IRRIGATION AND STATE BOUNDARIES. 



hopelessly characterized as the " immensely intricate 

 and baffling question of the division of inter-state 

 streams." Major Powell has advocated that the peo- 

 ple of each inter-state irrigation district be permitted 

 to set up a government of their own, irrespective and 

 independent of the State governments, for the pur- 

 pose of making and administering all laws relating 

 to irrigation. This would give to much of the arid 

 region a triple form of government, National, State, 

 and Irrigation District ; practically an untried experi- 

 ment, extraneous, and in some degree inimical, to the 

 great constitutional system upon which the American 

 Republic is founded. 



I make bold to propose what seems a bettei plan, 

 very radical it is true, and yet sufficiently in harmony 

 with precedent and in perfect accord with the prin- 

 ciples of our government: 



Let there be a repartition of the arid and sub- 

 humid West, wiping out such of the present State and 

 Territorial lines as are at variance with the irrigation 

 interests, and establishing new boundaries in accord- 

 ance with the natural contour of the country, and 

 with special deference to the requirements of irriga- 

 tion. 



The States thus constituted could be given the 

 possession of the irrigable lands, or not. They could 

 issue bonds and go into the construction of vast irri- 

 gation works, or not. Whatever policy or policies 

 should be decided upon further, the States would be 

 wholly free for their pursuit, untrammeled by any 

 perplexing inter-state entanglements. 



THE NEW PARTITION. 



The accompanying map shows how this plan can 

 be accomplished to what seems to me the best advan- 

 tage. Of course it is impossible to include the largest 

 rivers each in one irrigation district or in one State; 

 but with the exception of the Missouri, Rio Grande, 

 Colorado, Columbia and Shoshone, and of the 

 smaller rivers, Pit and Klamath, no stream in all the 

 irrigation country, under this partitionment, flows 

 from one political division into another, each having 

 its entire course through the arid region of the United 

 States, confined within the limits of one State or Ter- 

 ritory. The inter-state division of these five big rivers 

 would be easily accomplished, if each State would 

 simply conserve all it could, and use all it could, of 

 the waters caught within its limits, leaving the sur- 

 plus, if any, to the next State down the river. Careful 

 investigation would determine in each case what this 

 surplus would be. 



This partitionment would give twenty-six States and 

 Territories instead of the eighteen that now constitute 

 the western half of the United States, thus securing 

 to the West its equal influence with the East in 

 National affairs, to which its equal population will 

 give it full title in the not distant future. Fifty-seven 

 would then be the number of States and Territories in 

 the Union. 



The average population of these western political 

 divisions would be about 380,000 inhabitants, and 

 their average size about 73,500 square miles, the areas 

 being for the most part remarkably uniform, but in- 

 creasing in the more barren regions and decreasing 

 where the water supply, either from stream or rain- 

 fall, is plentiful. The boundaries are drawn almost 

 wholly upon natural lines, the Rocky mountains, the 

 Sierra Nevadas and the Cascades, each being used 

 for nearly their entire length ; and the Missouri, 

 Colorado, Columbia and Shoshone rivers coming into 

 similar service where, because of their unavailibility, 



their navigability or their abundance of water, the de- 

 mands of irrigation seem not to forbid. The railway 

 development of the West gives to each of these divi- 

 sions good and growing transportation facilities, and 

 accords with the new partitionment very noticeably. 

 The proposed divisions would nearly all be entitled 

 to statehood. They are as follows, names being 

 assigned to the new divisions merely as a matter or 

 convenience. 



NEW BOUNDARIES DESCRIBED. 



DAKOTA. Area, 72,500 square miles; population 

 in 1890, 463,000; estimated population in 1894, 700,000; 

 comprising those parts of North and South Dakota 

 east of the Missouri river and of the Mouse River 

 valley, including the James river valley and the west- 

 ern half of the valley of the Red river of the north; 

 a district that ought never to have been divided, the 

 Missouri river being nature's line upon which the old 

 Dakota Territory should have been cut in two. 



WEST DAKOTA. Area, 78,500 square miles; popu- 

 lation in 1890,53,000; estimated population in 1894, 

 75,000; comprising most of the western and arid part 

 of North and South Dakota, the northeastern part of 

 Wyoming, and small sections of Montana; being all 

 the region watered by Big Muddy creek and the Little 

 Missouri, Knife, Heart, Cannon Ball, Grand, Moreau, 

 Cheyenne and Bad rivers and other affluents of the 

 Missouri, which flows across the State and along its 

 eastern boundary. 



NEBRASKA Area,70,000 square miles; population in 

 1890, 948,000; estimated population in 1894, 1,300,000; 

 comprising the present Nebraska plus those portions 

 of the White and Niobrara river basins now in the 

 States of South Dakota and Wyoming, and minus 

 that section of its territory drained by the Repub- 

 lican river and by the Platte river system in the arid 

 country. 



KANSAS Area, 80,000 square miles; population in 

 1890, 1,370,000; estimated population in 1894, 1,650,- 

 000; comprising the present Kansas plus the head 

 water region of the Republican and Smoky rivers 

 now in Colorado, and the middle course of the Repub- 

 lican river now in Nebraska, and minus so much of 

 the Arkansas river valley as lies in the arid region 

 joining Colorado, and that southern portion of its 

 territory drained by certain streams that rise in 

 Kansas and flow southward across the present State 

 line. 



OKLAHOMA Area, 64,000 square miles; estimated 

 population (including Indians) in 1890, d50,000 ; esti- 

 mated population in 1894, 500,000; comprising Okla- 

 homa east of the 99th meridian, all of Indian Terri- 

 tory and that southern part of the present Kansas 

 already described as drained by waters flowing into 

 Oklahoma. 



MONTANA Area, 79,000 square miles; population 

 in 1890, 74,000; estimated population in 1894, 100,000; 

 comprising, with the exception of the sources of 

 several streams that rise in Canada, all the Missouri 

 river basin from its headwaters to about the 105th 

 meridian; including all the present Montana, except- 

 ing that portion lying west of the Continental Divide 

 tributary to the Columbia river system, that part 

 drained by the Yellowstone river and its branches 

 arid those parts in the extreme east already allotted to 

 West Dakota. 



YELLOWSTONE. Area, 72,000 square miles ; popu- 

 lation in 1890, 19,000; estimated population in 1894, 

 30,000; comprising all the region drained by the 

 Yellowstone river and its tributaries, the Big Horn, 



