108 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF THE NA- 

 TIONAL IRRIGATION CONGRESS, HELD 

 AT BOISE, IDAHO. 



Fourteenth Session. 



COL. H. B. MAXSON, SECRETARY, RENO, NEVADA. 



Mr. President and Members of the Convention : 



This session closing my eighth term as secretary 

 of this congress, I desire to leave a brief history of the 

 work that has been accomplished in the past by mem- 

 bers of this congress, aiding by their counsel and assist- 



Col. H. B. Maxson, Vice-President National Irrigation Congress, 

 Reno, Nevada. 



ing by their advice the great Government Departments 

 in bringing about the National Reclamation Law. 



The first move made by Congress in this matter 

 was on February 14, 1889, in the United States Sen- 

 ate, when the following resolution was adopted: 



Resolved, That a select committee of seven Sen- 

 ators be appointed by the president of the Senate, to be 

 known as the Select Committee on Irrigation and Re- 

 clamation of Arid Lands, and whose duty it shall be to 

 consider the subject o'f irrigation and the best mode of 

 reclaiming the arid lands of the United States, and 

 that said committee shall have leave to sit during the 



recess of the Senate, and shall report to the Senate at 

 the meeting of Congress in December next what legisla- 

 tion is necessary for such irrigation and reclamation. 



Under the foregoing resolution, the president of 

 the Senate appointed United States Senators Stewart, 

 Allison, Plum, Hiscock, Gorman, Reagan and Jones, of 

 Arkansas. After the adjournment of Congress at that 

 session this committee met at St. Paul, Minn., on 

 August 1, 1889, from which place they journeyed west 

 and south and east again, carrying their investigations 

 into every arid land State, and at the following session 

 of Congress made a full and complete report of their 

 findings in the arid West, and said report was pub- 

 lished in five volumes by the Government Printing 

 Office in 1890. This report, however, deals mostly with 

 the amount of arid lands which might be reclaimed in 

 the West, but leaving the mattering of storing the floods, 

 saving the forests and impounding the waters, to the 

 Scientific Departments of the Government, and they, 

 following upon the reports of the arid West, made by 

 the Senate Committee, immediately began investigations 

 of the waterfall in the arid regions, the storing of 

 waters, and the construction of reservoirs and canals 

 with which to reclaim 'this arid empire, and the depart- 

 ments having this matter in charge have made the most 

 thorough investigations possible, and made their re- 

 ports to the Government each year, which are there 

 available for the information of any one who may desire. 



The first session of the National Irrigation Con- 

 gress was held at Salt Lake City in September, 1891, 

 which was the year following the report of the United 

 States Senate Committee on Irrigation and Reclamation 

 of Arid Land, and was attended by representative men 

 of the far West, who gathered in the city of Saints, 

 where the greatest object lessons of the West have been 

 made by an industrious people, demonstrating what a 

 wonderful empire could be made with national enter- 

 prise. Many of those who attended that session were 

 not heard of for years afterward, until the few who had 

 the cause at heart for truthful and loyal purposes and 

 for love of country, had advocated the cause and edu- 

 cated the public mind, until national irrigation was 

 becoming popular and probable. 



For the first five sessions very little was done, and 

 very little progress was made beyond the exchange of 

 ideas, and advising ways and means to accomplish the 

 purpose. 



At the sixth annual session, held at Lincoln, Neb., 

 a committee on national legislation was appointed con- 

 sisting 1 of Maxson of Nevada, Mills of Idaho, and Net- 

 tleton of Colorado, all of whom appeared before the 

 Committee on Arid Lands, at the national congress at 

 Washington, D. C., and their report was printed in full 

 at the seventh session of the National Irrigation Con- 

 gress, held at Cheyenne in 1898. 



The session of 1899 did not bear fruit, and the 

 members left that session somewhat discouraged, but 

 the same year, however, brought forth greater and more 

 important developments, in the irrigation discussions, 

 at the Trans-Mississippi Congress, held at Wichita, 

 Kas., where the final and greatest fight since the begin- 

 ning of the irrigation movement was made, between 

 those who believed in State reclamation of the arid 

 public lands, and those who believed in national irriga- 

 tion, wherein the Government should reclaim the arid 

 lands of all States. The fight resulted in the endorse- 

 ment of the national irrigation policies, and then and 



