764 
The Federal Employee 
THE POWELL MONUMENT, OVERLOOKING THE GRAND CANYON ae 
after part of his exploring party had re- 
fused to go farther, protesting that to do 
so was sheer madness.) The river, flow- 
ing far below, today ‘bears silent testi- 
mony to the truth of Powell’s gospel of 
reclamation, for through the agency of 
‘plans he conceived and even roughly out- 
lined, its mighty floods, following the 
melting of the winter snows a thousand 
miles away, are retained in vast reser- 
voirs, and later distributed over literal 
clesert, causing it to yield great crops and 
thus “scatter plenty o’er a smiling land.” 
Not merely this, but (again carrying out 
Powell’s idea) doing it, not as the 
Egyptians of old, but democratically, 
with a view to the greatest good to the 
greatest number; for wherever there is a 
government reclamation project, indi- 
vidual homes are the first consideration, 
and eventually the homesteaders control 
the project. 
THE RECLAMATION IDEA 
Beginning with his “Report on the 
Lands of the Arid Region of the United 
States,’ issued in 1878-1879, Powell la- 
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Advi tet N oR 
bored for more than twenty years to con- 
vert Congress and the American people 
to his ideas of a national reclamation 
plan for the arid West. It is comforting 
to reflect that, although there were many 
disheartening delays and disappointments, 
Powell lived to witness the passage of 
the national Reclamation Act, although — 
the hand of death was then upon him. 
Under this act, largely administered by 
younger men whom he had inspired with 
his ideas and example, notably Frederick 
H. Newell and Arthur P. Davis, Powell’s 
conceptions have become concrete feali- 
ties, and great reclamation projects are 
now scattered throughout the arid West, — 
like oases in desert places. 
It was fitting as well as proper that the 
principal address on the occasion of the 
dedication should be delivered by Hon. 
Franklin K. Lane, to whom George 
Wharton James refers, in his work, 
“Reclaiming The Arid West,” as “the 
sympathetic Secretary of, the Interior 
whose breadth of mind has visioned the 
possibilities of this great movement.” 
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