SEVENTEENTH NATIONAL IRR I CATION CONGRESS 



591 



private projects which have already 

 placed more than 10,000,000 acres of 

 arid lands under the plow, and govern- 

 mental plants covering not less than 

 3,000,000 acres, in addition to backing 

 or supporting undertakings which will 

 reclaim 50,000,000 acres of sage-brush 

 and other waste lands, and 80,000,000 

 acres of swamps and submerged land, 

 thus affording homes for from 40,- 

 000,000 to 50,000,000 men, women, and 

 children under the most favorable con- 

 ditions and addings billions of dollars 

 annually to the wealth-production of 

 the country. 



The keynote of the Congress is con- 

 tained in four letters — home. The up- 

 permost thought was that the citizen 

 of the greatest value in steadiness and 

 stability to community, state and na- 

 tion is the one who owns the land from 

 which he makes his living ; and, by 

 the same token, it was clearly brought 

 out that no man is so ready to defend 

 his country, not only by taking up arms, 

 but by his franchise and his contribu- 

 tion to public opinion, as the one with 

 a permanent stake in it. Thus, the 

 gathering reflected the great truth that 

 the farmer who owns his land and con- 

 serves its resources in an intelli- 

 gent manner is the real backbone 

 of the Nation. As one of the speakers 

 expressed it, ''One of the things we 

 need most is more of him." 



Another speaker developed this 

 thought in a paper which attracted 

 wide attention because of its simplicity 

 and directness : 



"We have come to realize more to- 

 day, probably, than ever before that 

 the nation which leads the world will 

 be a nation of homes. The object of 

 this great conservation movement is to 

 make our country a permanent and 

 prosperous home for ourselves and for 

 our children's children — a task that is 

 worth the best thought and effort of 

 any and all of us; and to bring this 

 about the first thing we need in this 

 country is equality of opportunity for 

 every citizen. No man should have less 

 and none ought to ask for any more." 



The ultimate result of the stupendous 

 work outlined by the Congress will be 



the migration of from 25,000,000 to 

 30,000,000 persons from the congested 

 centers of poj)ulation to the agricultural 

 districts of the West, and the moving 

 of 15,000,000 to 20,000,000 to the other 

 reclaimed sections of the country. Here 

 their efforts will add from $6,500,- 

 000,000 to $7,000,000,000 annually to 

 the crop, now aggregating $8,000,- 

 000,000, and thus increase its value at 

 least eighty per cent. The realization 

 of this means a readjustment of pro- 

 duction and consumption, and will 

 eventually lead to greater individual 

 happiness and national prosperity. 



To the men and women gathered to- 

 gether from forty states and territories 

 and foreign lands the Congress meant 

 much. To them the word "irrigation,'" 

 yet little understood by many east of 

 the Missouri River, has come to be a 

 general term for all kinds of problems 

 connected with the relation of land and 

 water in the profitable use of acreage 

 for the support and comfort of man- 

 kind ; and they discussed not only ques- 

 tions of getting water to lands on which 

 the rainfall is insufficient to assure 

 profitable crops, but also of draining 

 the water off lands where the normal 

 rainfall is more than enough. 



The Congress also concerned itself 

 with forests as regulators of stream- 

 flow, preservers of water supply, and 

 protectors of the soil from waste and 

 loss, and touched upon legislative re- 

 adjustments made necessary by the 

 growing perception that all property 

 rights are not settled when land owner- 

 ship is settled- — that certainty and se- 

 curity in water use may be even more 

 important than certainty and security 

 in land use. The delegates, too, dis- 

 cussed the matter of good roads and 

 national highways and other means of 

 transportation. 



"Questions of water rights and what 

 should be the law governing them are 

 really new problems to the English- 

 speaking peoples," said R. Insinger, of 

 Spokane, chairman of the board of gov- 

 ernors and head of the executive com- 

 mittee of the eighteenth Congress, in 

 discussing the significance of the meet- 



