THE PROGRESS OF WESTERN AMERICA. 



sentences of this letter, and then putting his own 

 construction upon them, the Governor tries to make 

 it appear that the writer admitted that the plan of 

 commissions was hastily advanced in the face of 

 defeat and purely in the interest of the plan of ces- 

 sion. A fair sample of the Governor's work as an 

 eliminator of expressions that do not serve his pur- 

 pose is presented in the italic portions of the 

 following extract, only the words in Roman type 

 having been quoted in his account of the " con- 

 spiracy :" 



I devised the plan of the State^Commissions as a means of 

 ascertaining the real opinions of the people of the various States 

 and gathering material for a National and State irrigation 

 policy. I told them we would not ask the convention to pro- 

 nounce in favor of cession, but we would insist that it should not 

 pronounce against it, and shottld leave the whole matter open to 

 patient, impartial study , 'without favor or prejudice. The plan 

 'was enthusiastically accepted, -with the result that discord -was 

 eliminated and a mighty interest aroused in the futttre of the 

 movement. 



Then follows an outline of the changed opinions of 

 the writer on the subject of cession; of his views of 

 what should be left to the nation and what to the 

 States; of his confident hope that the work of the 

 commissions will " result in wise compromises, great 

 and harmonious national and State policies, and the 

 realization of that mighty future which we all desire 

 to see under way." Read in its entirety the letter 

 furnishes the most ample proof of good faith. Gov- 

 ernor Osborne saw this so plainly that he did not 

 dare to print it in full. The plan of the commissions 

 was not a sudden expedient invented to meet an 

 emergency. It was the product of months of study, 

 conference and correspondence. The writer pre- 

 sented it six weeks before the Los Angeles conven- 

 tion in an elaborate article in THE IRRIGATION AGE 

 for September, 1893; he urged it again in the Review 

 of Reviews for October last, two weeks before the 

 convention. He sought by every means in his power 

 to put the plan of commissions conspicuously before 

 the public previous to the assembling of the con- 

 gress. In the same spirit the writer has urged the 

 public to await the reports of these commissions and 

 to be prepared for a just compromise. This has 

 been his constant expression in the pages of THE 

 AGE, in official communications to the National 

 Committee, in newspaper interviews and public 

 speeches. There is not one small peg on which to 

 hang a charge of bad faith against the author of the 

 plan of commissions, either before, during or after 

 the act of their creation by the International Irriga- 

 tion Congress at Los Angeles last October. And the 

 future will develop plans and purposes entirely con- 

 sistent with the record of the past. There is no doubt 

 but what the entire work of the national organization 

 will command public approval when thoroughly 

 understood. 



S. W. FERGUSSON, 

 Of California, Manager of the Kern County Land Company. 



The announcement made in the last is- 

 Character .... 



of L,and sue of this magazine to the effect that 

 Enterprises. we wou j { j undertake to furnish intend- 

 ing investors with the facts about lands and securities 

 offered for sale, has called out many letters of inquiry 

 and considerable favorable comment. We have re- 

 plied to several inquiries by mail during the past 

 month as the promptest and most satisfactory 

 method. Later these matters will be taken up for 

 publication, when it can be done without needless 

 injury to enterprises or individuals. 

 TheDivi- Elwood Mead, the very competent State 

 S ter-State" Engineer of Wyoming, contributes to 

 Waters, this number of THE AGE a suggestive 

 paper dealing with the division of inter-state streams. 

 In the whole realm of unsolved western problems 

 nothing else is at once so delicate and so important as 

 the question of what to do with streams rising in one 

 state and flowing through others to the sea. It is a 

 significant and reassuring symptom that the discus- 

 sion is opened by a citizen of Wyoming, to whom 

 nature has given the headwaters of a number of im- 

 portant inter-state rivers, and to whom Congress has 

 conceded absolute control over every stream flowing 

 within its borders. If Wyoming, Colorado and Mon- 

 tana are willing to discuss the matter, the many 

 States which now draw supplies from them will be 



