THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



"Although the subject to be discussed relates vitally 

 to human happiness, although the way we finally answer 

 the questions which the eminent speakers at the congress 

 will raise may decide whether 500 years from now the 

 United States shall be a flourishing empire or a desert 

 solitude, nevertheless it will not be easy to arouse more 

 than a perfunctionary public interest. 



"The great names of the orators, the pomp of civic, 

 festivity, the display of governmental science will all be 

 needed to hold the languid ear of the indifferent farmer, 

 whom nothing short of an earthquake will compel to 

 think or study. Irrigation would rain gold into his tubs 

 if he would set them out, but he won't until he is har- 

 ried and hounded into doing it. 



"But the farmer is no worse than other men. Few 

 of us take more than a feeble and spasmodic interest in 

 the things that concern us most deeply. Consider how 

 speedily an audience vanishes whenever a speaker touches 

 on education, a subject whose import is even weightier 

 than irrigation. 



"It is only by fits and starts that we can be induced 

 to think of the salvation of our immortal souls. Some 

 sporadic 'Billy'. Sunday can turn our attention to these 

 precious entities once in a while, but how long does it 

 stay fixed ? Salome dancing a frivolous hornpipe makes 

 us forget time and eternity. 



"If man were a truly rational being the minute he 

 learned that irrigation would double the produce of his 

 farm, even in such a favored region as the Willamette 

 valley, he would rush to build dams and dig ditches, but 

 he doesn't. He waits until somebody has pushed and 

 prodded him. 



"Think how long it has taken some of the rural 

 brethren to begin spraying their apple trees. They know 

 that a few doses of lead arsenate would save their fruit 

 from ruin and line their pockets with dollars, but not a 

 drop did they spray until a paternal government stepped 

 in and gave them no choice. As a race we are just as 

 lazy and short-sighted as we dare be, and most of us 

 would far prefer to swing a heavy sledge hammer 10 

 hours rather than think 10 minutes. 



"Such congresses as the one which will meet in 

 Spokane next August are more valuable for reiterating 

 old truths than for revealing new ones. Iteration is all 

 that saves the world from a relapse into barbaric squalor. 

 Hearing the truth about irrigation or anything else once 

 only does us not the slightest good. We must hear it a 

 thousand times and in every possible key. 



"The Massachusetts savings bank insurance scheme 

 was based on the supposition that when life insurance 

 was made cheap and easy every person who needed it 

 would step up and buy it. No madder dream was ever 

 dreamed. The project has been open many months, but 

 only two banks are offering insurance, and there is no- 

 body to buy. To persuade us to insure our lives and 



save our wives and children from destitution we need a 

 brazen-tongued agent to ring an alarm in our ears. 



"Mankind is like the starving pauper who was on 

 his way to the graveyard to be buried alive for his indo- 

 lence. The merciful judge offered to suspend sentence 

 if anybody would feed the condemned. A kindly farmer 

 offered a meal of corn. 'Is it shelled ?' inquired the pau- 

 per, with languid interest. No, it was not. 'Drive on, 

 then,' said the pauper. We need such gatherings as the 

 National Irrigation Congress to shell our corn for us. 



"Civilization originated in countries where men were 

 forced to irrigate the land or perish. In Babylonia and 

 Egypt were laid the foundations of every science and all 

 the arts. The reason is plain enough. Irrigation drives 

 man to think and plan on the one hand and to co-oper- 

 rate with his neighbors on the other. The habit of think- 

 ing about one subject leads him to exercise his brain on 

 others, and presently he discovers the great truth that 

 ideas are upon the whole beneficial to him rather than 

 baneful. 



"Co-operation is the only way out of most rural dif- 

 ficulties, and it is easier in irrigated regions than else- 

 where for divers reasons. One is that irrigation de- 

 pends from the beginning on co-operation. But also the 

 farms are necessarily small, people live near together, 

 contiguity develops confidence, the plane of public intel- 

 ligence rises, the communal consciousness sets to work 

 and presently the whole neighborhood studies, buys, sells 

 and thrives as one man." 



In this day of the reckless, illogical pub- 

 Credit licity agent, with his "scheme" for free 

 To Whom advertising and his puerile, almost asinine 

 Credit methods for accomplishing the object, it 

 Is Due. is a genuine pleasure to meet up with a 



man whose mental horizon is broad 

 enough to permit the discard of disreputable and the 

 adoption of the legitimate, common-sense in his pub- 

 licity work. 



For consistent, persistent effort, a comprehensive 

 view of existing conditions, and for aggressive, logical 

 plans for the exploitation of the city and its resources, 

 August Wolf, in charge of the publicity department for 

 the Spokane Chamber of Commerce, merits high com- 

 mendation. 



Unswerving in his loyalty to Spokane and her in- 

 terests, Mr. Wolf has gained the confidence of the press, 

 that most powerful factor in all exploitation and ad- 

 vertisement. Through his capable handling of this 

 department, the energy and enterprise of its citizens, 

 and the growth of Spokane as the commercial center of 

 the inland empire, are fast becoming familiar to and 

 appreciated by the eastern peoples. The value of this 

 publicity work to the city of Spokane, and indirectly to 

 the entire west, cannot be overestimated. 



