PUBLIC OPINION AND THE IRRIGATION CONGRESS. 



175 



impregnable and covered to their base with eternal 

 snow ? What use have we for such a country ? '' 



After the Irrigation Congress has spoken, the pro- 

 phetic value of Webster's resonant periods will have 

 undergone a distinct diminution for once. 



DENVER NEWS. The third session of the'National 

 Irrigation Congress has met and adjourned. While 

 the delegates were guests in the city it was proper 

 that the News should refrain from any criticism that 

 would seem harsh or discourteous. In fact, it was nec- 

 essary that its final action should be taken before 

 any just comment could be made, either on its reso- 

 lutions or on the evident purpose which animated 

 the organization. It may now be said in all fairness 

 and candor that the results of the congress are 

 disappointing, and that the spirit which moves its 

 most active promoters is antagonistic to the best inter- 

 ests of the arid region. 



It is so evident that the single object of the con- 

 gress is to obtain the cession of the arid lands to the 

 states that the fact need hardly be asserted. That 

 resolutions to this effect were not adopted is due to 

 the active opposition and effective work of Colonel 

 Hinton, Prof. Stanton, Congressman Coffeen, of 

 Wyoming, and others less prominent but not less 

 determined in their opposition to so dangerous a 

 scheme. But cession has not been defeated. The 

 monopolistic spirit is tireless; corporations ever 

 watch and wait. The cessionists will turn up at 

 Albuquerque a year hence as fresh and determined 

 as ever. What they cannot win by open fighting 

 they will attempt to gain by strategy. 



PHILADELPHIA LEDGER. The irrigation issue 

 bristles with difficult questions, which can only be 

 settled by the highest order of practical statesman- 

 ship. Shall the national or state governments con- 

 trol the public lands subject to irrigation? Or shall 

 there be more localized oversight and supervision? 

 No control which might deprive any portion of the 

 irrigated territory of water would be tolerated, a 

 danger which is far less likely to occur under public 

 ownership of the irrigated works and sources of sup- 

 ply. Water is not, from its nature, private property. 

 Each land owner has the natural right to the use of 

 it, but if it is brought to his door by artificial means 

 he must pay for the use of it. Subject to this restric- 

 tion, running water everywhere should remain free. 

 Ninety-five per cent, of all the streams in the arid 

 regions are located within five organized mountain 

 communities, and this makes it imperative that the 

 nation should permanently reserve these sources of 

 interstate waters west of the 100th meridian. " The 

 cession of the public lands to the several states, Colo- 

 rado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico and Wyoming, 

 means the dominance of the few and the inaugura- 

 tion of the forces of separation. 1 ' There is force in 

 this reasoning. The waters of our great streams 

 should be always subject to some such general na- 

 tional supervision as that given to the general gov- 

 ernment in the interstate commerce act. 



SAN FRANCISCO BULLETIN. The Irrigation Con- 

 gress just assembled at Denver concerns chiefly the 

 States west of the Missouri river. California will be 

 represented as one of the arid States, or the one 

 which has carried irrigation, further than it has been 

 carried in any other part of the country. It has done 

 this without Federal aid and without any practical 

 help from irrigation conventions held outside of the 

 State. It is true that a certain amount of arid land 

 was graded down in this State by an Act of Congress, 

 so that large areas could be bought on speculation. 



California has slowly worked out its own system of 

 irrigation. What was first done in a small way is now 

 done in a large way. District systems were an en- 

 largement of the individual plan. Southern Califor- 

 nia and the greater part of the San Joaquin valley 

 are now nominally embraced in systems or irrigation, 

 either actually or in the future. The immense citrus 

 development of Southern California has depended 

 upon artificial irrigation. There is not a citrus orch- 

 ard of any magnitude in that part of the State that is 

 not regularly watered through artificial channels. 

 Every neworchard planted will depend upon a similar 

 water supply. Every raisin vineyard in the great 

 San Joaquin valley is brought up to the highest bear- 

 ing standard by irrigation. The planting goes on 

 from year to year at an increased rate as to citrus 

 fruits and at a lessened rate as to raisin grapes. All 

 the new acres must be irrigated. To the acreage 

 already brought under cultivation in that way will at 

 the present rate be added another equal acreage in 

 a few years. 



Southern California, which in some years was well 

 watered by seasonable rains, did not have moisture 

 enough last winter to make cereal crops nor enough 

 to make sufficient pasture to carry the stock. Every 

 stream that can be utilized for irrigation will be made 

 to contribute to the agricultural prosperity of that 

 part of the State. Only a small per cent, of the arid 

 land of California has ever been redeemed. That 

 part on which water has been brought was not barren. 

 It would not produce full crops every year with the 

 amount of natural moisture falling on it. That was 

 true of nearly all the land now watered by artificial 

 means in the San Joaquin valley and in Southern 

 California, save a few desert tracts that do not make 

 much of a figure. 



As this State leads all others in its development of 

 agriculture by irrigation, and as this has been done 

 without Federal aid, it is a question whether this in- 

 dependent system is not better than anything that 

 can be made to depend upon the assistance of the 

 government. 



In California there is now a well-settled principle 

 of riparian rights. Water not only goes with arid 

 land, but it goes with fertile land. A riparian right is 

 as well settled as the right to the trees or the stone 

 quarries on the holdings of the occupants. 



IOWA CITY (!A.) CITIZEN. There are millions of 

 acres of unproductive land west of the 100th meridian 

 that could be made productive if water could be pro- 

 cured for irrigation. The proper thing for the gov- 

 ernment to do is to make a free grant to the states 

 and territories of the arid country within their borders 

 and let them solve the irrigation problem. 



OMAHA BEE. The Third National Irrigation Con- 

 gress is expected to have more important results than 

 were realized from its predecessors, which were valu- 

 able chiefly in arousing public attention to the im- 

 portance of the irrigation question. The time for 

 action had not arrived, nor were the people of the 

 West ready to formulate an expression of their best, 

 judgment. There was also lack of interest in the 

 subject in other sections of the country. In the 

 period since last congress, however, public interest 

 m irrigation has been awakened everywhere, and in 



