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THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



thejengineers or promoters. Neither can these pub- 

 lic^lands be "sold for the highest possible price." 

 The State fixes the maximum price at which, land 

 and water rights may be sold, and it is the State, 

 rather than the individual or company, that will be 

 held accountable by the people if the price at which 

 the lands are offered is out of proportion to the cost 

 of reclamation. Neither can water be appropriated, 

 canals built, or works operated "with the least possi- 

 ble interference in the way of public regulation or 

 control." Everything will be done wiih such regula- 

 tion and control. And the principles applied under 

 the Carey law mark the beginning of the end of the 

 era of reckless enterprise, based on unrestricted 

 gobbling of the public waters and wild speculation in 

 public assets. Now, Col. Hall's discussion of irriga- 

 tion principles, not only clearly proves that what has 

 happened in Wyoming was the inevitable outcome of 

 the industry in all countries and all ages, but it also 

 proves that water can never be recognized as private 

 property, and hence that no enterprise can perma- 

 nently exist on the basis of a system of water rentals. 

 We are rapidly coming to a time when public super- 

 vision and regulation will be rigid; when works 

 will be built only for sale to landowners; when ad- 

 ministration will finally rest with the people of well- 

 .defined hydrographic districts. In all this investment 

 will be benefited, because it will rest on better 

 knowledge, because it will be secured by more sub- 

 stantial assets, and most of all because upon 

 these terms industrious men will occupy the lands 

 under conditions which will enable them to repay the 

 original investment, with reasonable profits. 

 Mass Meet- Just as this issue of THE IRRIGATION 

 Boston *and AGE S oes to P r ess (March 25), the first 

 Chicago, of the series of mass-meetings, in the 

 interest of the irrigation propaganda, is being held 

 in Boston, at Wells Memorial Hall. The call was 

 headed by Edward Everett Hale and Edwin D. 

 Mead, and numerously signed by other prominent 

 citizens, including several labor leaders. The first 

 of the colonial clubs was organized. Many influen- 

 tial associations and prominent gentlemen have sig- 

 nified their intention to cooperate in holding mass 

 meetings in Chicago, and the first meeting will prob- 

 ably be called in Central Music Hall very shortly. 

 Full accounts of these mass meetings, which signal- 

 ize the rise of the irrigation idea to national promin- 

 ence, will be presented next month in these pages. 



Four Years With this number THE IRRIGATION AGE 

 irri&Mon enters upon its filth year of existence. 

 Age." Its past four years are not so much the 

 record of a magazine as the history of a cause. The 

 publication was born of zeal for a cause; it has sur- 

 vived only by reason of its having been the instrument 

 of a cause ; it has accomplished nothing except to fight, 

 and bleed, and all but die, for a cause. And what- 

 ever trophies it has won are in a peculiar sense the 

 trophies of irrigation rather than of THE AGE as a 

 publication. The magazine has gone through a long 

 and varied list of vicissitudes. It has breasted many 

 crises, and lived through many a "fatal " disease. It 

 has seen many a day when, if business men had been 

 trying to publish it for purely business purposes, the 

 key would have been turned for the last time in its 

 office door, since it would have been far more profit- 

 able to stop than to publish it. And yet it has lived 

 through panicf and failures and misfortunes, always 

 with an array of good and loyal friends. It is not 

 for us to say what part THE AGE has had in raising 

 its cause from the sordid plane of ditches and acres 

 to the dignity of a great national and human inter- 

 est in arousing and organizing public sentiment 

 in creating and disseminating a literature and a 

 creed for industry, society and ethics in a new empire. 

 But we can say, as General Butler said to the 

 critics of his war record, that " when my country was 

 assailed I buckled on my sword and did the best I 

 could." We have worked hard, we have done our 

 best. And we have had a pretty tough struggle in 

 the midst of it all. There is one remarkable fact 

 worthy to be recorded. THE IRRIGATION AGE has 

 never wavered for an instant in expressing its convic- 

 tions touching the iniquity of the Desert Land Law, 

 the denial of private ownership in water, the need of 

 rigid supervision and control of private enterprise by 

 public authority, and kindred subjects which in- 

 volve the rights of the people on one hand, and 

 the selfish interests of corporations on the other. 

 And yet it has never consciously lost business at the 

 hands of private companies on that account, and 

 never been threatened with their displeasure. It 

 would not have deflected our course by a hair's 

 breadth if the case had been different, but we 

 gladly put on record this item from our four years' 

 experience as testimony to the high-minded charac- 

 ter of the men who manage water and land companies 

 in the West. 



