230 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



grow, which would be cut down by government timber 

 thieves then as they have been in the past. Other plans 

 must be laid to protect our watersheds. 



The ancients ditched and otherwise manipulated 

 their treeless watersheds, and when spring came with. its 

 melting snows and mountain rains, the water did not 

 come down with a* rush as it does with us, and disappear 

 after a few days' destruction, but the streams ran full 

 and free all the season. 



Suggestions have been made to create a glacier 

 system which will appear in another column of this is- 

 sue. We refer to it as a suggestion, at a time when the 

 very air is full of suggestions, and an additional one 

 can do no harm. 



In an interview with Congressman Frank 

 View of W. Mondell, of Wyoming, the future of 



Congressman the arid region was fully discussed. 

 Mondell. Speaking of proposed land legislation be- 

 fore Congress, Mr. Mondell said: 

 "Some of the legislation will meet with determined 

 opposition. In the Congress just ended There was con- 

 siderable agitation to have repealed the commutation 

 clause of the homestead act and also the desert land 

 clause and the timber and stone clause. By the com- 

 mutation clause a settler may, after fourteen months 

 of residence on his 160 acres, obtain a full right and 

 title by paying $1.25 an acre; by the desert land act the 

 settler buys the land and reclaims it; by the timber 

 and stone act he obtains the land for $2.25 an acre. 

 If those clauses were repealed there would be no legisla- 

 tion to replace them and there would be no way to obtain 

 government land except under the general provisions of 

 the homestead act, requiring a residence of five years. 

 The people of Wyoming are opposed to the repeal of 

 these clauses for what they believe to be excellent rea- 

 sons. At the present time five-eighths of the revenue 

 obtained from the sale of public land is obtained under 

 these clauses, and, as under the recent irrigation act, this 

 money is to be used for the reclamation of arid lands, 

 it is a matter of much importance to Wyoming; for if 

 this source of revenue disappears there will be little 

 money with which to pursue the work of irrigation. 



"Moreover, we believe in encouraging the settle- 

 ment of the land. It is the opinion of many that the 

 agitation for the repeal of these clauses comes from the 

 land grant railways, who have millions of acres to sell. 

 It is clear that if government land should be difficult to 

 obtain these companies would be able to dispose of much 

 of their land." 



as we properly treat mining that is, as material to be 

 used up and nothing left behind. We must recognize 

 the fact that we have passed the stage when we can 

 afford to tolerate the man whose object is simply to 

 skin the land and get out. That man is not an equit- 

 able citizen. We do not want the big proprietor. It is 

 not for him that we wish to develop irrigation. It i& 

 not for him that we must shape the grazing lands or 

 handle our forests. We must handle the water, the 

 wood, the grasses, so that we will hand them on to our 

 children and children's children in better and not worse 

 shape than we got them. 



"Inasmuch as I myself passed a large portion of 

 my life in the mountains and on the plains of this 

 preat western country, I feel a peculiar pride that it 

 was given to me to sign and thereby make into law 

 the act of the National Government, to my mind one 

 of the most important acts ever made into law by the 

 national legislature, the national irrigation act of a 

 year ago. The Government, in my judgment, not only 

 should, but must, co-operate with the State Govern- 

 ments and with individual enterprises in seeing that we 

 utilize to the fullest advantage the waters of the Rocky 

 Mountain States by canals and great reservoirs which 

 shall conserve the waters that go to waste at one sea- 

 son so that they can be used at other seasons." 



If President Roosevelt will see to it he has the 

 power that this glorious vista is not obscured by George 

 H. Maxwell and land grabbing syndicates, he will indeed 

 be President of the United States. 



_. At Boise City, in his recent trip West, Mr. 



President 



Roosevelt gave utterance to some sound 



T It W 11 ^ a ^' w ^ cn ' ^ it could be followed up by 

 R ' some strenuous action on his part, would 



create the impression that he means more 

 than talk. 



"The forests and the grasses are not to be treated 



* No man can read without a shudder the 

 The Western awful calamities that have fallen upon the 

 Floods. people of Kansas, Missouri and other sec- 



tions, through the masses of flood water 

 that came down upon them without warning from the 

 upper country. 



We know that the Government is aiming to put 

 a curb upon the Missouri and other streams that rage 

 like lions at certain periods, and are as peaceful a& 

 lambs at other times. The people of the arid and semi- 

 arid West know what cloudbursts are, but they can- 

 not conceive such a succession of them as will sweep 

 villages, towns, and even cities, out of existence. 



How does it happen that this enormous mass of 

 water accumulates in sufficient proportions to become 

 the twin brother of the salt water tidal wave which 

 nothing can resist? There must be a reason some- 

 where no, we will not say a fault a lamentable de- 

 gree of recklessness in going on year after year with 

 this sword of Damocles hanging by a slender thread 

 over the heads of its victims. It is not ignorance, for 

 even the most ignorant do not take death into their cate- 

 gory of risks. 



The trouble is higher up than the submissive, inno- 

 cent, confiding people who throng the banks of these 

 treacherous streams. They know that something is do- 

 ing to protect them and they fancy that the protection 



