THE IRRIGATION AGE 



VOL. VIII. 



CHICAGO, APRIL, 1895. 



No. 4. 



THE PROGRESS OF WESTERN AMERICA. 



And Still conquest of public sentiment in 



the Tide behalf of the plans of the irrigation 

 is Rising. , c 



propaganda goes bravely on. Some of 



the larger developments of the past month occurred 

 too late to admit of a full report in this number of 

 THE IRRIGATION AGE, but events are moving 

 swiftly, and when the Irrigation Congress is again 

 assembled in September the National Committee 

 will be able to report more progress for the past few 

 months than for the entire period of its previous 

 existence. One of the most satisfactory strides of 

 the month was the publication in The New York 

 World of Sunday, March 3, of a four-column illus- 

 trated article by the chairman of the National Com- 

 mittee. The importance of this event lies in the fact 

 that The World is the most widely read of all Amer- 

 ican newspapers, its Sunday edition, especially, cov- 

 ering the continent with its comprehensive circulation. 

 Furthermore, it has generally happened that move- 

 ments receiving the conspicuous attention of The 

 New York World have also quickly commanded the 

 appreciative notice of the press throughout the 

 United States. The World's article has already de- 

 veloped wide and favorable newspaper notice, and 

 led to voluminous correspondence from all sorts and 

 conditions of men. This furnishes additional evi- 

 dence of the fact that the time for a great advance is 

 thoroughly ripe. To conquer and occupy the Western 

 empire, utilizing surplus labor and capital, is the best 

 solution of present difficulties and future dangers. 

 The American people are beginning to see the mat- 

 ter in this light. We ought to prepare ourselves for 

 a mighty movement, because when the tide really 

 starts it will be very broad and deep, like the coloni- 

 zation movements of the past. 



Before a. The friends of irrigation in the West 

 Boston W JH be interested in following the expe- 

 rience of the chairman of the National 

 Committee in presenting the Western idea to various 

 intellectual elements of the East, and they will be 

 especially interested to know just how the idea is 



received in the populous and wealthy parts of the 

 country. On the afternoon of Saturday, March 9, 

 the writer was the guest of the Twentieth Century 

 Club of Boston, at its old-fashioned home in Ashbur- 

 ton Place. This club is composed of advanced 

 thinkers among the highest professions. It includes 

 many journalists, lawyers and college professors, 

 and the very name under which these men assemble 

 indicates that they offer fertile soil tor new ideas and 

 movements. The guest felt at perfect liberty, in 

 such a presence, to clothe his views in vigorous and 

 even audacious speech. He therefore arraigned the 

 Eastern provincialism which knows and cares nothing 

 about the vast empire in which national destiny is to 

 be outwrought, while it listens with wide-mouthed 

 interest to the latest traveler from Darkest Africa, 

 and strains the eye to catch the earliest glimpse of 

 the returning adventurer from the North Pole. The 

 statement that "if the Pilgrim Fathers had landed at 

 San Diego, instead of at Plymouth, we could hardly 

 have hoped to settle New England with a desirable 

 class of people," was received with a demonstration 

 that endangered the roof. So also was the remark 

 that irrigation is not a substitute for rain, but rain a 

 very poor and inadequate substitute for irrigation. 

 The speaker found these advanced thinkers of Bos- 

 ton really very responsive to the call for the revival 

 of the national spirit of continental conquest, and 

 deeply interested in the proposition to move popula- 

 tion into the West and develop institutions of such 

 an industrial and social character as to contribute to 

 their happiness and prosperity. The speech was fol- 

 lowed by a flood of questions, mostly directed to 

 these points; (1) Will the people be willing to leave 

 the cities and towns? (2) Can capital be furnished a 

 really sound security for the necessary advances? 

 (3) Can such a movement be organized and sustained 

 in a purely public spirit, rather than in the interest of 

 land companies? The applause with which the an- 

 swers to these questions were received, as well as the 

 hearty expressions of sympathy and support tendered 



