Arizona daily citizen., 1901-05-22
THE GREAT QUESTION OF IRRIGATION.

Harry West of the Washington Post, one of the
most observant and intelligent of modern journalists
was one of the Presidential party that recently
ed Arizona. The necessity of irrigation imme-
dately caught the quick mind of Mr.. West Writing
to his paper he says:
Some of these days the national legislature will
awake to the fact that few millions spent in build
ing dams in the mountain canyons for the storage OF
water will do more good than the same amount of
money spent for shallow creeks and worthless har-
bors in the east 1t would be national blessing if
the entire Congress could be brought out here and
shown how much irrigation means for this country.
Literally, the desert has been made to blossom like
the rose The virgin soil is full of fertility soon
as water touches it, and the constant does the
rest 1t is irrigation that made Phoenix oasis~fn
the desert. Thus far, the number of reclaimed
are comparatively few. The time will come when,
in the enactment of wise and necessary legislation
this whole desert will be green and fruitful. There
is water enough in the mountains during the rainy
season, to irrgate thousands and thousands of
square miles, if it is only stored and carefully fed to
the thirsty land. And when this time comes, as it
assuredly wi Arizona will not be desert state
It will be country of hourishing farms, occupied
by healthy, happy, prosperous people ,s r#
Mr.. West is right The tax payers have been rob-
bed for years in the interest of river and habor jobs
Senator Carter, of Montana during the closing hours
of the last Congress taught Western Senators and
Representatives a valuable lesson. He showed them
how to defeat river and harbor bills unless provision
is made to aid irrigation in the West Hereafter it
should be the duty of Western men in both branches
OF Congress to insist that appropriation for water
storage in the West should be contained in every
river and harbor measure, E
People in the eastern part of the United States,
who look to the clouds to drop fatness upon their
fields, find difficulty in appreciating the Importance
Of the irrigation question in the West On the great
arid plains of Arizona New Mexico Texas, Colorado
and California, the soil contains every element of
fertility As soon as water touches it Vegetation
springs up as if by magic.
There is more important question confronting
the people of the West than that of irrigation The
contentious about water rights beginning to form
the chief business of the courts of law Streams
diverted by irrigating bitches from their natural
channels and citizens living along their courses
deprived of the water which should flow down
through their property and damage suits result.
The of the water of the upper Arkansas river by
irrigation companies chartered by the State of Colo
ralo has largely diminished the flow of the stream
through Southern Kansas, where it is known as the
nile Of Kansas and litigation between the States
was begun some time ago.
Intelligent people not only in Arizona, but
throughout the arid region contend that the $780,
100000 which the Philippine Islands have cost us SO
far would if it had been spent udciously in irriga-
tion, have given far valuable territory and
fn better field for enterprise and industry than
that afforded by these tropical islands in the anti
podes.
Congress- caLnot evade the irrigation question
much longer Senators and Representatives from
the Western States viii be sent to Congress ere
many years on that issue