The Florence tribune., 1901-02-16


 Mir. Thurston. Government land at that, worth not cent per acre, raising nothing but cactus, sand, stones, trouble, and hades. Are we to blame because we ask Congress to look at the whole problem, to grasp the whole situation?
 Now, let me tell you why we did so. told the gentlemen who have been pushing this reservoir plan-I told the committee frankly that I was largely influenced in reaching favorable con. ciusion by the fact that thought here was the best opportunity that would ever be afforded for trying an irriga- tion experiment. on large scale in a satisfactory manner, without cost to the people of the United States. and will tell you why. Nature has not only been favor able to a cam site and reservoir site but she has been favorable by putting vast area of land in just the posi- l tion where it can be irrigated through ditches from this dam and this reservoir-lard utterly unproduc- tive, land that can not be used for any thing else, but land holding within its elements the riches that nature has deposited there, waiting only for the 1 arrival of the water that man can turn npon it through an irrigation plant , land now worth nothing. but with water upon it worth from forty to fifty, yea an hundred dollars per acre. I am not exaggerating about thai. It is land that means gardens, not farms land thet will produce grain, vegeta- bles, fruits, the vine--everything that eau be grown on the soil in a favorable locality and under proper climatic conditions. It means homes for thirty or forty thousand people where now there is only desert. Is it nos worth while to try this experiment?
 Hut the Senator says, let us wait until the Irrigation Committee of the Senate has proposed gene ral scheme of irrigation throughout the country. MT. President, we are not ready for any general irrigation scheme. Con. gress, in my judgment, wouli be un- wise, would be almost criminal in the expenditure of money, if it entered al the present time upon any great irri. gation plan. Whyf We have not had enough practical experience. You may theorize and theorize until the rivers run dry, and Congress will not be any better informed than it is now as tc what we can do in a practical way for the irrigation of the arid wastes. We need the experiment; and $2,000,. 0o0 to demonstrate on the Gila River whether irrigation can be made finan- cially successful, whether we car make our desert bloom, whether we can find homes for happy millions will be money we'll expended. The Senators who ask us of the West te stand with them and vote millions as 8 donation to the shipbuilders of thu
 United States ought to be willing ts stand by us in the West, to give us [
 million or two now and then for the development and the experiment. o1
 this great problem of national irriga
 tion.
 The Senator from Connecticut, Mir
 President, has just told us about wha
 has been done with our pubic domain
 that when we bought it from the In
 dians, through our various treaties
 we did it on the pretense that we wer, to sell it for better prices to the peopl,
 of the United States.
 An, MT. President, we might hay been justified in expending many mil } lions more in purchasing the land
 from our Indians if we had no othe : purpose than to open them as ire l homes to the workers of the Unite States that they might occupy then , till them, cultivate them, an make happy homes. The Senate from Connecticut would urge that subsidy to ship flying the America r flag is 8 benefit to all the people of tn , United States and so it is, because l stimulates trade, builds up our con merce. Our national, industrial, agr cultural, and financial system is ( !, such character that the life blood , it's arteries pulsates through evel f part, the blood of national prosperii | flows from every part to every par u and whatever upholds one hand of u f nation maintains the other.
 t l can turn and say to the Senat, T from Connecticut that every hon s built in Western valley, that evea IS acre of land upon our plains reclaim,
 from the desert, that every blade d grass made to grow where none h Is grown before, that every fruit tr r. whose spreading shade means shelt, F. and comfort for the children of u Is West is direct benefit 10 every bus d ness and every home and evey citizs