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THE IKEIGATION AGE. 



sciously each asservation carries a significance as of 

 eminent and infallible origin. 



It seems there is need of an association of fearless 

 men. Men who have at heart the progress and develop- 

 ment of a greater West; whose various endearors shall 

 include the tasks of harmonizing interests, of deter- 

 mining rights where conflicts pend, to exercise its in- 

 fluence with contending elements. It should be com- 

 posed of men broad enough to see both sides and brave 

 enough to criticize the erring. 



The West wants development all it can get. The 

 National Irrigation Act has inspired confidence in many 

 a lagging enterprise. Promoters with a worthy project 

 heretofore handicapped by want of means, need now 

 only show the merits of their plan and security from 

 Federal intervention, and ca-sh materializes. The na- 

 tional law has done a noble work if it never builds a 

 dam or ditch, and there are many projects where the 

 Government would be a welcome adjunct. It could 

 upon some equitable basis assist construction. 



It certainly is not the purpose of the Government 

 to crowd out pioneers. Originators of irrigation in 

 modern America are entitled to their prior rights and 

 privileges, unmenaced and unmolested. It is an im- 

 perative duty this generation and the country owes to 

 the fathers of an idea which will build homes for mil- 

 lions from an arid wilderness. 



It will take men of courage in such an association, 

 men who care not for blatant criticism of erstwhile 

 sycophants; men who must expect to have their motives 

 impugned and maligned by fortified beneficiaries of this 

 or that contingent. These things, sometimes so im- 

 portant to us individuals, are dwarfed to insignificance 

 when one realizes what it all means to future genera- 

 tions, and all it means for the quick development of 

 the newly irrigated area. Young, untactful men who 

 have been advanced by the rapid growth of the Eeclama- 

 tion Service, are too fond of exercising their new au- 

 thority, too prone to imagine their work includes stern 

 contests and gives them unlimited privilege. It is un- 

 fortunate for those young engineers who are, in the 

 main no doubt, aggressive, ambitious, able and worthy, 

 that the attribute of exciting hostilities and of unnec- 

 essary interference with extraneous affairs have found 

 encouragement from higher sources. One almost con- 

 cludes their actions are inspired and that the original 

 purpose of the National Irrigation Act, which was to 

 foster and supplement irrigation development, is being 

 perverted for a purpose. To square the shoulders and 

 tell of comprehensive brains essential for reclamation 

 heads, and to have the eyes assume an omni-spective 

 luminosity, does not dispel conclusions. Stories of un- 

 ceasing toil, of days and nights of unwearying labors, 

 yet almost hysterically repudiating plans of relief, ex- 

 hibitions of morbid sensitiveness when a proposal is 



made to improve the business end of the service, adroit 

 coupling of names of independent citizens with antag- 

 onists, and no apologies when apprised of errors; all 

 these permit and provoke unbidden apprehension. 



Emphasized is the above when engineers of the 

 Government find it necessary to reorganize Water Users' 

 Associations, to commit them to attitudes which delib- 

 erate judgment fails to commend ; and when a member 

 of the association rises in protest, the beneficiaries busy 

 themselves writing discrediting letters about the timo- 

 rous individual. Those of the affected district have a 

 privilege which they will exercise. They urge that 

 usual business customs shall prevail in these vast proj- 

 ects. 



As Senator Carter said, "Whoever heard of a vast 

 industrial enterprise, a trans-continental railroad, for 

 instance, financed by its engineers?" Let an associa- 

 tion be created with purposes advisory alike to corporate 

 and Federal authorities, and it might eliminate much 

 of the personality, censure and aspersion which 

 has heretofore invaded correspondence and conversation. 

 One must learn by criticism and it is hoped that sug- 

 gestions may be received in friendly spirit and not have 

 any neutralizing effect. Our readers are requested to 

 send in suggestions for the forming of an association 

 of those directly interested, with the end in view of 

 holding meetings where the people may voice their 

 grievances and register complaints against those in 

 authority who pay no heed to the cry of the oppressed. 



An Answer. 



When a citizen of any community has so 

 lived that his fellow men shun him there 

 are only two paths open for him : one, 

 to look for new fields where he may start 

 anew, or secondly, an effort to live down a reputation 

 unsavory, or bad, by good conduct and clearly under- 

 stood effort to correct wrongs perpetrated. The ex- 

 tent of man's evil doing is broadened or limited by the 

 size of the community in which he is located. A man 

 may, for instance, carry on badly for a long time in 

 a large city before being found out, while his time 

 would be short in a small town. When an individual 

 has a country as broad as the United States in which 

 to operate he is practically unlimited as to time or 

 opportunity, there being much less chance of his be- 

 ing exposed simultaneously over a large area. 



Thus it is that an organization of the character 

 of the National Irrigation Association is hard to down, 

 there being, perforce, so much virgin territory to work 

 even if its weaknesses are made known in widely sepa- 

 rated localities. These thoughts are prompted by a 

 letter of inquiry received by the editor recently from 

 a reputable and well known citizen of Chicago in which 

 he says, "Will you be so kind as to tell us from what 

 source such matter as the enclosed emanates?" The 



