THE PROPOSED INTERNATIONAL 



DAM. 



AN INTERESTING SKETCH OF THE ADVANTAGES 

 DERIVED BY FRIENDLY RELATIONS WITH 



MEXICO. 



URING the past few years a great deal has been written and said 

 about our neighboring republic, Mexico, and of the increasing 

 friendly relations existing between that country and the United States. 

 Perhaps this may be more noticeable to one who has been living here at 

 the frontier for years, at a gateway between the two republics, but the 

 commerce of the United States is now beginning to realize the meaning 

 of these friendly relations: and if the readers of the AGE could just 

 spend a few days at the different ports of entry along the Mexican fron- 

 tier and see the trainload after trainload of American machinery, cloth- 

 ing, canned goods, fruits, and hundreds of other articles produced in the 

 United States going into Mexico, they could not help having a feeling of 

 pride and believing that these "friendly relations" are decidedly nice 

 things; and then if these same readers could make a little trip to the in- 

 terior of Mexico and become acquainted with the people, their delightful 

 hospitality, etc., and hear the nice things that are said about American 

 goods, their superiority over those of European manufacture, etc., every 

 one of these same readers would feel like throwing his hat up in the air 

 and yelling; '"Rah for Mexico an' Uncle Sam an' their friendly relations; 

 keep 'era up!" 



However, Mexico has "troubles of her own," and one of them is a 

 scarcity of water for irrigation; and, as it is but natural for a person to 

 tell his troubles to his best friend, so Mexico came to the United States 

 with a plain statement of facts asking the relief which lies only within 

 the power of the United States to grant. The outcome of this has been 

 the proposed international storage dam to be constructed near El Paso, 

 Texas, and the following is a brief outline of the situation today: 



Away back in the year 1549, before there was anything known about 

 the great West, the town of Paso del Norte was founded by the Span- 

 iards, and the people in that vicinity (now Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and 

 El Paso, Texas,) carried on the business of agriculture by irrigation from 

 the waters of the Rio Grande. From this humble beginning has grown 

 the great agricultural industry of the Southwest of the present day, and 

 the people enjoy the water rights here which have been handed down 

 from the Spanish government centuries ago. In former years, aye, even 

 up to ten or twelve years ago, there was sufficient water for all purposes. 



