THE PROGRESS OF WESTERN AMERICA. 



215 



team, a few implements and some articles of house- 

 hold furniture. These are the people who most need 

 homes, but how shall they acquire them on the public 

 domain, even when cheaply reclaimed under the Carey 

 law? How can they live for the first six or twelve 

 months before the soil begins to yield the necessities 

 of life? Tens of thousands of good citizens for the 

 West could be speedily obtained if this part of the 

 problem were solved. Here is a suggestion : Let 

 the construction companies operating under the 

 Carey law endeavor to select laborers who are also 

 homeseekers. Let them pay the prevailing price for 

 labor, $20 to $30 per month with board, paying a very 

 small amount in cash and the rest in orders good for 

 seed and provisions. Then when the laborer finishes 

 his work on the canal let him select a tract of no 

 more than 40 or 80 acres and immediately proceed 

 to get it into cultivation, obtaining seed and provi- 

 sions on the store orders which he has received in- 

 stead of cash for wages during the building of the 

 canal. He should be permitted to pay for the land 

 out of the sale of his crops. This system would be a 

 blessing to thousands of honest and industrious men 

 now in need of labor and homes, and it would also be 

 advantageous to the State and to the construction 

 companies, as it would guarantee the rapid settle- 

 ment of the lands. Perhaps this suggestion is not 

 feasible, but if it is it will enable our Western States 

 to come promptly to the front next winter and relieve 

 the country of the pressure of idle men, or that pro- 

 portion of them who really desire work to relieve 

 immediate necessity and a chance to make independ- 

 ent homes, to provide for permanent prosperity. If 

 such a system were made a part of the policy of our 

 States, we believe capital would be much more read- 

 ily obtained from Eastern centers than otherwise, for 

 property holders in that section are quite as anxious 

 to solve the question of surplus labor as Western 

 men are to solve the question of surplus land. The 

 New York World recently pointed out the startling 

 fact that in that city the great sum of $22,000,000 was 

 paid out last winter for charity by municipal and 

 corporation sources and that the amount had steadily 

 increased in recent years at the rate of $1,800,000 per 

 annum. It then said: 



This is certainly due to bad policies to policies which have 

 congested a dependent population in limited areas near the sea- 

 board instead of encouraging it to push on to the still unculti- 

 vated continent beyond. In some way our dependent population 

 must be induced to leave the cities. They must be set to digging 

 their living from the ground. This will mean happiness for them 

 and security for the government. There is absolutely no other 

 way out. 



A State engineer and administrative de- 

 Necessity 



of State partment is necessary to the utilization 

 Engineers. of the Carey law Thjs department will 



make the surveys and plans of reclamation and 

 supervise the works, whether built by public or 



private enterprise. Every Western State and Terri- 

 tory should provide itself with the administrative 

 system, at least on a modest scale, during the ap- 

 proaching session of the legislature. It is perfectly 

 ridiculous that we should be constantly asking the 

 nation to help us while neglecting to help ourselves 

 in this simplest but most essential of particulars. 

 Every Western State should proceed at once to 

 study its water resources and irrigable land. It 

 should have a State engineer, backed up by a good 

 code of laws. It should insist upon rigid supervision 

 of all new works, careful attention to water appro- 

 priations and proper division of the supply among 

 appropriators. To permit waters to be recklessly 

 taken and works to be built without any exercise of 

 public authority is a wicked and criminal thing. It 

 is laying up a legacy of woe. It evinces a shameful 

 lack of public spirit and civic pride. To ask the 

 Federal government for appropriations when we. 

 have done so little for ourselves should make us 

 blush. Irrigation is to be the great foundation in- 

 dustry in seventeen Western States and Territories. 

 An irrigation department, or some adequate pro- 

 vision for irrigation laws and their administration 

 and for a study of water supply and irrigable areas, 

 is as essential as any other feature of State govern- 

 ment. Colorado Wyoming and California have bene- 

 fited immensely from such systems, and there can be 

 no worthy progress in other States until they have 

 followed the example. 



After the adjournment of the Congress 

 In Utah's _. ,. .. _ 



Golden at Denver, the editor of THE AGE de- 



Valleys. voted a f ew W eeks to a trip through 

 Utah and the Pacific Northwest. There is a genuine 

 revival of irrigation interests in Utah, the classic 

 ground of the industry on this continent. Utah is 

 preparing her bridal robes. She will be married to 

 the Union in the course of the next eighteen months. 

 She proposes to make adequate provision in her 

 constitution for the protection and encourage- 

 ment of the industry on which her fame and 

 prosperity rests. She not only has the mill- 

 ion acres under the Carey law, but two or three 

 times as much more as her wedding present from 

 Uncle Sam. It will be most interesting to observe 

 what use she makes of these lands. She has some 

 very virile traditions in the matter of irrigation. Her 

 canals were built and owned by her people. Her land 

 was acquired in small holdings. The small irrigated 

 farm is the corner-stone of the commonwealth. But 

 more modern forces are being felt in Mormonland. 

 Probably the new legislation will be something of a 

 compromise between the economic doctrines of the 

 church and the claims of private enterprise. Judge 

 Shurtliff is the new member of the National Com- 

 mittee for Utah, and he promises to be a very vigor- 



