The pioneer express. [volume] (Pembina, Dakota [N.D.]) 1883-1928, 1904-11-04
NORTH DAKOTA LEADS The LIST NEED EDUCATION ON IRRIGATION
View Of Mr. Mitchell the Congress Mandan-Ihc lcop!c
Of the State Need Awakcnina

The second session of tn eNorth Da-2
ikota Irrigation Congress at Mandan
last month made strenuous effort to
awaken an irrigation spirit in the
state, and to overcome the objection
which good many residents have to
any agitation Of the irrigating question
based on the foolish prediction that
the state has no arid lands. and that
any advertisement of Dakota irriga-
tion presupposes that dry farming is
a precarious occupation, and that cmi-
grafton to the state will therefore be
discouraged.
There is very little use in attempt
ing to disguise the fact that the west
ern portion of North Dakota is to all
intents and purposes arid and that
farming there can be profitably and
surely conducted only by the aid of
irrigation. Any large farm emigration
to that section on any other basis must
sooner or later act as destructive
boomerang.
Speeches were made by Senator
iClapp and Representative Stevens OF
Minnesota, who came down with car.
load of Minnesota delegates in which
these statesmen renewed their pledges
to support the national irrigation
movement, and by Mr.. George H. irri-
movement, and by Mr. George H. Max
well, the executive chairman of the
National Irrigation Association, urged
that the people of the state should
take the initiative and proceed to de-
velop irrigation enterprises themselves
as far as possible, thereby learning, as
only experience canteach, the great
worth of irrigated lands.
Senators Hansbrough and McCum-
Der Of the state also spoke at length.
The former suggested the old plan of
the utilization of the waters of the
Missouri by the building of a stupend.
GUS dam, comparable to the great Nile
dam which cost $20,O0O,00O. He said
this was feasible propositions, and
that congress was undoubtedly in a
mood to entertain such an appropria-
ton and that he intended to introduce
bill next winter to provide for sur
vey and investigation of the scheme.
The government engineers state that
/ the surveys of the army engineers, the
Missouri commission, and others, show
such proposition to be not feasible.
but the Senator believes that further
surveys should be made.
Senator McCumber attacked the Re-
clamation service as an organization
which was not disposed to try to find
;; a feasible project in North Dakota.
and insisted that large contribution
, to the irrigation fund, growing from
the sales of public lands in North Da.
kota should be spent solely within the
state, and that the newspaper state
ments attributed to the chief engineer
of the reclamation service to the effect
! that there was small hope of. finding
| any large feasible canal project in the
/ state showed that the reclamation
, other sections in the arid west who de-
sire it's irrigation development.
The senator's attitude toward the
government irrigation service is
, neither calculated to help the State
! of North Dakota in securing the ex-
; penditure of Uncle Sans money with
in it's borders nor to stimulate the
reclamation service to increase its
activities in finding rcasible projects
for such expenditures, unless the sen
ator's attitude is recognized as one
not representing the sense of the peo-
pie of the state section of the west.
AS both Congressman Stevens and
Mr.. Maxwell urged in their addresses
the irrigation act is now on trial be-
fore the whole people of the country.
1t is being watched closely by its enc
mics as we'll as it's friends, and those
projects must be selected which will
beyond question prove successful not
only from an engineering standpoint
but from one of colonization as we'll,
where the land when irrigated will be
settled upon and the cost of it's reclaim
, alton paid back in full to the govern.
ment.
AS a matter of fact, but little inter
est has been manifested by North Da.
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES