The Courier. (Genoa, Nev.) 1899-1904, 1901-12-06
FAvoRS RECLAMATION.
Strong Words of President Roosevelt

The western nall OF Inc united states
would sustain a population greater
than that of our whole country to-day
if the waters that now run to waste
were saved and used for irrigation.
The forest and water problems are per-
haps the most vital internal questions
of the United States.
The forests are natural reservoirs.
BY restraining the streams in food and
replenishing them in drought they
make possible the use of waters other
wise wasted. They prevent the soil
from washing, and SO protect the stor-
age reservoirs from filing mp with silt.
Forest conservation is therefore an
essential condition of water conserva-
ton.
The forests alone cannot, however,
fully regulate and conserve the waters
of the arid region. Great storage
works are necessary to equalize the
dow of streams and to save the flood
waters. Their construction has been
conelusively shown to be an undertake
ing too vast for private effort. Nor
can it be best accomplished by the in
dividual States acting alone. Far
reaching interstate problems are in
volved, and the resources of single
/ States would often be inadequate. 1t
is as right for the National Government
to make the streams and rivers of the
arid region useful by engineering
works for water storage as to make
useful the rivers and harbors of the
humid region by engineering works of
another kind.
The storing of the floods in reser-
voirs at the headwaters of our rivers
is but an enlargement of our present
policy of river control, under which
levees are built on the lower reaches
of the same streams.
The government should construct
and maintain these reservoirs as it
does other public works. Where their
purpose is to regulate the flow of
streams, the water should be turned
freely into the channels in the dry sea-
son to take the same course under the
same laws as the natural flow
The reclamation of the unsettled
arid public lands presents different
problem. Here it is not enough to
regulate the flow of streams The
object of the government is to dispose
of the land to settlers who will build
homes upon it. To accomplish this
object water must be brought within
their reach.
The pioneer settlers on the arid pub
lie domain chose their homes along
streams from which they could them
selves divert the water TO reclaim their
holdings. Such opportunities are prac-
tically gone. There remain, however,
vast areas of public land which can be
made available for homestead settle
mont, but only by reservoirs and main
line canals impracticable for private
enterprise.
These irrigation works should be
built by the National Government.
The lands reclaimed by them should
be reserved by the government for ac-
tual settlers, and the cost of construc-
ton should so far as possible be repaid
by the land reclaimed. The dislribu-
ton of the water, the division of the
streams among irrigators, should be
left to the settlers themselves in con-
formity with State laws and without
interference with those laws or with
vested rights. The policy of the Ma
tional Government should be to aid IT,
rigation in the several States and Ter
ritories in such manner as will enable
help themselves, and as will stimulate
needed reforms in the State laws and
regulations governing irrigation.
The reclamation and settlement of
the arid lands will enrich every por-
ton of our country, just as the settle
ment of the Ohio and Missippi valleys
brought prosperity to the Atlantic
States. The increased demand for
manufactured articles will stimulate
industrial production, while wider
home markets and the trade of Asia
will consume the larger food supplies
and effectually prevent western com
petition with eastern agriculture. In
deed, the products of irrigation win be
consumed chiefly in upbnilding local
centers of mining and other Industries,
which would otherwise not come into
existence at all. Our people as a
whole will profit, for successful home
making is but another name for the up
building of the nation
The necessary foundation has already
been laid for the Inauguration of the
policy just described. 1t would be I'M
wise to begin by doing too much, for a
great deal will doubtless be learned,
both as to what can and what cannot