THEODORE ROOSEVELT 



Dynamic Geographer 



By FRANK BUFFINGTON VROOMAN, F. R. G. S, 

 (Continued) 



RECLAMATION policy of river control, under which 



levees are built on the lower reaches ot 



OUT of this work, and alongside the same streams, 



this, work, has been developed, "The Government should construct 



and is being developed, the great and maintain these reservoirs as it does 



national undertaking known as the other public works. Where their pur- 



"Reclamation Service," which has al- pose is to regulate the flow of streams, 



ready made vast contributions to the the water should be turned freely into 



prosperity of sixteen states and terri- the channels in the dry season, to take 



tories. the same course under the same laws as 



President Roosevelt is the first Presi- the natural flow. 



dent who ever mentioned the subject of "The reclamation of the unsettled 



irrigation in a message to Congress, arid public lands presents a different 



This work is as much his own as any problem. Here it is not enough to 



such work can be said to be the work regulate the flow of streams. The ob- 



of any one man. In his first message ject of the Government is to dispose 



to Congress, after referring to the ef- of the land to settlers who will build 



fects of forests on water-supply, he homes upon it. To accomplish the ob- 



said : "The forests alone, however, can- ject, water must be brought within their 



not fully regulate and conserve the reach. 



waters of the arid regions. Great stor- "The reclamation and settlement of 



age works are necessary to equalize the the arid lands will enrich every portion 



flow of the streams and to save the flood of our country, just as the settlement of 



waters. Their construction has been the Ohio and Mississippi valleys 



conclusively shown to be an undertak- brought prosperity to the Atlantic 



ing too vast for private effort. Nor States. The increased demand for 



can it be best accomplished by the indi- manufactured articles will stimulate in- 



vidual states acting alone. dustrial production, while wider home 



"Far-reaching interstate problems are markets and the trade of Asia will con- 

 involved, and the resources of single sume the larger food supplies and ef- 

 states would often be inadequate. It is fectually prevent western competition 

 properly a national function, at least with eastern agriculture. Indeed, the 

 in some of its features. It is as right products of irrigation will be consumed 

 for the National Government to make chiefly in upbuilding local centers of 

 the streams and rivers of the arid re- mining and other industries, which 

 gions useful by engineering works for would otherwise not come into exist- 

 water storage, as to make useful the ence at all. Our people as a whole ivill 

 rivers and harbors of the humid re- profit, for successful home-making is 

 gions by engineering works of another but another name for the upbuilding of 

 kind. The storing of the floods in res- the Nation." (December, 1901.) 

 ervoirs at the headwaters of our rivers This is no place for even an outline 

 is but an enlargement of our present of the history of conservation, but it 



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