The evening tribune. (Pawtucket, R.I.) 189?-190?, 1897-08-11
TO SAVE ARID LANDS.
NATIONAL IRRIGATION CONGRESS
WILL MEET IN LINCOLN, NEB.

Dsvsntees States and Territories Will Send
Delegates - Action VIII Probably He
Taken 70 secure Federal Ala For Re-
, claiming Waste Lands.
The national irrigation congress will
hold Its sixth annual session at Lincoln,
Neb., on the 28th, goth and 30th Of Sep
tember Seventeen states and territories
will send delegates, among the latter
being the recognized western experts In
irrigation and many well known advo-
Gates of the use Of Federal money TO re-
claim the vast arid and semiarid lands
which, but for the lack of water, would
now be supporting millions Of indus
trious and thrifty people. Every effort
Is promised to make this session as sat
isfactory in results as the previous ones
have been in laying plans.
1t cannot be said that the irrigation
lists in trying to secure aid from con-
gress have entered upon holiday task.
for the opposition among eastern farm
ers to any scheme for putting more ag-
ricultural land into competition with
what is already growing crops is not
only earnest. but bitter. We have in
hand q circular signed by +. s. Peer of
Livingston county, N. Y, which was
issued after the adjournment of the fifth
annual session of the national irriga-
tion congress, in which the proposal to
reclaim arid lands is denounced as "a
scheme of land spectators and land
Rrabbers, whose business has gradually
diminished az the land has been taken
up, and who are now signing for new
fields to conquer. Mr.. Peer argues that
the governments old habit Of giving
away farms to the immigrant peasantry
of Europe who, men, women and chill
'dren Of q family together, work l8 hours
q day, dress In rags and 60 to no ex-
pense for reading matter, schooling or
decent clothes, has 30 handicapped the
eastern farmer with his 800 land and
greater cost Of living that he can barely
make both ends meet. Hence he be-
lieves that to increase that area Of
competition is to either compel the east
erner to come down to the foreign level
or to submit to failure and beggary.
That Mr.. PEERS views are common on
the other side Of the Mississippi argues
that any attempt to get western irriga-
tion taken care Of by congress will meet
with serious and protracted opposition
there.
But 10 states exclusive Of terrific
ries) acting as q unit In congress
means the work of 80 senators and
enough congressman to weld power
ful influence. II the irrigation congress
can agree upon plan Of action and get
the western senators and representatives
to'adopt it, the fact of general eastern
hostility need not be deemed insur-
mountable. When the east or q part of
1t wants favors, then will be the time
to make bargains. For example, the
east demands river and harbor i'm
provement on great scale, much Of il
for merely local convenience. But If the
west should oppose some Of the meas
ures that come up and aid others that
seem worthy. the solidity Of the eastern
pLalanx would be broken and votes
gained for our own projects. It is not
merely the power Of strategy, but the
power of justice, which would work in
favor Of the west, for in the beginning
the eastern land itself was given away
by the government, turnpike roads were
built through it at national expense.
the channels Of rivers cleared for traffic,
and forts maintained to protect the farm
ers from the Indians. In a word, the
pioneer American Of the east. also a
foreigner in many cases. had the gov.
ernment at his back and got all the hell
from it that he needed to obtain land
and to cultivate it. He even got hiA
seeds by the bounty Of congress-. Is il
too much, therefore, for the pioneer Of
the west, in his search for home, to
ask the government to merely dam up
a few mountain canyons. so that he can
get water in the dry season?-San