The Florence tribune., 1901-08-03
VOL. K.
THE WEALTH TO COME.
The Demand for the Products Of Irrigation
 Win be Greater than the Supply.

ne Demand for the Products Of Irrigation
 Win be Greater than the Supply.
 ''Look Beyond the Present and into tue Future." was the keynote of an address by c. E. Wantland, chairman of the Executive Committee of the Ma tional Irrigation Congress, delivered at the Trans. Mississippi Congress re- gently assembled at Cripple Creek.
 ''In the new West" said Mir. Want land, "the main lines of railway are already provided. The pioneer lines were not constructed because the pro- dncts of the country they crossed justi- fled the expenditure. There were prophets in the days when the first trans-continental road was built. This was done when the great possibilities of the West were only talked of by dreamers; now, All wise men agree that beyond the Mississippi lies the great wealth of the days to come, and the prophets of to-day tell us that the great trade to be developed in the lands beyond the Pacific will call for all the grain which can be raised in the irrigated valleys of the Pacific Coast States.
 ''In report to the 56th Congress on the Free Homes Bill, the Committee on Public Lands said:
 "'No legislative enactment ever placed upon the statute books of the Nation has been more lauded than the free homestead law of the United States. Under it's beue6cent provi- sions the hardy sons of New England, the thrifty young men of the Middle and Western States, and the sturdy immigrants of the Old World poured into tue fertile, unoceupied regions of the West, and by the labor of their hands they transformed the forests into fruitful farms and changed the al- most Imitless plains of prairie grass into billowy fields of waving grain. Cities and towns spang up in this terri tory as if by magic; churches and schoolhouses are found at every cross road, and no more valuable and loyal citizens can be found in all the com monwealth than the original home steaders and their descendants. It was a poor mans law; poor men availed themselves of it's advantages, but the fabulous wealth they have created for themselves and the nation is beyond computation.'
 "The arguments iu favor of paying a few millions of dollars to Indians in order that additional lands in reserva- tions could be thrown open to home stead entry free apply with double force in favor of appropriations by Congress to assist in the reclamation of arid lands farther away from the great centers of population in order that home builders may be given an opportunity to make a living in the Mountain and Pacific Coast States where irrigation is necessary.
 If 1t is good policy to buy of In dians and open the 12.0O0 homestead tracts in Oklahoma, for which 100 ,00( are just now struggling, the business men of the West may consistently urgt that it is right to put water upon 40, 100000 acres of arid lands, upon whicl million families can raise grain anC fruit on forty-acre farms. But unles the merchants and manufacturers anG heavy taxpayers of the West realiz that it is their burden, aud get behin' the efforts of the National Irrigation and other associations working for i'm proved conditions, many of us will b. long time dead probably before tn western mem oers of Congress will ge together and secure the necessar strength to push through Congress tn needed legislation.
 Grade follows the flag, but it als follows the irrigation reservoir and tn ditch, if they carry water at the rigt time.
 If organization can be substitute for talk, surveys for theories, reserve
 building for resolutions, and the hom less from other States be brought ini our valleys and given chance to bui
 up homes under favorable condition then we may justly claim it to be trl
 that the West is the most America
 part of America" ,"