THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



199 



have no more settled local habitation or domicile than 

 carrion crows who follow the scent of their prey from 

 afar off. 



If this is refused, or neglected, then there is a way 

 to call them to account, and give them short shrift. The 

 condition of unrest that prevails everywhere, in spite of 

 "an unexampled prosperity" portends an upheaval of the 

 people, and so far as thwarting the spirit of the national 

 irrigation laws is concerned, THE IRRIGATION AGE will 

 be the first to fire the match to explode the volcano. 



The "Talisman" authored by Mr. George 

 Talisman-ic H. Maxwell, of Chicago, and also numer- 

 Bugle Notes, ous other localities where it is his peculiar 

 policy to be, contains in its April number, 

 some highly appropriate and valuable hints, the presence 

 of which in the columns of the Maxwell organ, we cannot 

 explain except by assuming that the executive chairman 

 of the National Irrigation Association was busy cen- 

 suring the Salt River Valley complaints. 



Speaking of President Roosevelt's public land pol- 

 icy, and heaving a deep sigh because "me and Roosevelt 

 can not make the laws and have the power to enforce 

 them according to my sweet will," he says: 



"Public sentiment is being awakened even in the 

 West, and the shocking frauds which have been perpe r 

 trated upon the people in carving out of the public 

 domain the immense number of great ranches now to be 

 found everywhere in the West, have startled the people 

 even in that region into a realization of the resulting 

 evils of land monopoly." 



How shocking! And to think that "even in the 

 West," this has just been found out. Again the great 

 purifying filter passes this great thought through its 

 brain sand. It is the "Keynote," the harp of a thousand 

 strings, struck by Mr. Roosevelt in his message to Con- 

 gress : 



"The one guiding purpose of the administration in 

 dealing with forestry, with pasturage, with irrigation, 

 with the land generally is to help and make easy the path 

 of the home-builder, the small ranchman or tiller of the 

 soil, and not to let the land be exploited and skinned by 

 those who have no permanent interest therein, and who 

 do not build homes, or remain actual residents." 



These words should be hammered in the brazen 

 columns of the "organ" until the noise of the pounding 

 compels the editor to remember them in all his dealings 

 with irrigation matters. 



The "bugle blast" in the Senate Report also finds its 

 way in the Talisman-ic instrument, inadvertently, per- 

 haps, and what covers the other designs of its editor with 

 plausibility as to purity of motives, is the fact that it is 

 printed in black face letters like this: 



"There slum Id be but one act upon onr 

 statute books under which public lauds can be 

 acquired, and that one act should be a genuine 

 homestead act which imposes a residence of 



five years and continuous cultivation of the soil 

 an act having no commutation provision at- 

 tached to it." 



There once lived a dramatic genius named William 

 Shakespeare, who knew and understood human nature 

 better than any man who ever lived, and his writings to 

 this day are mirrors to modern humanity. 



In his Merchant of Venice, Act I, Scene III, he 

 makes one of his characters say : 



"The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. 

 An evil soul producing holy virtues 

 Is like a villain with a smiling cheek ; 

 A goodly apple rotten at the heart: 

 0, what a goodly outside falsehood hath !" 

 Ordinary people in Shakespeare's time, ran against 

 this sort of bluff, and did not know what to do about it ; 

 we, of modern times, call it. 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



We are much pleased with not only the improved 

 appearance, but with the marked change for the better 

 in the editorial and reading matter of The Irrigation 

 Age and Drainage Journal since coming under, the man- 

 agement of its present editor, Mr. D. H. Anderson. We 

 are especially pleased to note that he is broad enough 

 to champion the best interests of the people who have 

 cast their lot and are now building for themselves 

 homes in the coming arid West Empire. 



We have watched and read Irrigation Age from its 

 beginning, followed it through its trials and disappoint- 

 ments, and we now predict for it a brighter and more 

 successful and useful future than ever before in its 

 history. Modern Irrigation. 



NATIONAL IRRIGATION CONGRESS. 



It is doubtful if at the coming meeting of the irri- 

 gation Congress, to be held at Ogden, Utah, this fall, 

 the question of merging the congress with the Trans- 

 Mississippi Congress will be brought before the congress 

 at all. The fact is, the people of the arid West have been 

 posting themselves and learning the true inwardness of 

 the great desire exhibited by a few at Colorado Springs 

 last year to merge. It has developed that it was a 

 smooth deal, sprung without notice on the convention 

 by Mr. Maxwell and his friends to place the Irrigation 

 Congress fully in control of one Mr. Maxwell and his 

 wealthy constituents "yearly contributors" repeating 

 the expression, of Mr. D. H. Anderson. He says : 

 "Maxwell's actions and seeming control of the congress 

 last season led me to wonder whether this was a national 

 irrigation association, controlled by the people, or a per- 

 sonal Maxwell association." Modern Irrigation. 



Hon. William Sturgis, in an article on "Coloniza- 

 tion and the Arid West," in the Wyoming Industrial 

 Journal, published at Cheyenne, makes this good point : 



"The rainfall, beneficent as it is, brings to the soil 

 pure moisture only, while with every gallon of water 

 passing through our acequia comes its percentage of fer- 

 tilizing silt, to irrigate the farm land and to replace 

 its exhausted elements. An irrigated farm never wears 

 out." 



