THE IRRIGATION AGE 



VOL. VII. 



CHICAGO, OCTOBER, 1894. 



No. 4. 



THE PROGRESS OF WESTERN AMERICA. 



THE Third National Irrigation Congress at Den- 

 ver was the most important event affecting the 

 progress of western America during the month of 

 September, and no apology is offered for devoting 

 this department exclusively to an editorial review of 

 the national movement, of which the congress is the 

 expression. The recent convention did not equal 

 that of three years ago at Salt Lake, nor that of one 

 year ago at Los Angeles, in point of attendance. It 

 far surpassed both in its representative character. 

 The entire arid region was represented by actual 

 residents, and nearly every delegation contained a 

 few men especially fitted, by study and experience, 

 to deal with the work of the congress. The Salt 

 Lake convention dealt only with one aspect of the 

 subject the advisability of ceding the lands. The 

 Los Angeles convention declared general principles 

 and created the State Commissions in the hope that the 

 result of a year's study and investigation would pro- 

 duce a comprehensive policy on lines of compromise. 

 The Denver convention made progress toward the 

 desired end, and as far as it went that progress was 

 distinctly in the right direction. It did not proceed 

 as far toward the goal as some of the leaders desired, 

 but on the whale its results were more substantial 

 than those achieved by its predecessors. In the 

 meantime, the national organization remains in fight- 

 ing trim, with its face toward the sunrise. 



Two 



The purely public questions to be dealt 

 Intellectual with in shaping the destinies of Arid 

 factions, America are larger and more complex 

 than those involved in the discussion of tariff and 

 silver. To work out a code of laws, national and 

 State, and to devise systems of administration under 

 which those laws may be administered with due re- 

 gard to public and private interests, demands the 

 highest qualities of statesmanship. As has been 

 said by Judge Emery, of Kansas, these are new 

 problems for the Anglo-Saxon mind. But it is be- 

 cause they are so serious in character, and so far- 



reaching in ultimate effects, that the leaders of the 

 movement have done, and propose to do, all in their 

 power to have them studied to final conclusions. 

 The Denver congress developed the fact that there 

 are two intellectual factions in this movement. The 

 line of cleavage is not convictions, but temperament. 

 One of these factions presses forward to results. It 

 wants to face the difficulties of the situation. It is 

 ready to stand out in the sunlight and discuss fear- 

 lessly the question of national or State control of irri- 

 gable lands, the question of leasing the pastoral lands, 

 the question of an enlightened forestry policy, the 

 immensely intricate and baffling question of the 

 division of interstate streams. This faction was 

 represented in the congress by the National Com- 

 mittee and the State Commissions. There is another 

 faction which shrinks from any attempt to arrive at 

 definite conclusions. It is appalled at the proposi- 

 tion of settling anything, and prefers to declare only 

 glittering generalities. It is not yet quite certain 

 what it thinks about these vital matters, except that 

 it is willing to give three cheers for the old flag and 

 an appropriation. It closes its eyes to the fact that 

 under present laws the most valuable lands are being 

 steadily absorbed by syndicates and corporations, 

 that the forests are being destroyed, that streams 

 are being recklessly appropriated, that questions be- 

 tween States are becoming graver and more compli- 

 cated, and that the free public range is the theater of 

 frontier warfare between cattlemen, sheepmen and set- 

 tlers. This faction is inclined to leave nearly everything 

 to the future. In the recent congress the friends of 

 progress did not accomplish all they hoped to do, 

 nor did the friends of the policy of inaction prevent 

 the accomplishment of all they were afraid to ven- 

 ture upon. 



It was announced one year ago that the 



Lessons reports of the several State Commissions 



Learned. wou id be the basis for the action of the 



Denver congress. Most of these commissions v. ere 



extremely faithful to the duties intrusted to them, 



'S3 



