The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-08-03
BOOMING THE CONGRESS
Bright Prospects for National IT.
rigation Conference.
GREAT INTEREST TAKEN
1t Is Believed the Missoula Meeting VIII
Be the Largest Ever Held-The
Government Will Be
Represented.

Missoula, Aug. 1.-THE prospects for
the attendance at the meeting of the
irrigation congress are excellent. The
local committee has received many
encoura ging letters this week from in
terested parties all over the country,
and it is believed that the meeting in
Mssoula will be the largest that the
congress has ever held. In this con-
nection, the following interview with
Chairman l. D. O'Donnell of Billings,
who is at the head of the national eX-
ecutive committee, will be of interest.
Mr.. O'Donnell was asked by Billings
Gazette reporter concerning the meet
ing and he gave the following encour-
aging statement
L took advantage of my trip West
to do some quiet booming of the Ma
tional Irrigation congress, which meets
at Missoula on Sept. %, and found con-
siderable interest in the congress among
the people l met. Engineer Fortiner
of the arid land commission is taking
great interest in the meeting and will
attend
What are the prospects for the Mis-
soula meeting?
Very favorable, both in regard to
the number of delegates and to the
prominence and influence of the gentle
men who have promised to attend. AS
chairman of the executive committee
the duty has developed upon me of
writing a great many personal letters
to men of prominence in both national
and state affairs, urging their attend
ance and cooperation, and from the re-
plies received l should think the Mis-
soula meeting will be a good one.
Here is another lot of letters which l
am just sending off. about so, and
they are to agricultural college pro-
fessors, engineers and scientists, and
the addresses run from New Mexico to
as far north as the Canadian North
west
DO the people of the East evinCe
much interest in the subject?'
" Not so much as we hope to see
when they become better informed with
regard to the needs and desires of Arid
America but it would surprise you TO
see some of the letters | have received.
even from Wall street men. who are
popularity supposed to use water only in
connection with stocks. Men connect
ed with the administration are taking
a lively interest in the matter. and seN-
eral of the departments will send sew
eral representatives to MisSOula. lrri-
cation is becoming to be recognized as
an Issue, lIt SAINT DIS SILVER Vi tai
and cabinet officers and representatives
are waking up to the necessity of study
ing the situation. When once the West
unites in it's demands We will come
pretty near obtaining the concessions
we ask for. and the irrigation congress
made up as it is largely of representa-
tive Western men, is just the body tC
define our wants and bring then
prominently before congress and the
administration
What are the principal demands
formulated by the irrigation congress
so faro
The creation of division of irriga
ton in the department of agriculture
the extension of the work of irrigation
investigation already made by the agri-
cultural experiment stations: fedora
storage reservoirs; the leasing of the
public grazing lands, subject to right
of reclamation by irrigation and of set
Element on lands actually cultivated
in other words. subject to the United
States land laws, and the public con
troll of the water supply, or as express
ed at the Lincoln meeting: We be
! lieve that the water of all streams
should forever remain public property
and that the right to its use SHOULD
inhere, not in the individual or tn,
ditch, but in the land reclaimed