THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



VOL. VII. 



CHICAGO, AUGUST, 1894. 



No. 2. 



THE PROGRESS OF WESTERN AMERICA. 



The friends of Western America are 

 And Amer- . . . . 



ica and Our watching current events with the keen- 

 Institutions. esl j nteresti A peculiar combination of 

 circumstances, covering a period of at least fifteen 

 months, has been at work shaping the future of our 

 civilization along new lines. Almost every one of 

 these events, however startling they may have been 

 to conservative sentiment elsewhere, has brought to 

 the thoughtful leaders of the irrigation world new 

 and convincing assurances of the early triumph of 

 their ideas and the speedy realization of their hopes. 

 The future belongs to Arid America. It is in her 

 broad valleys that industry shall be reorganized 

 upon surer foundations than it has known before. It 

 is in the western half of this continent, and only 

 there, that outlets can be found for surplus popula- 

 tion, that gainful work can be found for idle hands, 

 that new institutions can be established without dan- 

 gerous interference with existing rights. The Re- 

 public is sorely pressed and troubled, but its last and 

 greatest resource remains to be utilized. In Western 

 America there is room for sixty millions more people, 

 who can sustain themselves without encroaching 

 upon any acre now occupied, or upon any property 

 right now vested in individual or corporation. To 

 prepare this new domain for occupancy will absorb 

 labor now idle and employ capital now timid and 

 apprehensive. The conditions which have brought 

 about the present situation are numerous, and no 

 single remedy will solve our difficulties. But the 

 greatest single remedy will be found in the provision 

 of land for the landless, homes for the homeless, 

 labor for the laborless and independence for the de- 

 pendent. This is a solution which the men of the 

 arid West can tender to their fellow countrymen, and 

 which no other men on earth can offer. We need no 

 longer ask ourselves whether the American people 

 will avail themselves of this opportunity. The time 

 has come when the American people must avail 

 themselves of it. Above the clamor of protest and 

 the murmur of indifference rings the imperious voice 

 of Fate. It is the destiny of Arid America to save 



HON. LIONEL A. SHELDON, 

 Chairman of Committee of Resolutions at Los Angeles. 



our institutions with " a new birth of freedom," and 

 to prove again that " this government of the people, 

 for the people and by the people shall not perish 

 from the earth." 



What may be the condition of the coun- 

 Liberty will 



Survive try when these words reach the reader 



the Shock. canno j b e foretold, but they are written 

 amid the tumult of warring classes and at a moment 

 when there is some reason to apprehend that 

 old institutions are crumbling beneath our feet. 

 Certain it is that the tide of events flows swiftly 

 that it is turbulent and angry. Certain it is that 

 mighty forces are at work and that we are on the 



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