The Florence tribune., 1899-06-17
RECLAIM ARID LANDS.
1t is the Plain Duty of the eovarnmc


 Maxwell before the Trans Mississippi Congress, Juno 1st 1sa9.l
 Look at the map of the United Statesl The western half of it an arid region, with fringe of humid country on the shores of the Pacific, and here and there an oasis where irrigation has reclaimed the desert. And yet this vast territory would, if reclaimed. sup port dense and prosperous population i greater in numbers than the endre population of the whole United States to-day. The enormous opportunities for increased home markets for our manufactures and opportunities for home seekers which its reelamai oa would create make it worth She whils of every manufacturer who wants markets, every wage-earner who wants work, every merchant who wants trade, every transportation com pany that wants traffic, and every man in America who wants home on the land, to grapple with this great problem, and make the conquest ot arid America the greatest victory of peace which this generation will ac- complish.
 "Let us then see if there is way in which this great result can be accom- plished and the army of workers en- listed which will subjugate the deserts by digging canals instead of trenches and building great storage reservoirs instead of Notifications.
 "Can it be done by private enter prise; by individual effort; by com panies or corpopations, or in any manner by the investment of private capital for a profit as a business invest ment?
 Absolutely, emphatically and posi- lively no. That is impossible. It is as impossible as it was for the great canals of India or the immense dam to be built across the Nile, or the great levee system of the Mississippi, or the Eads jetties to be built by private en- terprise The works required are too vast and the beneficial results too widely scattered to make their con struction possible by private capital or under any plan which would load the cost of the construction upon the land reclaimed-load it upon the back of the Man with the Hoe who must till the soil and .to whose prosperity aa classes of the community mast look for prosperity
 Experieaee has proved that theeost of these gsea. irrigation works. if ad- ded to the price of the land reclaimed, brings it beyond the reach of the in dnstrious wage-earner or the worker who wants home and who is willing to go out into the west and couqner it from nature with his own strong arm. He has not the accumulated capital to pay high price for his home, but he is willing to work for it and to oereate it ) with his labor. In other words, if we aAN Vt s " a Ql nCN oCbttNlS on the now arid lands of the west we must bring those lands within reac Il of the multitude. We must so plan a policy for the reclamation that the same sturdy class of settlers who came out and broke the prairies of Illinois and Iowa and made those states great and prosperous can now work out still farther west and find opportunities where men with labor but without capital can become home-builders and state builders.
 Now, can this be done, and done under a policy which is thoroughly sound and statementlike? Undoubted- ly it canl Undoubtedly and beyond :. all question it can, if the whole Ameri- car people will wake up to the grandeur and vast possibilities to the nation.of the problem. But those who would be most immediately benefited -the wage ge-earner who wants work - and home market-must rouse them D selves and make it their cause and make the annexation of arid America the shibboleth and ranying cry which will stir the whole American people t0 8 realization of the Doandless wealth that lies latent in the deserts of Amer lea. It needs only the magic touch ot water to shower riches upon the whole people, for all must share in the benefits which would come from mov- ing the western line of our dense popu. lation, which now stops in the center of Kansas and Nebraska, clear across until it joins with the fertile coast val leys of the Pacific. Kansas, as she is ir the center territorially, should be the [ center of population of the United States, and the trade of such great y western cities as St. Louis, Chicago , St. Paul and Minneapolis, Omaha Kansas City and Wichita (whJ Wichita is right in the center of ths ii whole thing D would be quadrupled by N putting as deuse a population extend ing clear across the country to tht shores of the Pacific, as now extends tt