52 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



question and submit the results of its la- 

 bors to the National Congress for further 

 action. Such a commission, should con- 

 gress see fit to create it, can accomplish 

 much good, provided it does not become 

 inoculated with the bureaucratic affliction. 

 A judicious and business-like use of the 

 funds placed at its disposal, under the 

 control of competent men carefully se- 

 lected will enable the commission to as- 

 certain facts of untold value in the 

 development of our vast public domain 

 otherwise known as the "Arid Region." 

 Such a commission, if it is to be of any 

 lasting public benefit must enter upon its 

 work in a strictly impartial manner, un- 

 prejudiced in favor of this or that theory 

 and undisposed to direct its investigations 

 into narrow channels with a view to ap- 

 pending the weight of governmental sta- 

 tistics to some preconceived private notion. 

 The public's money should be used for the 

 public's good. That the people's welfare 

 demands a revision of the land laws is in- 

 disputable. 



Wyoming The Wyoming Supreme Court 

 the Way on November 15, decided that 

 foreign born residents, to be legally en- 

 titled to vote in that state, must be able 

 to read the state constitution in English. 

 Heretofore persons who could not read the 

 constitution in English but could read a 

 translation of it in their own language, 

 have been allowed to vote. The immedi- 

 ate effect of this decision, which was iman- 

 imous on the part of the court, will be to 

 disfranchise a large number of those who 

 have heretofore voted, especially in the coal 

 mining districts, and to replace a number 

 of republican county officials who were 

 given certificates of election by their dem- 

 ocratic opponents. This may cause a little 

 temporary hostility and disruption, but 

 probably without any serious consequences. 

 It is in its broader aspects, however, 

 that this decision conduces to a higher 

 conception of American citizenship. It 

 comes at a most opportune time and may 

 even penetrate the case-hardened shells of 

 he practical politicians, carrying with it 



an inkling of the fact that the American 

 people will no longer tolerate the indis- 

 criminate naturalization of foreigners, for 

 political purposes, without regard to their 

 fitness for holding and using the precious 

 boon of the elective franchise. Following 

 as closely as it does the election of a mayor 

 in Greater New York, where political rings 

 reeking with corruption and rottenness are 

 enabled by means of the votes of the nat- 

 urlized, but densely ignorant foreigners, 

 to extend and perpetrate their power for 

 vice, sacrificing upon the altar of private 

 greed, public welfare, health, morals, and 

 every vistage of public decency, this unan- 

 imous decision of the Wyoming Supreme 

 Court in favor of a higher and better 

 standard of citizenship, will shine with the 

 intensity of an electric beacon. 



And it is not astonishing that this por- 

 tentious warning to the politicians, indic- 

 ative of a wide-spreading and rapidly 

 strengthening popular sentiment on this 

 most important subject, should be intoned 

 by one of the newer states of the new West. 

 The free air of the West inculcates a spirit 

 of patriotism, broad, deep and enduring. 



It is not the writer's intention to inti- 

 mate in the slightest degree that all for- 

 eigners are unfitted to become American 

 citizens. There are distinctions. The 

 brutalized laborers imported by the coal 

 mining and iron working corporations, es- 

 pecially during periods of labor troubles, 

 should be classed with the Chinaman, and, 

 if possible, effectually barred from the 

 country, but at least prevented from be- 

 coming an important factor in both local 

 and national politics. The details of the 

 Wyoming case appear on another page in 

 this issue. 



Mexico's The long years of financial and 

 Development industrial depression which we 

 of the United States have enjoyed ( ?) most 

 thoroughly seems to have had no counter- 

 part in our sister republic on the south 

 Mexico. Every day adds its weight of 

 testimony, that this vast and, hitherto, al- 

 most unknown country is being explored 

 and its immense natural wealth being de- 



