THE PROGRESS OF WESTERN AMERICA. 



227 



MAJOR J. W. POWELL, 

 Late Director of U. S. Geological Survey. 



adjustment, that may yet call for the most complete 

 exposure. It is the case of an irrigation district 

 where schemers and manipulators have imperiled 

 the fortunes of a community of honest, hard-working 

 men. It is high time that the public realized that no 

 locality has anything to gain by the attraction of 

 money or people under false pretenses. In the end 

 it is the whole community that must bear the loss and 

 humiliation. No newspaper or influential citizen of 

 the West should be so cowardly as to permit decep- 

 tion to be practiced without the loudest and most 

 persistent protest. Irrigation and land enterprises 

 are not private affairs in the ordinary sense. They 

 involve the reputation and prosperity of large dis- 

 tricts and, in a degree, of the peculiar industry in 

 half a continent. It is a public duty to assist good 

 ones, and equally a public duty to prevent the evil 

 success of bad ones. 



"The Age" Hitherto it has not been the policy of 

 " Doubtful* THE IRRIGATION AGE to meddle with 

 -Enterprises. the affairs of individuals or corporations 

 engaged in selling bonds or lands. We have done all 

 we could to set forth and illustrate the abstract strength 

 of irrigation securities and the general advantages 

 of homes on irrigated lands, but we have repeatedly 

 reminded the public that every proposition should 

 be investigated upon its own merits. We propose 

 now to sharply reverse this policy of non-interference. 



Several years of observation have 

 convinced us that there is a great pub- 

 lic service to be done by the frank dis- 

 cussion of every land and water enter- 

 prise in which people are asked to 

 put their money, either for the pur- 

 pose of investment or of home- 

 making. For this service the public 

 has a right to look first of all to THE 

 IRRIGATION AGE, which, perhaps 

 more than any other factor, has edu- 

 cated this same public to a compre- 

 hension of irrigation in its various 

 aspects. We boldly assert that no 

 irrigation proposition which this 

 journal shall attack upon just grounds 

 can be successfully imposed upon the 

 market. This assertion is by no means 

 extravagant. Confidence of the in- 

 vesting public is a plant of slow 

 growth. It is a dfelicate thing even 

 at its best. A journal which has 

 earned its place as a standard author- 

 ity in its peculiar field, and which 

 circulates in every civilized country 



JOHN G. STEFFEE, 

 Of Wichita, Kansas. 



