THEODORE ROOSEVELT 



Dynamic Geographer 



By FRANK BUFFINGTON VROOMAN, F- R, G. S, 

 (Continued) 



RECLAMATION 



OUT of this work, and alongside 

 this work, has been developed, 

 and is being developed, the great 

 national undertaking known as the 

 "Reclamation Service," which has al- 

 ready made vast contributions to the 

 prosperity of sixteen states and terri- 

 tories. 



President Roosevelt is the first Presi- 

 dent who ever mentioned the subject of 

 irrigation in a message to Congress. 

 This work is as much his own as any 

 such work can be said to be the work 

 of any one man. In his first message 

 to Congress, after referring to the ef- 

 fects of forests on water-supply, he 

 said : "The forests alone, however, can- 

 not fully regulate and conserve the 

 waters of the arid regions. Great stor- 

 age works are necessary to equalize the 

 flow of the streams and to save the flood 

 waters. Their construction has been 

 conclusively shown to be an undertak- 

 ing too vast for private effort. Nor 

 can it be best accomplished by the indi- 

 vidual states acting alone. 



"Far-reaching interstate problems are 

 involved, and the resources of single 

 states would often be inadequate. It is 

 properly a national function, at least 

 in some of its features. It is as right 

 for the National Government to make 

 the streams and rivers of the arid re- 

 gions useful by engineering works for 

 water storage, as to make useful the 

 rivers and harbors of the humid re- 

 gions by engineering works of another 

 kind. The storing of the floods in res- 

 ervoirs at the headwaters of our rivers 

 is but an enlargement of our present 



policy of river control, under which 

 levees are built on the lower reaches ot 

 the same streams. 



"The Government should construct 

 and maintain these reservoirs as it does 

 other public works. Where their pur- 

 pose is to regulate the flow of streams, 

 the water should be turned freely into 

 the channels in the dry season, to take 

 the same course under the same laws as 

 the natural flow. 



"The reclamation of the unsettled 

 arid public lands presents a dififerent 

 problem. Here it is not enough to 

 regulate the flow of streams. The ob- 

 ject of the Government is to dispose 

 of the land to settlers who will build 

 homes upon it. To accomplish the ob- 

 ject, water must be brought within their 

 reach. 



"The reclamation and settlement of 

 the arid lands will enrich every portion 

 of our country, just as the settlement of 

 the Ohio and Mississippi valleys 

 brought prosperity to the Atlantic 

 States. The increased demand for 

 manufactured articles will stimulate in- 

 dustrial production, while wider home 

 markets and the trade of Asia will con- 

 sume the larger food supplies and ef- 

 fectually prevent western competition 

 with eastern agriculture. Indeed, the 

 products of irrigation will be consumed 

 chicflv in upbuilding local centers of 

 mining and other industries, which 

 would otherwise not come into exist- 

 ence at all. Our people as a whole ivill 

 profit, for successful home-making is 

 hut another name for the upbuilding of 

 the Nation." (December, 1901.) 



This is no place for even an outline 

 of the historv of conservation, but it 



689 



