THE IRRIGATION AGE 



VOL. VIII. 



CHICAGO, MAY, 1895. 



No. 5. 



THE PROGRESS OF WESTERN AMERICA: 



The Suicide suicide of Paul Schulze, of Tacoma, 



of Paul the prime mover in the large irrigation 

 Schulze. 



enterprise known as the bunnyside sys- 



tem in the Yakima valley of Washington, may prop- 

 erly be construed 'as having a deep significance in 

 connection with the irrigation industry. Mr. Schulze 

 was a man of large and daring enterprise, who felt a 

 genuine enthusiasm for the West in general, and for 

 magnificent Washington in particular. Viewed 

 simply as the ending of a life which had been con- 

 spicuously identified with the growth of a State, and 

 which had been notable for its public spirit, the 

 tragic death of Mr. Schulze seems infinitely sad. 

 But as Daniel Webster once said, in the course of a 

 famous trial for murder: "Suicide is confession 

 always, always." The world now knows that this 

 enterprising man was a defaulter. This knowledge 

 comes like a shock to his friends, but the incident 

 will soon be forgotten in the busy rush of life. Mr. 

 Schulze's suicide is a confession in another sense 

 which interests the public much more nearly and 

 keenly, and this part of the confession we have no 

 right to pass over lightly, because a valuable lesson 

 may be drawn from it. It is important to the people 

 of this country that this lesson should be learned, 

 and in no spirit of unkindness to the memory of 

 Paul Schulze, of whom many good things have justly 

 been said, we desire to lay stress upon this teaching 

 of his life and death.' 



beautiful valley of the Yakima. Nature designed it 

 to be the home of an extremely prosperous people. 

 The soil is kindly, the climate genial, and the country 



A Valuable au Schulze was a type of the enter- 

 T eS ^ht P r ' sm g men wno come out from foreign 

 countries and Eastern States and set de- 

 liberately at work to obtain control of natural oppor- 

 tunities, and to levy preposterous tribute upon the 

 industry of men who earn their bread in the sweat of 

 their faces. In this respect he stood as the representa- 

 tive of a system under which the development of the 

 West has largely gone forward. His suicide is a 

 confession that avarice is not always profitable, and 

 that greed may sometimes set its mark too high. 

 In all Arid America there is no fairer spot than the 



REV. DR. JOHN RUSK, 

 Of the Homeseekers' Association. 



is watered by an unfailing stream of noble propor- 

 tions. Here are the raw materials of prosperity, 

 waiting only for human industry to bring it into 

 being. And yet, although millions of good men and 

 women are hungry for just such opportunities as the 

 Yakima valley has offered from the day that Mr. 

 Schulze's canal system was added to its natural ad- 

 vantages, the people did not flow in fast enough to 

 save this man from financial ruin and death. It was 

 not the fault of the valley, nor of the people. It was 

 the fault of the individual who set a practically pro- 

 hibitory price upon those lands, and who barred the 

 people out almost as effectually as if he had erected 

 a Chinese wall about the valley and surmounted it 

 with gatling guns. There are few places where, with 



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