THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



A Firm 

 Friend. 



forfeiture of the effort. Upon final segre- 

 gation, the desert character of the land 

 will be held to be finally settled. Both 

 Congressman Shaforth and Jenkins waived 

 the right to push their individual bills in 

 support of the committee bill, but since 

 the war with Spain the whole matter has 

 lain in abeyance. 



The report received the enthusiastic ap- 

 plause of the Congress arid the committe 

 received hearty thanks for the manner in 

 which its duties had been performed. 



The Congress has one firm 

 friend in the "high places" in 

 Secretary Bliss of the Inter- 

 ior Department. Recognizing the fact 

 that preservation of our forests is depend- 

 ant in a great measure upon irrigation, he 

 is a staunch upholder of the latter cause 

 and President Carey, as well as the mem- 

 bers of Congress realize how much they 

 are indebted to him for the good work he 

 has done in their behalf. 



The resolutions proposed by 

 Resolutions Geo H Maxwe ll, o f Califor- 

 Adopted. . , . , , , . 



nia, which were embraced in 

 his article "Annex Arid America," ap- 

 pearing in the September number of the 

 AGE, were adopted by the Congress. 

 These comprise the resolutions of the 

 Phoenix Irrigation Congress "Arid Land . 

 Reclamation" and "Conditional State - 

 Cession;" resolution of the Lincoln Con- 

 gress, "United Ownership of Land and 

 Water;" the endorsement of the Chitten- 

 den report on Federal storage reservoirs 

 and the endorsement of recommendation 

 of Elwood Mead as to the leasing of the 

 grazing lands. 



The Congress showed its ap- 

 preciation of President Car- 

 ey's work in the past by re- 

 electing him president of the body for the 

 coming year. The other officers elected 

 were: Dr. S. B. Young, first vice-presi- 

 dent; S. A. Cochran, South Dakota, sec- 

 ond vice-president; S. M. Knox, Illinois, 

 third vice-president; O. E. Cutcheon, 

 Michigan, national lecturer; G. H. Max- 

 well, California, assistant national lec- 

 turer; Frank Bond, Wyoming, press clerk. 



The Next R> M ' Tansill > of Edd y> Ne w 

 Annual Mexico, made a strong and 

 Session. witty plea for Eddy, as the 

 place for the next session of the Irrigation 



Officers 

 Elected. 



( 'ongress, claiming that an irrigation con 

 vention should meet where its members 

 might see irrigation in practical operation, 

 and that Eddy, in the Pecos Valley, New 

 Mexico, would afford such an opportunity. 

 As New Mexico had entertained the con- 

 vention but a few years ago, Mr. Tansill's 

 plea was disregarded and Montana selected' 

 as the state in which to hold the eighth 

 annual session, the city to be decided upon 

 by the executive committee. This com- 

 mittee will consist of the following men 

 for the ensuing year: H. L. Kellogg, Col- 

 orado; S. M. Knox, Illinois: J. H. Church- 

 hill, Kansas: R. W. Silvester, Maryland: 

 Thomas Knight, Missouri: J. D. O'Don- 

 nell, Montana; M. M. McCutcheon, Mich- 

 igan; T. G. Frost, Minnesota; M. Dough- 

 erty. Nebraska: H. B. Maxson, Nevada: 

 S. N. Smith, South Dakota; H. McClin- 

 tock, Arizona; Judge Shurtliff, Utah. 

 Who has The war with Spain is over, 

 Broad Shoul- but there is still quite a little 

 ders? "fight" going on between the 



commanders and the department heads, 

 and an effort is being made to place the 

 blame for the gross mismanagement of 

 the recent campaign where it justly be- 

 longs. That there was mismanagement 

 and mistakes that amount to almost crim- 

 inal carelessness, is generally conceded, 

 but it is not definitely known whether one 

 man or many will have to shoulder the bur- 

 den of public disfavor. That there were 

 too many "tin soldiers" put in as officers 

 on account of political pulls and that in- 

 competency, which cost many a poor pri- 

 vate his life, was the result, none can dis- 

 pute, and the essayist who tied his article 

 on the "Late War" with red tape instead 

 of blue ribbon, knew what was appropri- 

 ate to the occasion. 



There are thousands of people who sym- 

 pathize most heartily with the sentiments 

 of Rev. N. Couden, of Michigan, the blind 

 chaplain of the House of Representatives, 

 "In my judgment," said he, "this whole 

 trouble in our camps and army has arisen 

 out of the 'incompetency of many of the 

 officers: not that they did not want to help 

 their men, but because they did not know 

 how to do it. One great trouble I think 

 has come from taking too many officers 

 out of the various militia organizations 

 and putting them on the same footing as 



