THE HUMANITARIAN ASPECT OF NATIONAL IRRIGATION 



ADDRESS OF HON. THOMAS F. WALSH. 



Gentlemen of the Convention: 



We assemble to-day under very pleasant circumstances. We are 

 here not merely to discuss measures, to formulate resolutions, and to- 

 map out a plan of campaign, as we have so often done on former oc- 

 casions. But we are here, first of all, to celebrate a great victory 

 to rejoice at the birth of a new policy which the National Irrigation 

 Congress has given to the nation. It is a happy hour in the history 

 of the great West. 



It is our first and grateful duty to acknowledge our obligations 

 to the men and the influences that made it possible to put a national 

 irrigation law on the statute books in the summer of 1902. It is true, 

 as ex-Secretary Boutwell remarks, in his book of reminiscences, that 

 when great measures are finally brought to pass they ai?e usually due 

 to no single individual. They are the product of many circumstances 

 and many minds, and the actual event is the culmination of much 

 that has gone before. This is pre-eminently true of the bill which 

 recently became a law and which is so soon to be placed in operation 

 in reclaiming desert lands in some of the Western States. 



In this hour of triumph we owe a word of thanks to the enthusi- 

 astic and far-sighted men who inaugurated this movement a dozen 

 years ago- They saw, on one hand, what had been accomplished by 

 the pioneer settlers among these far western valleys, and, on the 

 other hand, they saw a vast area of rich land which was practically 

 worthless unless reclaimed by irrigation. They realized that here a 

 new population, as great as the present total of the United States, 

 might be sustained in a high degree of comfort and prosperity. If 

 they did not clearly see the practical steps by which this was to be 

 accomplished, they at least realized that they had encountered a new 

 national problem of magnificent dimensions. They set themselves to 

 arouse the interest of the nation in this grand undertaking, and to 

 that end they organized this Congress as an instrument in the work- 



The report of Capt. Hiram M. Chit:enden on the storage of flood 

 waters marked a new era in the national irrigation movement. It 

 was probably the strongest single influence which turned the thought 

 of our people toward the policy of national construction of reservoirs. 

 Following closely upon this report, and largely inspired by it, came 

 the National Irrigation Association as an auxiliary and co-worker of 

 this Congress. With it came a new and aggressive influence which 

 gave definite shape to the entire movement, and which accomplished 



