THE IREIGATION AGE. 



297 



laws prevented any uniform legislation on the subject. 

 The states were hampered by their constitutional in- 

 hibitions from raising money for private purposes or 

 benefits, and, moreover, there were Federal lands ex- 

 clusively subject to the sovereignty of the National 

 Government, and over these lands any state law would 

 be absolutely inoperative without the consent of the 

 Congress of the United States. Hence the National 

 Irrigation Congress began its agitation of the great 

 question of irrigation for the reclamation of the arid 

 lands belonging to the Government. The United States 

 had on hand unsold about seven hundred millions of 

 acres of land of every variety, of which it was estimated 

 that from seventy-five to one hundred and fifty mil- 

 lions of acres were susceptible of reclamation by the 

 application of water. 



All this meant ditches, dams, enormous reservoirs. 



refused to permit a tree to grow of its own accord. 



But the National Irrigation Congress never stopped 

 boring, mole-like, through this uncongenial, incom- 

 patible mental soil, until President Eoosevelt came, and 

 in his message to Congress in December, 1901, he 

 placed the cause of national irrigation in a position 

 where it could not be denied. That message marked 

 a new epoch in the history of Western America. His 

 words carried conviction to the minds of many of 

 those who were still fancying that far-off possessions 

 were the adjuncts of power and national greatness, 

 and opened their eyes to the enormous possibilities of 

 the arid and semi-arid lands of the great West, com- 

 pared with which our so-called "Island Empire" would 

 make a small garden patch in Montana. Mr. Eoose- 

 velt had lived in the Great West, he loved it, it had 

 given him life and robust health; he knew its possi- 



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BOARD OF CONTROL, ELEVENTH NATIONAL IRRIGATION CONGRESS, OGDEN, UTAH. 



artesian wells, and gigantic engineering works beyond 

 the resources of any amount of private capital. Small 

 beginnings had been made toward enlisting the Gov- 

 ernment in this vast enterprise, or rather series of en- 

 terprises, long prior to the period referred to, but 

 they came to naught because the time was not yet 

 ripe, and the occupants of the Presidential chair could 

 not comprehend the greatness of the undertaking and 

 the enormous benefits to be reaped from it by the 

 whole nation. Moreover, there was bitter antagon- 

 ism at whatever would build up the West, intelli- 

 gent men still regarding the idea of watering the soil 

 of the "Great American Desert" as an act of stu- 

 pendous folly, one prominent Senator who made the 

 trip through the arid region publicly declaring that 

 it would be a sin and a crime for the Government to 

 expend any money to irrigate land where God Almighty 



bilities and its greatness, and by a stroke of his pen 

 he conquered an empire that had been ignored by 

 those of limited vision, or who saw nothing that was 

 not gauged by New England spectacles, or seen through 

 cannon smoke. 



Time crept on with stealthy feet; the little green 

 patches, once microscopical in a vast ocean of desert, 

 grew and spread until they began to touch one an- 

 other. What Senator Broadhead declared were the 

 "pitch burned pastures of Hell" became covered with 

 nodding grain and began to supply the Orient with 

 breadstuffs; the spot where Governor Brown of Geor- 

 gia lay down and wept for the fiery furnace of Shad- 

 rach, Mesach, and Abednigo to cool off in, hangs 

 heavy with golden and purple fruit, and the hot siroc- 

 co-like winds, blowing over moist, green, grassy fields; 

 are changed to the balmy zephyrs of Spring. The Con- 



