FOR NATIONAL IRRIGATION. 



EASTERN INTEREST IN ITS POSSIBILITIES IS 



GROWING. 



Evidence comes to show that the national irrigation movement is 

 not dead, but that on the contrary it has taken a firm hold, particu- 

 ~arly of the people of the East, where opposition has been the strong- 

 est. On the 17th of August, the Missouri Press Association adopted 

 ringing resolutions pledging itself to urge Upon congress and upon 

 individual senators and representatives, irrespective of party, the ne- 

 cessity for the construction of storage reservoirs by the federal gov- 

 ernment in order to redeem Arid America and to control the floods of 

 the Mississippi. The resolutions were comprehensive and broad. 



On the same day the National Association of Merchants and Trav- 

 elers, of Chicago, at a special meeting of their executive committee 

 to decide whether they would take hold of the national irrigation 

 movement, adopted the following trenchant resolutions: 



"WHEREAS, the building of great storage reservoirs and canals 

 by the federal government, as advocated by the National Irrigation 

 Association, would transform the great arid region of the west into a 

 fertile territory, capable of sustaining a greater population than in- 

 habits the whole United States today, and would practically double 

 our national wealth and resources, enormously enlarging our home 

 markets and increasing our trade and commerce and the prosperity 

 of the whole people of the United States. Now, therefore, be it 



" Resolved, That the Federal Association of Merchants and Trav- 

 elers will give its active and vigorous support to the national irriga- 

 tion movement, and we urge upon the people of the United States, 

 and especially upon all merchants and manufacturers and commercial 

 organizations in every part of the country that they co-operate in aid 

 of the movement."' 



The fact is that eastern merchants and business men generally 

 recognize the moment that it is called to their attention, the vast pos- 

 ibilities which open before them, in the reclamation of the arid west 

 through a comprehensive storage reservoir system. It takes no pro- 

 phet to see that with the opening to settlement of millions of acres of 

 the most productive land in the world and its population by thrifty, 

 industrious and well-to-do farming communities, an immense market, 

 the superior of any in the world and almost at and within our very 

 doors, will be opened to the thousands of American factories looking 

 for places to sell their products, while they in turn would be so stim- 



