62 THE' IRRIGATION AGE. 



tury as the most feasible means of escape from social catas- 

 trophe. 



There is one luminous lact of world-wide conditions to which we 

 must adjust our methods of organizing colonization and planning the 

 industrial order of communities. This is the fact we Jive in a time 

 when things are done upon a great scale and with combined capital. 

 The people who will furnish the recruits for new colonies are them- 

 selves the victims of this most marked of all modern tendencies in our 

 business life. To transplant them from one field where they have 

 gone down in the unequal competition between labor and small capi- 

 tal, on one hand, and superior ability and great capital, on the other 

 hand, and try to make them flourish in another field where the same 

 forces are at work, would be to invite failure. If anything is plain it 

 is that only organized energies and combined capital can possibly pre- 

 vail and command success in these new undertakings. This principle 

 applies to any effort which has to do either with production or distri- 

 bution. But in a pre-eminent degree it applies to the utilization of 

 arid lands where water works must be built before the first potato can 

 be raised and wher^, after works are built, organization and discipline 

 are essential to iheir successful administration. 



We have, then, these foundation facts to build upon: 



There is plenty of land, of capital, and of people with which to 

 create a fund of new wealth, and in process of doing which homes 

 may be made for millions of people. 



These people are cniefly in cities, and they must be organized in 

 considerable numbers and taught to work under some plan of co-oper 

 ation in that they must meet on eveiy hand. 



Of course I do not mean to say that there is no chance for individ- 

 uals to settle in localities where they may have success in spite of 

 these facts. People are doing that all tue time. Some ol them suc- 

 ceed; others do indifferently; still others fail. Crowded as Chicago is 

 to-day, many young in -n and womea go there 'each year, get a foot- 

 hold readily, and proceed to become well-off. But such instances do 

 uot prove anything as to the economic drilt in country and town. 

 When the ava;anche slides down the mountain-side it leaves plenty of 

 snow clinging to rocks and trees, but that circumstance does not alter 

 the fact that there was an avalanche and that the tendency of the 

 mass was downward. 



In considering the lessons of expa ienca we shall not go into the 

 matter of individual settlement, but confine ourselves to a discussion 

 of the larger social facts. It may be useful to home seekers, how- 

 ever, to say in passing that questions will be answered in regard to 

 the advantages of various localities. Persons planning individual set- 

 tlement should not imagine that they will escape existing economic 

 evils by changing their place of resi lenca. In some localities the 



