 

 of the greatest utility for the greatest 

 number. The protection of the great 

 water-sheds of the mountain ranges 

 from being denuded of their forests so 

 that the streams may flow through their 

 courses and carry water to the arid 

 lands of the plains is of vital necessity 

 in the reclamation of these lands. 



The Nation is, therefore, to be con- 

 gratulated that, even if not seasonably 

 undertaken, we have now entered upon 

 a period of rational protection and of 

 saving of its resources in the public 

 domain. You may be assured, my fel- 

 low citizens, that all the energies of the 

 Government will be put forward to 

 make effective the means necessary to 

 accomplish this result. 



Appreciating the necessity of further 

 development in encouraging the settle- 

 ment of the West upon lands which 

 without irrigation were uninhabitable 

 and fit only for grazing (and that to a 

 very limited extent), Congress in 1902 

 adopted the method of appropriating 

 the receipts from the sale and disposal 

 of public lands in certain states and ter- 

 ritories to the construction of irrigation 

 works for the reclamation of arid and 

 semi-arid lands. The wisdom of this 

 measure could hardly have been fully 

 recognized by those who were respon- 

 sible for its enactment. It not onlv 



*Delivered before National Irrigation Congress at Spokane, Wash., on August 11, 1909. 

 544 



