5o8 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION. 



December, 



have risen in politics, in business, in the 

 professions, and in the arts do we read 

 the same famihar story of inspiration 

 drawn from the strenuous experiences 

 of a poor family reared in the country. 



Now, the influences of rural life, to 

 which Blaine referred in speaking of 

 Garfield's boyhood, are going to be far 

 more wholesome and far more inspiring 

 in our mountain valleys and in this 

 twentieth century than they were in the 

 western reserve of Ohio in the first half 

 of the nineteenth century. I cannot 

 impress this point too strongly on your 

 minds. The man who rears his sons 

 and daughters in the rural life of our 

 irrigation empire will give them a better 

 chance to become useful men and women 

 than boys and girls will have when 

 raised in the city a better chance, even, 

 than young people enjoyed in the brave 

 old days of which we read in the biog- 

 raphies of our great men. 



I^et me show you what I mean. 

 The irrigated farm is necessarily a 

 small farm. It must be so, because it 

 is expensive to build and maintain res- 

 ervoirs and canals. Not only so, but 

 irrigation so largely increases the pro- 

 ductive capacity so as to make 20 

 acres practically equal to 100 acres de- 

 pending upon rainfall. The small farm 

 means plenty of neighbors, and that in 

 turn means social advantages which 

 were not within reach of country' people 

 in the bo^^hood days of Garfield, L,in- 

 coln, and others of their generation. 

 The boys and girls of arid America will 

 have the intellectual stimulus which 

 goes with neighborhood association. 

 Thus they gain one of the chief advan- 

 tages for which so many people are 

 rushing into the towns. But this is only 

 half of their advantage. The other half 

 is the industrial independence and the 

 glorious contact with nature which 

 come with life on the irrigated farm. 



The boys and girls who grow up in 

 the great city learn from the beginning 

 their dependence upon others. They 

 must work for others as a means of 

 livelihood, as their fathers are doing. 

 They must live in houses which other 

 men own. Wh^-, mother cannot have 

 a new sink in the kitchen without first 

 petitioning the landlord and convincing 



that august personage that the expend - 

 itvtre is really demanded in the interests 

 of economy or comfort. 



RURAI, RESIDENTS WORK FOR THEM- 

 SEEVES. 



How different it is with that family 

 when they acquire their part of the na- 

 tional heritage a little irrigated farm 

 in Colorado, in Idaho, in California, 

 or any other of our beautiful western 

 states. The soil which they press is 

 their own soil. The roof that shelters 

 them is their roof. Now father works 

 for himself and for his babies. When 

 mother needs a new sink in the kitchen 

 there is nobody to ask except the man 

 who loves her. This is freedom. What 

 does it mean to the nation to have mil- 

 lions of people gradually pass from the 

 servitude of the town to the sovereignty 

 of the country ? It means the enlist- 

 ment of a new army for the defense of 

 the Republic in every hour of need . Give 

 a man a home upon the soil and you 

 have made him a patriot who will de- 

 fend your institutions at the ballot-box 

 and on the battlefield. 



I wish to impress clearly upon your 

 minds that it is the humanitarian aspect 

 of national irrigation which will move 

 our countrymen and induce them to 

 enter upon this policy on the grandest 

 scale. Open the doors of the west and 

 you need not worry about the future. 

 Let the people have eas}- access to the 

 land and most of our other troubles will 

 settle themselves. The property-owner 

 is a conservative man, who loves his 

 family and his country. Then let the 

 property-owner be as numerous as pos- 

 sible. 



GROWING PREVAEENCE OF GREAT PHI- 

 LANTHROPIES. 



There never has been a time in the 

 history of the world when private be- 

 nevolence was so common or so generous 

 as it is today. Philanthropists are pour- 

 ing out their means to build colleges, 

 hospitals, and libraries. This is a wor- 

 thy work, which we cannot too highly 

 commend ; but I want to avail myself 

 of this opportunity to say that there is 



