45 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



industrious families. It has found capital to develop 

 the mineral resources, and it has left the town to 

 build up as new stores and new dwellings are 

 needed, allowing the price of real estate to take care 

 of itself. It has recognized the scriptural injunction, 

 "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." Thus 

 it happens that in these trying times when Town 

 Lots is a graveyard of buried hopes, Mid-Colonies is 

 a self-sustaining and comfortable community. Both 

 aimed to attract population and capital, one by 



W. H. HOLABIRD, 



Of Claremont, Cal. 



speculation and the other by industrialism. And 

 each worked out to a logical end. 



This example would not be adequate 

 The Same 

 in all without the explanation that the same 



Directions, principles have been applied to all the 

 resources of the West. Speculation has neither 

 begun nor ended with town lots. It has been the 

 ruling spirit in the settlement of lands, in the build- 

 ing of railroads, in the exploiting of mining, cattle 

 and irrigation enterprises. The scramble on the 

 Cherokee strip was the final dramatic chapter in the 

 story. The panic of 1893 has ended it, as it ended 

 hundreds of speculations in the East, weeded out 

 weak banks and shaky business houses and squeezed 

 the water out of millions of spongy stocks. Hereafter, 

 alike in America and in Australia, in the Western and 

 in the Eastern States, values become the test of in- 

 vestments, and men will ask not, " What will it sell 



for?" but " What will it earn?" And this brings us 

 to the question of how the institutions of the West 

 will stand the supreme test to which everything will 

 be put during the next few years. 



Where What are the conditions which the busi- 



Pr wm T be y ness world faces to - da y ? Hundreds of 

 Rebuilt, thousands of honest workingmen are in 

 total or partial idleness, not only in our country, but 

 in England and Continental Europe. There is a 

 glut of money in the banks as the simple and sure re- 

 sult of the withdrawal of money from all the chan- 

 nels of industry and trade. The products of the 

 farm, except in a few communities where local con- 

 ditions are peculiarly favorable, command only the 

 poorest prices. Stagnation, absence of confidence,, 

 discouragement, apprehension for the future these 

 are everywhere, at home and abroad, the prevailing 

 sentiments. While established enterprises languish, 

 it is not strange that new ones in process of evolution 

 move with slow step or pause altogether. And yet 

 the world will not cease to revolve. Idle men and 

 idle capital will find employment, because that is the 

 condition of existence. . But where will they find em- 

 ployment? Manifestly in those places where the ap- 

 plication of labor and capital will create new values, 

 yielding sufficient income to support the labor and 

 pay a reasonable dividend upon the capital. Are 

 these places to be found in the older States of the 

 East? No; because those are manufacturing com- 

 munities and there is nothing to invite the use of new 

 capital or new labor there, even if these industries 

 should enjoy a partial revival at an early date. The 

 same is true of the middle West and the older portions 

 of the South. The field is occupied with men and in- 

 terests that must live. If the capital and labor al- 

 ready located there can support themselves they will 

 do well. They cannot hope to attract recruits to any 

 considerable degree at such a time as this. What,, 

 then, is left as the field for the remunerative employ- 

 ment of labor and capital that remunerative em- 

 ployment that is bound to come, because it simply 

 must come as the alternative of social arid economic 

 derangements that would involve the wreck of exist- 

 ing institutions? The field, and the only field, where 

 surplus labor and idle capital can rebuild the national 

 prosperity is in the greater West between the Mis- 

 souri river and the Pacific ocean. 



Utah a 

 Beacon 

 Light. 



Every dog has his day every country 

 its opportunity. The day of fate is at 

 hand for the Greater West. If it shall 

 prove to be the outlet for surplus people and capital 

 at this critical time in our national history, then its 

 development along conservative lines will soon begin, 

 and the movement must prove enduring. What are 

 its capacities for meeting this supreme test? The 



