THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



VOL. xv . 



CHICAGO, DECEMBER, 1900. 



NO. 3 



THE PROGRESS OF WESTERN flMERICfl. 



West Should 



Stand 



Together 



There is great need that 

 everyone interested in seeing 

 the Government take hold of 

 the question of the reclamation of its arid 

 lands should stand together at this session 

 of Congress, and be ready to do whateve r 

 possible to secure concerted action. 



The great prominence given to the 

 meetings of the National Irrigation Con- 

 gress at Chicago, and other influences, 

 have shown to thoughtful members of both 

 houses of Congress that this irrigation 

 question is something that has to be set- 

 tled with, and that there is no use in trying 

 to think it can be indefinitely put off. The 

 question with them is how to do it. East- 

 ern statesmen are asking this question 

 now. 



It is possible that some defi- 

 Reservoir nite plan of action will be put 

 Construction forward this w i nter to secure 



reservoir construction. If so, every man 

 in the West should wake to the opportun- 

 ity. The favorable action of Congress on 

 the question of building some particular 

 reservoir would ba the beginning of a 

 general policy of reclaimation of the des' 

 erts. It would be an entering wedge. It 

 is a matter of the most tremendous inter- 

 est to the West and to every interest in 

 the West. 



This point should not be overlooked; 

 that whatever reservoir site it is proposed 

 to concentrate the attention of Congress 

 upon, and in whatever State or locality, 

 -every other State and Territory should 



bend every effort to secure the construc- 

 tion of this first reservoir. This would 

 start the movement. 



T . u In the meantime every 



The Fight newspaper in the arid belt 

 should take up the fight from 

 o w on and urge upon the people of the 

 West the great opportunity which is now 

 before them. Congress is now ready ap- 

 parently to listen to some fair proposition 

 which does not resemble a raid; but the 

 West should back up the demands of its 

 representatives in Washington by a united 

 and persistent demand that the time has 

 come for some Governmental action. 



There are enough Western Senators and 

 Congressmen to carry the Federal irriga- 

 tion proposition to a triumphant issue, if 

 they will stand together, and every man 

 of the West should sit down and write a 

 personal letter to his member of Congress 

 and to his Senator at Washington, and 

 tell them why they should work to get a 

 bill passed providing for the construction 

 of reservoirs by the Government to store 

 the floods. 



No man, no locality is unin- 

 You are terested in this plan. Every 



Interested. industrv of the West would 



be stimulated and developed wonderfully 

 through the carrying out of a policy which 

 would reclaim 75 million acres of arid 

 land. 



If the people of the great West ever 

 were interested in anything, they are in. 



