THE DRY FARMING CONGRESS. 



203 



children grew up with the Mormon children, and who were citizens of 

 worth in the community where they resided. 



Railroad Development. 



"In speaking to you of the development of the west I glory in the 

 evidence of that determination and that will that has inspired our rail- 

 road people in the development of the sections through which their roads 

 have gone, and I believe the grand men who laid the foundations for this 

 work are entitled to the esteem, respect and regard of their countrymen. 

 It is an easy thing for the child legislators of today to propose more 

 methods for the control and management of these great corporations, but 

 they are but children in the considerations of these problems in com- 

 parison with these men who have developed these great works and who 

 have been heroes among men, and their accomplishment entitles them to 

 the respect, esteem and regard of their country, and not their reproach 

 and hate. 



"The day of the Trans-Mississippi Commercial Congress came, when 

 the feeling and sentiment in the hearts of western men was that we were 

 not receiving proper consideration in the Congress of the United States; 

 that our brothers of the east were devoting the means to the improve- 

 ment of the harbors and rivers of the east, and that the western sec- 

 tion of the country could not receive appropriations and help along 

 proper lines, in the judgment of some of us. This led to the organization 

 of the Trans-Mississippi Commercial Congress which brought together 

 representatives from these various states and territories and united their 

 minds in the accomplishment of their purpose. The formation of the 

 Trans-Mississippi Commercial Congress was speedily followed by the 

 organization of the International Irrigation Congress, and it aided in the 

 accomplishment of this work, and step by step, the hearts of these men 

 were brought into unison with each other and lead to the establishment 

 of rules and regulations, and passing of resolutions, the organization 

 of committees, and the leading men of the west commenced to sense the 

 possibilities of their power and work for the uplifting and betterment 

 of the land in which they had planted their homes. The results we are 

 beginning to note in the irrigation successes and in the improvements 

 that have occurred in various sections of our country looking for the 

 well being and useful application of means for the good of the citizenship 

 of this part of the world. The awakening of this dry land scheme look- 

 ing to the improvement of those great sections of our country was an- 

 other step in the direction of that improvement and in the uplift of the 

 race, in the betterment of men, in placing homes within the reach of 

 their fellows, that has brought results and the results increase in worth 

 as the days go by, until in every section of this arid part of the world 

 will be found men and women so fully given over to the betterment of 

 their country that they will be indeed a blessing to our race in the fullest 

 sense of the word. 



"Now, my friends, I am not myself an arid farmer, but I love this 

 western land. I love the great plains. I saw the buffalo on the plains and 



