1906 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



169 



the longer days more than a million 

 Europeans whose first sight of Ameri- 

 ca is in the seaboard cities. 



The late Frederick Law Olmstead, 

 who in fifty ways proved himself so 

 great a benefactor to America, said to 

 me once that while the public knew 

 him best as one who had successfully 

 tried to ruralize the cities, he cared 

 more for plans which looked to urban- 

 izing the country. He wrote with real 

 dismay of regions quite considerable 

 in different States where the attraction 



who do not know America. An Irish 

 officer in high position in one of the 

 seaport cities once asked me if all the 

 signers of the Declaration of Inde- 

 pendence were contemporaries. That 

 is a good enough illustration of a cer- 

 tain ignorance of America and Ameri- 

 cans which makes it impossible for 

 such men really to guide the Ameri- 

 can commonwealth. 



But in the towns which are so small 

 that the real leaders lead the town, and 

 say : "We are going to build a bridge 



Southern California Home ; the Result of Irrigation. 



of cities was diminishing the popula- 

 tion of the country regions. In this 

 epigram of his with regard to his own 

 work he pointed out one duty which be- 

 longs to the leaders in the agricultural 

 States. It is the duty of making small 

 towns attractive. 



I am fond of saying that fortunate- 

 ly for America the United States is 

 governed by the public opinion of the 

 smaller cities and the larger towns. 

 For reasons which we need not dis- 

 cuss, the larger cities are generally 

 under the local government of people 



here," or "to lay a sewer there," or "to 

 introduce electric light," or not to 

 introduce it that is to say, in a place 

 where the leaders of opinion think it 

 worth while to enter into the business 

 of government in that place public 

 opinion asserts its own right. Such a 

 nation as is made up by a thousand 

 more or less of such towns has noth- 

 ing to fear from any little coterie in 

 the cities of men who are like the 

 Phoenician navigators in the seaports 

 of Old Spain, men who are really 

 foreigners. 



