I HE IRRIGA 1 JON A GE. 369 



outside of its own boundaries, nor can it clothe its citizens with suffi- 

 cient power so to do. 



The National Government, by reason of its national character, is 

 alone capable of taking hold of this interstate question and solving it. 

 Nor can this undertaking be intrusted to private or corporate enter- 

 prise. Storage enterprises are of such magnitude as to require im- 

 mense capital. Their purpose is to bring about a union of the water 

 with the land, and no corporation can successfully operate unless it 

 has a grant of an immense area of land. This involves all the evils of 

 land monopoly or subjects the enterprise to all the expenses connected 

 with promotion, bond selling, etc. The speculative element must be 

 entirely eliminated; the purpose is to create homes for the people, to 

 make the waters of the West available for the reclamation of arid 

 lands by actual settlers, and to eliminate entirely the speculator and 

 the capitalist. 



The cession of the arid lands would furnish no relief to the State 

 of Nevada. Nevada is an impoverished State. It was brought into 

 the Union just at the close of the civil war for the purpose of aiding 

 in reconstruction legislation and before it had the population and 

 wealth which is usually regarded as essential to the assumption of the 

 burdens of statehood. It came in reluctantly. It was persuaded by 

 the leaders of the republican party to accept statehood as a patriotic 

 duty. It is true Nevada has produced more mineral wealth than any 

 other State in the Union. It has produced $600,000,000 in gold and 

 silver, more than one-fourteenth of the entire stock of gold and silver 

 in the world to-day, and yet it has not profited by it; it is too near to 

 San Francisco. The promoters of Nevada enterprises were San Fran- 

 ciscans and the profits went to San Francisco, where they built up 

 stately edifices and inaugurated world-wide enterprises. But very 

 little of that wealth was expended in anything relating to the perma- 

 nent, substantial, and harmonious development of Nevada. 



The railroad status also affected it unfavorably. As a rule trans- 

 continental lines are built through uninhabited country, and then they 

 build up that country by the promotion of settlement. The Central 

 Pacific road was unfortunately involved in a controversy with the 

 Government, and instead of pursuing the usual policy of building up 

 the country which it traversed, the aim of its owners was to divert its 

 business to the Southern Pacific, and to advance the region traversed 

 by the Southern Pacific at the expense of the country traversed by 

 the Central Pacific. It was contended that the Central Pacific was 

 worthless, because it was built through a worthless State, and that 

 Nevada was simply a good foundation for a bridge from Ogdea, Utah, 

 to California, 



Then came the depressing effect of our financial legislation, which 



