192 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



industrialism. The world knows the result. Each 

 farm of twenty acres supported its owner and in a 

 very few years the people became absolutely free in 

 an industrial sense. Not only did the system produce 

 enough to satisfy all the wants of the people, but it 

 produced a surplus capital for banks, factories and 

 stores. Not only that, but a.surplus of many millions 

 for temples and missionaries. There are no Mormon 

 recruits in the " industrial army" of to-day, and there 

 never will be. 



GREELEY THE SAME. 



Another example is the colony founded in Colorado 

 by Horace Greeley and bearing his honored name. 

 There the farm unit is eighty acres, but the same 

 system of diversified production is followed. Irriga- 

 tion as a science has been reduced to a fine point and 

 the Greeley potato is as famous as the melon of Ispa- 

 han. Last summer newspaper readers learned daily 

 that in Colorado mines were stopping, railroads fail- 

 ing, banks toppling and mercantile houses closing 

 their doors. The State seemed to be hurrying to dis- 

 aster. In those fateful summer days Greeley was an 

 oasis of prosperity in a desert of despair. 



CONDITIONS OF EQUALITY. 



Independence is not the only thing which humanity 

 has sought with tireless zeal through the centuries. 

 The counterpart of independence is equality among 

 men. The founders of this republic, in pure good 

 faith, be it said, promised it to the ear, but their de- 

 scendants have broken it to the hope. In theory 

 there are no class distinctions in this country. In 

 practice the class distinctions are almost as deeply 

 marked as in Europe, and year by year they become 

 more startlingly distinct. Human equality in the 

 sense that all shall be upon the same level of intelli- 

 gence and financial independence is impossible, but 

 the nearest possible approach to practicable equality 

 of burdens, of opportunities, of possessions, of enjoy- 

 ments will be realized in Arid America and in the 

 twentieth century. 



The valleys of the arid region will be carved up 

 into small farms. Probably the average unit will be 

 twenty acres. No man will ever accumulate a great 

 fortune upon twenty acres, but no man who heeds the 

 Divine injunction, " By the sweat of thy brow shalt 

 thou eat bread,'' will ever be poor on twenty acres of 

 irrigated land, scientifically cultivated. The re- 

 claimed areas will be densely populated. The re- 

 sult will be near neighbors and social, educational 

 and religious advantages within the reach of all. The 

 farmers of Arid America will enjoy the sweet, pure 

 life of the country at its best and they will also realize 

 the most desirable advantages of neighborhood asso- 

 ciation. This means a revolution in country life. It 

 will be more like .the ideal society of the ancient 



Greeks than like the dreary lonesome life of the farm- 

 ing population in the older parts of the United States. 



IRRIGATION WILL HAVE A PARTNER. 



In the development of the new conditions irrigation 

 will not be the only force. It will have a partner. 

 Its name is Electricity. We are just on the border- 

 land of an undiscovered country. Electricity will 

 soon be applied to manifold domestic and industrial 

 uses wherever it can be cheaply generated. Study 

 the typography of Western America and you will see 

 how God piled up the mountain ranges so that they 

 would catch and hold the winter snows that the sum- 

 mer fields might be watered. Hidden in the bosoms 

 of these mighty mountains are thousands of natural 

 water powers. It can almost be said that where there 

 is water for irrigation, there is water for power. The 

 diversified farm, and the home warmed and lighted 

 by electricity, will be the twin offspring resulting from 

 the marriage of those stalwart parents, Irrigation and 

 Electricity. We shall have in Arid America the most 

 rapid and universal development of advanced elec- 

 trical conditions. 



III. -MAKING THE REPUBLIC OF IRRI- 

 GATION. 



I believe, then, that the distinctive achievement of 

 the new century will be the evolution of the Repub- 

 lic of Irrigation. The scene of this development will 

 be half a continent ot almost virgin soil. Its guiding 

 spirits will be a race of optimistic Americans, deal- 

 ing with great problems in the spirit of imperialists, 

 and profoundly believing in the future progress of 

 the race. Realizing that they are the heirs of the 

 ages, they expect to profit by the world's enlighten- 

 ing experience in erecting their own institutions. In 

 availing themselves of this experience, they will not 

 be handicapped by awkward traditions and deep- 

 rooted evils. This is a very great advantage. Every- 

 body knows, for example, that the cable roads and 

 gas monopolies of Chicago represent an enormous 

 amount of fictitious capital on which the public is 

 unjustly compelled to pay dividends, but they are 

 established institutions, representing vested interests 

 which society hesitates to disturb. But Western 

 America is for the most part a virgin field. Its insti- 

 tutions are to be created. Where civilization has yet 

 to lay its foundation walls, civilization need not erect 

 its cornice of repulsive wrong. Without injustice to 

 existing interests, the men of the new West may 

 evolve purer institutions in that wide domain that is 

 still largely the public estate of the American 

 people. 



THE FOUNDATION. 



But the foundations of the Republic of Irrigation 

 will be independence and equality independence 



