THE PROGRESS OF WESTERN AMERICA. 



187 



enthusiastically unite. Senator Carey has proceeded 

 in contempt of the only organized irrigation senti- 

 ment which is recognized by the western people. But. 

 he will be beaten. His motives may be good, but his 

 judgment and his manners are very bad indeed. He 

 will know more one of these days. It is to be hoped 

 that Wyoming will lose no time in restoring Francis 

 E. Warren to the United States Senate. And in say- 

 ing this we do not know whether Governor Warren 

 favors or opposes the Carey bill in its present 

 shape. But we do know that he would have taken no 

 important action without the widest consultation 

 with the friends of irrigation, from Kansas to Cali- 

 fornia. 



The leading article in this number of 

 < The 



Republic of THE AGE deals with what we conceive 

 Irrigation." to ^g tne most important consideration 

 involved in the reclamation of the arid and semi-arid 

 areas of the United States. It is the problem of 

 organizing prosperity for the masses by illustrating 

 the means by which they can acquire homes and be- 

 come absolutely self-sustaining through the systematic 

 production of what they consume. This is the first 

 principle. The second is the approach to a reason- 

 able degree of equality among men, which is to be 

 realized in communities of small farms, where there 

 can be no very rich and should be no very poor; but, 

 in place of both, a fair average of profits and enjoy- 

 ments for all. There is nothing of communism in 

 this idea, since each individual will be left to work 

 out his own problems, save that he may work, if he 

 choose, with tie brains and experience of the most 

 expert minds, who will have formulated plans for his 

 guidance plans open to the study and use of all 

 colonists on irrigated lands. The third principle will 

 be the introduction of features intended to foster the 

 highest industrial, social and civic institutions, to the 

 end that the civilization of the new time and the new 

 country may be the best the world has seen. We 

 have been gradually approaching something of this 

 kind for years by a process of natural evolution. The 

 time seems to have arrived when the realization of 

 these ideas on a large scale can be enormously 

 hastened by the cooperation of the leading minds of 

 the irrigation world and of prominent friends of 

 progress in the East. The publication of the present 

 article is intended as the first step in a campaign that 

 should not end until the making of model colonies is 

 seriously begun and the tide of settlement flowing 

 unmistakably to the new West. We invite editorial 

 comment and personal correspondence on the 

 subject. 



The portrait of Richard P. Bland in 

 Bland, . . 



Mining, these pages may well remind the 



Silver. reader of the intimate relation existing 

 between the irrigated farm in the valley and the 



RICHARD P. BLAND. 



Representative from Missouri. 



home market furnished by the mine on the mountain 

 side. Congressman Bland is, perhaps, the best- 

 respected man in public life of the West by western 

 men as a whole. His advocacy of silver through good 

 arid ill repute has endeared him to those who sincerely 

 believe that his cause involves human liberty and 

 fidelity to the constitution and the traditions of our 

 country. Right or wrong, Richard P. Bland speaks 

 with the voice and conscience of the statesman. His 

 course is not dictated by mine owning constituents or 

 peculiarly local interests. The mining industry of 

 the West is working its way out of the slough of 

 despond. An important new gold camp is the 

 Cochiti district in the heart of New Mexico. All 

 over the arid West men are busy with mining opera- 

 tions. As to the silver agitation, the men of the 

 West are watching events with keen interest. They 

 see in the world-wide depression, unrelieved by the 

 repeal of the Sherman law, in the tramp of industrial 

 armies toward Washington, in the growing clamor for 

 radical legislation, the falling of that shadow which 

 they have long feared and foretold. There is no need 

 now for silver conventions, or obstructive measures 

 in Congress. Commerce and industry, without regard 



