THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



VOL. VII. 



CHICAGO, NOVEMBER, 1894. 



No. 5. 



THE PROGRESS OF WESTERN AMERICA. 



The cause f irrigation, which is the 



Winter's cause of Western America, faces the 

 Outlook. . . . , - , 



coming winter with greater confidence 



than any other popular interest that can be named. 

 It has practically no enemies. It has an increasing 

 multitude of friends. The comments of leading news- 

 papers from ocean to ocean, reproduced in the Octo- 

 ber number of THE IRRIGATION AGE, indicated the 

 wide popular interest aroused by the recent Congress 

 at Denver. Wherever one goes, from the Atlantic 

 to the Pacific, from Minnesota to Texas, he finds ir- 

 rigation a recognized and growing topic of discus- 

 sion. That it is to be the next great national issue is 

 as clear as the sun at noonday. It is with a feeling 

 not merely of satisfaction, but of real joy, that the 

 friends of this cause note its triumphant progress as 

 evidenced by the widening interest on the part of the 

 general public, by the growing and strengthening 

 organizations in various parts of the West, and 

 by the thoughtful and rather solicitous attention the 

 matter is receiving at the hands of public men. The 

 outlook for the winter's campaign is encouraging in 

 every direction, as will be seen by a reading of the 

 following forecast. 



All the Western Legislatures will be in 

 Work of ^ , 



the session during the next few months. In 



^missions?' everv State the friends of irrigation are 

 organizing to make their influence felt 

 in these bodies. The time has come when we may 

 expect thoughtful attention, if not enlightened legis- 

 lation, from the several legislatures. But results will 

 depend more upon the friends of the movement pri- 

 marily than on members of the Legislature. Every 

 Western State has a representative in the National 

 Irrigation Committee. Every such representative is 

 empowered to create a State commission of five, in- 

 cluding himself, and this commission stands for the 

 purposes, influence and prestige of the organized ir- 

 rigation movement of the United States. The com- 

 mission is not official in the sense that it is author- 

 ized by law and paid out of the public treasury, but 



for that very reason it is at liberty to perform great 

 work. It is unhampered by anything except the in- 

 structions of the Irrigation Congress. These instruc- 

 tions are: 1. To call a State convention; 2. To formu- 

 late plans for the utilization of the Carey law; 3. To 

 devise a plan for a State Engineer's office and ad- 

 ministrative system. As these conventions are asked 

 to present their conclusions to the governors and 

 legislatures by January 1st, next, it is assumed that 

 they will be held in November or December. The 

 winter's campaign for irrigation in the West should 

 therefore open with these State conventions, held 

 under the auspices of the several commissions, the 

 latter being directly connected, through their chair- 

 men, with the National organization. The Chairman, 

 of the National Committee will shortly issue an ad- 

 dress to the State commissions, outlining the work of 

 the coming twelve months. Now, the extent of prog' 

 ress in each State is sure to be measured by the ac- 

 tivity of the commission, and this activity will depend 

 upon the success of the National committeeman in 

 selecting his colleagues. The time has arrived when 

 the selection must be made, and it is hoped that the 

 full list may be announced in the next issue of this 

 journal. 



The Carey law offers to the men of the 

 Carey West the most important opportunity for 

 Law. progress they have ever had. It imposes 

 upon them the gravest duty that has ever confronted 

 them. THE IRRIGATION AGE did not favor the en- 

 actment of the law last summer, because we were 

 pledged to favor no definite action until after the 

 Denver congress, and because we regarded Senator 

 Carey's proposition as inadequate and calculated to 

 postpone, rather than to assist, the solution of our 

 Western problems in a comprehensive way. But the 

 more the law is studied the better it looks, and be- 

 fore this country is one year older we may be able to 

 see that the passage of the law just at this time was 

 providential. But everything depends upon the 

 manner in which the Western States deal with their 



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