12 



Each arid State would strive to forestall its neighbor in securing govern- 

 ment aid. Ditch building would become a matter of lobbying and log 

 rolling instead of legitimate business enterprise, and in this con test Wyo- 

 ming would certainly suffer. 



Take the case of the North Platte river; would canals from that 

 stream be first built in Nebraska or Wyoming? So far as political influ- 

 ences are concerned, the representation of Nebraska in congress is 

 greater than that of Wyoming. The land to be reclaimed in Nebraska 

 has passed into the hands of settlers and in part from settlers to loan 

 companies through mortgage foreclosures. All these parties would have 

 a direct interest in securing the first aid and in making their rights the 

 prior claim on the stream. Their combined influence would reach half 

 the representatives in congress and there is no question but that it would 

 be far more potent than the mute appeal of the arid, unoccupied acres of 

 Wyoming. 



What is true of the North Platte is true of every inter-state stream 

 in this State. It would be Wyoming against the field. One State with 

 60.000 people against a half dozen StaUs with a hundred times our popu- 

 lation and an infinite superiority in wealth and influence. 



The greatest possible diversion and use of inter-state streams in 

 Wyoming will be a benefit rather than an injury to the States below u?. 

 Not half the water can ever be used in this State and three-fourths of all 

 used will pass on to the States below, after it has rendered its service 

 here. It will reach the irrigators in adjoining States at the period of 

 least supply and will be an equal protection from the disasters of floods 

 or injury from drought. But all those who have talked with the residents- 

 of those regions know that it is difficult to convince them of these facts 

 and that if we are to adopt a system which makes it possible to disregard 

 them they will very likely be disregarded. 



PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE CONFINED TO ARID STATES. 



I am opposed to the national government being placed in control of 

 this matter, because it is naturally a concern of the State; because tho 

 best results will come through a system which appeals to local pride and 

 enlists local enterprise; and because it is a matter in which all practical 

 knowledge, all practical experience, is confined to the arid States. To 

 transfer the management and control of this question to Wishington, is 

 to transfer it two thousand miles from the States where the work is to be 

 performed; it is to place it under the control of a body of men, three- 

 fourths of whom are absolutely ignorant of its fundamental requirements. 



In an able speech advocating the transfer of the lands to the States, 

 before the Salt Lake Irrigation congress., W. H. Mills of California, said: 

 "The great fault with the land system of the United States, is that you 

 are attempting to administer a domain actually more vast than was ever 

 drawn together in one single, civil polity. * * * It is the very fact 

 thai you cannot administer a land department in one place that would 

 make it judicious today for the government of the United States to estab- 

 lish land offices, with all the power possessed by the general land office 

 in the various States. * Ignorance and inexperience have run> 



that office continually, and you can organize a land department in every 

 State and territory west of the Missouri river that will take up the lands 



