THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



VOL. VI. 



CHICAGO, FEBRUARY, 1894. 



No. 2. 



THE PROGRESS OF WESTERN AMERICA. 



During 1894 western institutions will 

 A Test of , T 



Western be put to new and severe tests. In a 



Institutions. g rea t er degree than usual they must 

 rely upon themselves. The past decade was a period 

 of generous investment. The undeveloped resources 

 of the new country beckoned to the surplus wealth of 

 the old countries and met with prodigal response. 

 Money flowed readily into farm lands, cattle vent- 

 ures, town lot speculations and mining and irrigation 

 enterprises. It is not flowing readily to-day, nor can 

 it be expected to seek the old channels with anything 

 like the old enthusiasm in a long time to come. THE 

 AGE foresees no calamity in this situation, but pre- 

 dicts, on the contrary, a more substantial and endur- 

 ing prosperity as a result of the readjustment of con- 

 ditions. The glittering symbol of the past period 

 was Speculation. The deeply-carven motto of the 

 new period will be Industrialism. The difference be- 

 tween these two forms of development is very wide 

 and very deep. Speculation is the offspring of good 

 times, and new countries with valuable but raw 

 resources, furnish its natural breeding ground. Specu- 

 lation may rest either upon a real or imaginary basis. 

 Its rise and fall are regulated only by the flow and ebb 

 of investment. Its pulse is always feverish, never 

 normal and healthy. It is a thing apart from com- 

 merce, from manufactures, from agriculture, from 

 mining. It is a shadow, not a substance. It is the 

 creation of the mind acting independently, not the 

 child of brain and hand working together, the one 

 directing the other and both applied to the making 

 of realties. Speculation leaves the country poor 

 because it has produced nothing that did not exist 

 before. It has merely taken from one man's, or 

 many men's pockets and put into another. There is 

 no more money than there was before, only a new 

 distribution and generally upon an uneven basis. 

 This is the lesson of the phenomena of speculation as 

 it has been osberved in all times and countries. It is 

 the same in America, in Australia and in Argentina. 



The truth of these generalizations seems 

 Modern so palpable to those who know the West 

 Instances. ag to nee( j no m us t ra ti O n f but it may be 

 well to enforce them by reference to typical instances 

 for the benefit of the class of readers who receive 

 THE AGE in eastern cities and foreign countries. 

 Let us take, to illustrate, two new towns in the arid 

 regions of the West, equal in point of location, of 

 railroad facilities, of tributary country, of surround- 

 ing mineral resources, of climatic conditions. Let 

 us name one of these embryo cities Town Lots and 

 the other Mid-Colonies. Town Lots falls into the 

 hands of a skillful real estate syndicate. They dis- 

 tribute advertising matter far and wide, filled with 

 glowing descriptions of the great natural advantages 

 of this "city of destiny." They plan free excursions, 

 lay out "acreage" into twenty-five foot lot additions, 

 erect a few business blocks, subsidize one or two 

 starveling industries. People crowd the local hotels 

 and real estate changes hands with gratifying ra- 

 pidity. Land prices advance and money is made 

 and generally invested in more real estate, or in op- 

 tions. Town Lots is a booming city. The spirit of 

 speculation is in the air. Everybody catches it. An 

 easier way to make money than by labor has been 

 discovered. But, after all, what has been added to 

 the wealth of the community by the process of build- 

 ing Town Lots on the virgin soil of the valley? Ab- 

 solutely nothing. There have simply been gathered 

 together a body of consumers. Collapse and decay 

 are inevitable. In the meantime, Mid-Colonies has 

 pursued another plan. Under the guidance of wiser 

 heads it has adopted an industrial policy. It has 

 sought to attract no man who could not produce a lit- 

 tle more than he consumed and no dollar which could 

 not earn a fair rate of interest for its owner. It has dis- 

 countenanced speculation as it would quarantine a per- 

 son suspected of having a contagious disease. It has 

 turned the rivers and reservoired the flood waters. 

 It has laid out small farms and colonized them with 



