Lewiston evening teller. [volume] (Lewiston, Idaho) 1903-1911, 1903-12-17

! profits to the absentee investor. r.
rigation is for the irrigator not for the
boomer, the promoter and the specula-
| tor.
William Mckinley looked upon the
arid region with a vision which was
denied his predecessors. He was able
to see that irrigation possesses certain
advantages over dependence on rain
falls, and that the day would come
when it would present a practical issue
of stupendous moment. He said as
, much in his speeches, and went further
in private conversation, But he also
added that 1t was question for the
future which would be dealt with after
he had passed from the state of action.
Few men have had as rare a, faculty as
Mckinley for understanding the real
condition of public opinion and keeping
abreast of 1t, rather than so far in adj
vance that their utterances could have
only academic value. And yet this time
even Mckinley was deceived-he did
not know the strength of the national
irrigation sentiment, nor did he appre-
ciate how nearly ripe was the new
issues.
Following Mckinley by only two
years, Theodore Roosevelt beheld a
wave of public sentiment In behalf of
national irrigation. True, he had done
much to create this wave, both before
and after his accession to the presi-
dency. But no one man, even if he be
first in all the land makes American
public opinion.
In the two short years intervening
between the visits of Mckinley and
Roosevelt. the irrigating idea took root
and spread, as perhaps no other social
and economic proposition ever did in
this country in the same space of time.
The president and his travelling COM
panions looked out and beheld the des-
ert, as the earlier presidents and their
friends had done. But they saw not
the desert alone-they had the imag-
ination and the gift of prophecy to see
the streams harnessed and flowing, like
bands of silver, across the SOIL to see
the brown waste give place to field.
orchard and garden; to see cactus,
sagebrush and greasewood fall back to
make room for red-roofed, vine-covered
cottages, And in their ears was the
murmur of moving waters and the
laughter of happy children.
What President Roosevelt and his
beheld in imagination, the |
next president who tours the arid re-
gion will know by the evidence of his |
senses. For the American people have |
the thing shall be done.
In other words, we have discovered |
arid America. and have decided to have |
1t annexed to the United States. in the
full economic sense of the term. The
thing that Harrison looked at. yet saw
not that Mckinley beheld dirnly and
thought afar off, that thing Roosevelt |
sees face to face and already growing
under his hand. And it has all come
about with such marvellous rapidity
that even those who have prayed and
abored for it sometimes rub their eyes
and ask each other if it be really true.
But If we are to see the full frui-
ion of our hopes, nothing is more GER
ain than that the land to be irrigated
~ the government must be saved for
he actual settler and home maker only.
DUR old land laws now, in force make
I too easy for the ubiquitous specula-
or to step in just ahead of the genuine
or for the cattle baron to
his grazing area, thus peopling
he west with cattle instead of people.
What the west wants for herself and
What the country wants for the west Is
he settlement by homemakers. AS
President Roosevelt said in his first
California speech, at Redlands: The
nan we want to favor is the man who
omes to live, and whose interest 1t is
hat his children and his children's
children shall enjoy to an even greater
legree than he has himself"
MnMRnE