THE IRKIGATION AGE. 



43 



THE TWELFTH NATIONAL IRRIGATION 

 CONGRESS. 



HELD AT EL PASO, TEX., NOVEMBER 15-18. 



The Twelfth National Irrigation Congress, which 

 was held at El Paso, Tex., November 15-18, was in- 

 teresting from many points of view. While the at- 

 tendance at the Congress was not as large as expected 

 in fact, there were probably not to exceed 500 accred- 

 ited delegates in attendance the impression is that 

 great good was accomplished in its deliberations, and 

 El Paso is to be congratulated upon the manner in 

 which she handled her end of the affair, and to the 

 citizens of that border city is due the thanks, of the 

 many who attended for their uniform kindness and 

 courtesy. There is no doubt but that had the Congress 

 been managed as was the Ogden congress the attend- 

 ance would have been much larger. The general feel- 

 ing among the actual irrigators, State engineers and 

 a large number of those directly interested in the sub- 

 ject of irrigation against the Maxwell-Booth combina- 

 tion had, no doubt, much to do with the small attend- 

 ance. 



The twelfth Congress was managed on different 

 lines from any former affair of the kind, in that the 

 convention met in sections at various places about the 

 city of El Paso, the main meeting place being at the 

 new convention hall. Considerable dissatisfaction was 

 expressed by many of the delegates at the fact 'that 

 it was impossible to keep in touch with the delibera- 

 tions of the Congress, as only one meeting could be 

 attended at a time. It is the general impression that 

 the section system will not be adopted at future con- 

 gresses. 



The main convention hall was beautifully deco- 

 rated with the national colors of the United States and 

 Mexico, and the first meeting was taken up with ad- 

 dresses of welcome and responses. The following let- 

 ters of greeting to the National Irrigation Congress 

 from the Presidents of the two great republics of the 

 western hemisphere, each expressing deep interest in 

 the meeting and regret at his inability to be present, 

 were read. We also reproduce, in this connection, let- 

 ter from Mexico's Vice-President and letter of invi- 

 tation sent to General Diaz, President of Mexico, by 

 William A. Clark, president of the Twelfth National 

 Irrigation Congress : 



PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT TO THE IRRIGATION CONGRESS. 



WASHINGTON, D. C., November 10, 1904. 

 To the National Irrigation Congress: 



It is a pleasure to send my greeting to you, both 

 as President of the United States and as a man who 

 has lived in the West and is eager for its prosperity 

 Whatever any man or body of men may believe as 

 to any question in political controversy, we may all 

 unite in the great duty of internal improvement; the 

 duty of making every foot of soil, every stream and 



every other resource of natural or human origin con- 

 tribute to the very utmost to the permanent prosperity 

 of our country. 



I congratulate you because you are no longer 

 striving for what once seemed a distant hope; you 

 are no longer engaged in a campaign of education for 

 the passage of a reclamation act. On the contrary, 

 your first great object is achieved. You have yet to 

 consider what has been done and what is being done 

 under that act by the reclamation service, to consider 

 means to give it its largest and widest results and to 

 discuss the broad problems of irrigation methods and 

 practices. 



It was through your efforts and those of men like 

 you that the people of the United States, as a nation, 

 undertook to attack the desert and to do away with it 

 only so far as there is water now for that purpose, but 

 to the fullest extent for which water may be developed 

 hereafter. Such an attack can be successful only when 

 based on accurate knowledge. 



When the reclamation act was passed the essential 

 facts as to stream flow had been ascertained in many 

 parts of the United States, and the scientific basis for 

 national reclamation, which otherwise would have taken 

 years to accumulate, was already in a large part at 

 hand. The fact that so much progress has already 

 been made by the reclamation service is a striking ex- 

 ample of the advantage of scientific investigation by 

 the general Government. It may be true that to the 

 man whose interest is limited by immediate results 

 the admirable work of the reclamation service at times 

 seems slow, but we are building for a great future, 

 and it is far more important that the works built should 

 be permanent and successful than that they should 

 be completed in haste. There will be no unwise hurry, 

 neither will there be any unnecessary delay. Most of 

 the great problems of organization and methods have 

 now been solved and progress in construction and set- 

 tlement is being made with increasing rapidity. 



The passage of the reclamation law was a great 

 step toward realizing the best use of all public lands. 

 For many of these lands their best use is to produce 

 water for irrigation. But always and in every place 

 the best use of public lands is their -use by the man 

 who has come to stay. There are, unfortunately, in 

 every part of our country a few men whose interests 

 are purely temporary, who are eager to skim the cream 

 and go. Instead of using the natural reservoirs, upon 

 which national irrigation depends, to the permanent 

 loss of every agency which makes for the true develop- 

 ment and lasting greatness of the irrigable States, such 

 interests can not be allowed to control. 



Now that your first great object has been accom- 

 plished in the passage of the reclamation law, you 

 should make yourselves the guardians of the future 

 and the unrelenting and watchful enemies of every 

 attempt to waste any of the great resources in forestry, 

 grazing and mineral wealth, the foundation stones of 

 newer and greater West. For irrigation and every 

 .other interest which you represent, the period of ex- 

 clusiveness is past. The stock interests are no longer 

 independent of the mining interests, nor either of them 

 independent of the irrigator. A closer interweaving 

 than ever before is at hand among all the great inter- 

 ests of the whole country. One can not prosper with- 

 out others. So the future growth and greatness of the 

 other Western interests will depend, in the first degree, 



