THE KECLAMATIOX OF THE WEST. 



829 



Attacks upon llic l:iw have been made under the niisconcei^tion that 

 the eastern farmer is taxed to make western farms valuable, and that 

 the Government will be victimized by the lands passing into the hands 

 of great corporations. These attacks would not be made if the men 

 who utter them would read the law. It is carefully guarded in eyery 

 respect, putting the lands into the hands of small owners and refund- 

 ing to the treasury the cost of reclaiming the land. 



This matter of irrigation and of western reclamation is by no means 

 new. It has been discussed most thoroughly and persistently ))y one 

 of our prominent members now gone before, John Wesley Powell. 

 "The ]\rajor,'' as we all called him, in his early years made extensive 

 expk)rations in the West, studying its topograph}', geograph}', geol- 

 ogv. and ethnok:)o-v. In the course of those researches he became 



Fig. 3. — Map showing arid regions of the world — the humid regions shown in black. 



greatl}' impressed with the great opportunitiesfor development of this 

 western arid land. He talked this matter in season and out of season, 

 and man}' of his friends have said, "Now, Major, if you will only 

 stop this irrigation talk we will do anything you want, but we can 

 not have that.'' "\\'e are glad that he lived to see this law passed, and 

 though it was not exactly on the lines he sketched in his original 

 thesis, yet it follows his ideals. His report, written in 1876, is still 

 one of the classics to which all refer. " 



BROAD I'KOA'ISIONS OF KECLA^IATIOX LAAV. 



The reclamation law is short and (juickiy read; its terms are general 

 and it commits to executive discretion nearly all of the details which 



"Lands (if tlu' Arid liegions, et( 



