And State Papers 415 



from the Atlantic to the Pacific take an interest, but 

 which affects in especial the people of the States of 

 the great plains and mountains and affects no State 

 more than it does Nevada the question of irriga- 

 tion. Now, as I say, I do not regard that as in 

 any way merely a question of the Rocky Moun- 

 tain States, of the great plains States, because 

 anything which tends for the well-being of any 

 portion of the Union is therefore for the well- 

 being of all of it, and it was for that reason 

 that I felt warranted in appealing to the people 

 of the seaboard States on the Atlantic, to the peo- 

 ple of the States of the Great Lakes and the Mis- 

 sissippi Valley, to say that it was their duty to help 

 in bringing 'about a scheme of national irrigation, 

 because the interest of any part of this country is 

 the interest of all of it; and no man is a really 

 good American who fails to grasp that fact. 



The National Government is still, as you all well 

 know, but as many Easterners do not know, the great- 

 est land owner in the Western States, and among all 

 those States Nevada holds the great proportion of 

 vacant public land, and the need of Nevada for Fed- 

 eral assistance was one of the strongest arguments 

 used in the discussion which preceded the reclama- 

 tion act of June, 1902, the irrigation act of a year 

 ago. The great extent of the vacant public lands 

 in the State, the fact that its water supply came 

 chiefly from streams rising in the adjoining State of 

 California, and the overwhelming difficulties which 

 for these and other reasons prevented the people of 



